Creativity vs. Stress: How to Keep Moving Forward
by Donata Vaitkute. March 15, 2021.
Stress has always existed in our lives to some extent. However, experiencing so much uncertainty during the current pandemic made us even more prone to anxiety and stress. Our lives and careers have changed in many ways, and we continue learning to live differently.
It is probably not a secret that this pandemic has been especially stressful to many musicians. A study examining UK performing artists showed that 85% of them experienced anxiety during the first lockdown alone (1). Experiencing any uncertainty can be stressful (2), yet this pandemic has put all of us in a stretch zone.
As musicians, we are experiencing the need to develop new ways of expressing ourselves and contributing to the music world during this challenging time. Being innovative and brave could help us continue thriving during this pandemic. Creativity could even be our secret weapon against this challenge, as it could help us find more original ways to reach our audiences, share our talents and aspirations. However, is it possible to stay creative while experiencing stress?
To answer this question, let’s first learn a little bit more about stress.
Is Stress Only Bad for Us?
Research shows that stress isn’t always bad for us. Short-term stress can actually be good for us because we become more resilient when we overcome various stressful situations (3). However, if we talk about chronic stress, then it’s a different story. Chronic stress has shown links with fatigue and depression (4), as well as disrupted sleep (5) and mood swings (6).
When Do We Experience Stress?
Stress is strongly linked to our thinking - it happens when we interpret an event as stressful. We experience stress when the pressure we are experiencing exceeds our perceived ability to cope (7). We might actually be able to cope with a situation, but if we think that we can’t – then we experience stress.
Let’s imagine that I suddenly get an offer to perform at a concert that will be broadcasted live next week. And then I start thinking thoughts like, “I can’t do it, I won’t manage, next week is too soon, I am not prepared…” As a result of those thoughts, I start feeling stressed. However, I might not realise that I actually have the ability and tools to prepare for that performance well. The event itself is not the cause of stress here – it’s my own thinking.
What happens to our creativity when we feel stressed?
Our cognition is strongly linked to our creativity. Studies show that for creativity to happen, various factors are needed, such as cognitive flexibility, divergent thinking, and good working memory (8).
A study conducted at Harvard University (9) looked at employees’ stress levels and creativity from seven different American companies. They indicated that the more pressure and stress those employees experienced, the less creativity was found in their work results. Another study conducted by Krop and others (10) showed that stress reduces our ability to use divergent thinking (which is sometimes called “creative thinking”). Finally, Meier and others (11) looked at divergent thinking further and found that creative potential might be related to our capacity to relax.
It seems that when we experience stress, our creative abilities are greatly reduced. Although it can sound dramatic, stress can even kill our creativity. But is there any way to stay creative when experiencing stress? Is it possible at all?
The answer is YES. We can stay creative if we can learn to manage our stress levels.
How can we manage our stress levels?
The good news is, if our own thinking can make us experience stress, then our own thinking can also save us from it. One of the most important steps is building awareness about our thoughts when feeling stressed.
What kind of thoughts usually accompany us in stressful situations?
Are those thoughts helpful, or do they make us feel even worse?
It’s important to ask ourselves these questions because they can help us understand ourselves better and change our thinking.
Important tip: when you notice yourself thinking in an unhelpful way, don’t beat yourself up for that. The most important thing is that you noticed. Once noticed, you can start working on your thinking.
Cognitive-Behavioural Strategies
There are various cognitive-behavioural strategies that we can use to manage our thinking and stress levels. Let’s talk about a few of them.
Relative thinking
When we experience stress, we often see everything in “black or white” (the so-called “all or nothing” thinking). It can be such thoughts as “I am a TOTAL failure” or “I NEVER manage things properly”. In those cases, let’s challenge our thinking and ask ourselves to see more colours in those situations. Is it really just black or white? Try to find the middle ground (Am I really a TOTAL failure? Do I really NEVER manage things properly? Where is the proof for that?)
De-magnification
When we experience stress, it’s often as if we see those stressful situations through a magnifying glass. Everything seems a lot worse than it is in reality. For example: “it is such a tragedy that I experienced those memory slips in my performance”. Again, how does this kind of thought make you feel? Challenge your thinking. Is it really a tragedy? It is an unpleasant situation, that’s true. But it’s likely not the end of the world. We can try to learn from this situation to minimise the chances of something similar in our future performances. Try to step away and distance yourself from this situation to get a clearer picture of it.
Befriend yourself
If a very close friend of yours or a family member made a mistake, how would you react? What would your advice be? We usually try to encourage them, saying something like “you just got unlucky today, next time things will go better”. Be your own friend and talk to yourself just like you would talk to a very close friend.
Relaxation and Imagery
There are all kinds of other techniques that can help us reduce our stress levels. Relaxation and imagery are great tools that can be used anytime, whenever you start feeling anxious, experiencing pressure, or you want to be able to fall asleep faster after a stressful day.
Try this short imagery exercise to help yourself feel more relaxed:
Final Tips
Finally, I’d like to share three tips that will help us relax more, find lighter and brighter thoughts inside of ourselves and keep our creativity flowing:
Tip 1: practice gratitude.
Keeping a gratitude journal causes less stress, improves sleep quality, and builds emotional awareness (12). You can keep a little notebook next to your bed in which you can write three good things that you are grateful for that day before you go to sleep.
Tip 2: reward yourself regularly.
Schedule indulgences that you can look forward to. When we perform some self-care, we increase dopamine (the so-called reward or pleasure hormone) in our bodies. Also, when we experience stress, the stress hormone cortisol reduces dopamine production, so we really should put some extra effort to create more dopamine in our bodies.
Tip 3: learn something new.
It leads to improved cognitive flexibility, which, as we saw earlier, is one of the main factors needed for creativity. It provides some protection when we face negative life events. We know that people are less likely to suffer from depression and cognition problems if they have a better cognitive reserve (13). So why not start a new hobby? Learn how to draw, knit, play chess or anything else you might enjoy learning.
There is no “one-size-fits-all”
Using the tips I shared in this article can be a good starting point in managing our stress levels. However, it’s important to keep in mind that we are all different, and there is no “one size fits all” approach to managing stress and encouraging creativity. The tailored approach in personal coaching can be a great solution to build a strategy around your specific needs and challenges. A coach can help you find ways to keep your creativity flowing during challenging situations. The uncertainty that most musicians face can be daunting, and discussing it with someone else can offer the first step towards finding new ways to cope and reveal new inner resources.
Sources
1. Spiro, N., Perkins, R., Kaye, S., Tymoszuk, U., Mason-Bertrand, A., Cossette, I., Glasser, S. & Williamon. A. (2021). The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown 1.0 on Working Patterns, Income, and Wellbeing Among Performing Arts Professionals in the United Kingdom (April–June 2020). Front. Psychol, 11, 594086.
2. Greco, V. & Roger, D. (2003). Uncertainty, stress, and health. Personality and Individual Differences. 34(6). 1057-1068.
3. Seery, M.D. & Quinton, W.J. (2016). Understanding Resilience: From Negative Life Events to Everyday Stressors. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 54, 181-245.
4. Blackburn‐Munro, G. & Blackburn‐Munro, R.E. (2001), Chronic Pain, Chronic Stress and Depression: Coincidence or Consequence? Journal of Neuroendocrinology, 13, 1009-1023.
5. Kalmbach, D.A., Anderson, J.R. & Drake, C.L. (2018). The impact of stress on sleep: Pathogenic sleep reactivity as a vulnerability to insomnia and circadian disorders. J Sleep Res, 27, e12710.
6. Kendler, K. S., Eaves, L. J., Loken, E. K., Pedersen, N. L., Middeldorp, C. M., Reynolds, C., Boomsma, D., Lichtenstein, P., Silberg, J. & Gardner, C. O. (2011). The impact of environmental experiences on symptoms of anxiety and depression across the life span. Psychological science, 22(10), 1343–1352.
7. Palmer, S., & Cooper, C. (2013). How to deal with stress. Croydon: Kogan Page.
8. Khalil, R., Godde, B., & Karim, A. A. (2019). The Link Between Creativity, Cognition, and Creative Drives and Underlying Neural Mechanisms. Frontiers in neural circuits, 13, 18.
9. Amabile, T. M., Hadley, C. N., & Kramer, S. J. (2002). Creativity under the gun. Harvard Business Review, 80(8), 52–61.
10. Krop, H. D., Alegre, C. E., & Williams, C. D. (1969). Effect of Induced Stress on Convergent and Divergent Thinking. Psychological Reports, 24(3), 895–898.
11. Meier, M., Unternaehrer, E., Schorpp, S. M., Wenzel, M., Benz, A., Bentele, U. U., Dimitroff, S. J., Denk, B. & Prüssner, J. C. (2020). The opposite of stress: The relationship between vagal tone, creativity, and divergent thinking. Experimental Psychology, 67(2), 150–159.
12. Seligman, M. E., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: empirical validation of interventions. American psychologist, 60(5), 410.
13. Opdebeeck, C., Metthews, F., Wu, Y., Woods, R., Brayne, C. & Clare, L. (2018). Cognitive reserve as a moderator of the negative association between mood and cognition: Evidence from a population-representative cohort. Psychological Medicine, 48(1), 51-71.
BIO
Donata Vaitkute is a performance coach, pianist, and the founder of Mental Skills Lab – an international performance coaching agency based in Bern, Switzerland. Her combined experience in performance, research, and coaching gives her a unique perspective when helping her clients from the performing arts and other fields.
Donata's career as a pianist started in Lithuania. She received multiple international prizes in piano and chamber music competitions while performing in the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Spain, Cyprus, Latvia, and Lithuania. While studying Bachelors in Piano Performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Donata was always fascinated by the science behind a great performance. She was constantly researching systematic ways to continuously improve. This led her to do a Master of Science in Performance Science at the Royal College of Music in London, which she completed with Distinction in 2018. Donata focused her work mainly on Performance Psychology, researching Mental Toughness and Mental Skills in musicians.
Donata was asked to present her research work at major scientific conferences, including the SEMPRE Graduate Conference at the University of Cambridge (UK), the International Symposium on Performance Science at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (Australia), and the International Symposium “Art in Motion” at the University of Performing Arts Munich (Germany).
Donata strongly believes in continuous learning. She constantly works on broadening her knowledge by receiving additional training, including Sports Psychology, Applied Neuroscience, Life Coaching, Stress Management, Health and Wellbeing Coaching, and many more.
please visit the website to learn more about Donata’s work and Mental Skills Lab,
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