Who knew doing something creative would improve your academic self-care quotient? Experts agree, art helps you learn.
Summertime brings with it vacation and leisure time, the perfect time to learn a new hobby or spend time doing something you love. This month is all about how hobbies can help your self-care quotient. If you’re not convinced you need self-care, take the free assessment at the bottom of the page.

If You Can’t Write, Doodle
“When the bell rings, you should have your journal open, your pen ready to write, and be in your assigned seat,” I reminded the class the second week of school?
“What if I want to use a pencil?” one of the kids asked.
“That works, too,” I assured him. “I’ll start the timer and you’ll write for five minutes. No talking, no staring into space, no fooling around.”
“Will you give us a topic to write about?”
“You can use the word of the day, or anything that strikes your fancy.”
“What if I can’t think of anything to write?” someone whined. Evidently, my students hadn’t practiced free writing before.
I felt a little desperate, so I offered the first thing I could think of. “If you can’t think of anything to write, you may doodle or draw. I’ll write, too, so I won’t answer any questions once the bell rings.”
Students mumbled and groaned a bit, but they settled down before the bell and sounds of scribbles and the scratch of paper filled the room before the last chime faded.
Without knowing it, the out I’d offered students from writing turns out to be a gateway to academic learning. Who knew the humble doodle can clear the way for academic learning?
The Connection Between Art and Learning
According to Girija Kaimal and fellow researchers, in an article published in The Arts in Psychotherapy, art triggers the reward pathway in our brains—even if we aren’t good at it. And we don’t have to do art for extended periods of time to reap the benefits, “even short spans of artistic activity can improve self-perceptions of creative abilities.”
By letting my students doodle before they wrote, they could feel an instant reward in their brains and attempt the creative act of writing.
Art not only releases our creativity, but it also teaches critical thinking skills—something we can use in the classroom, in life, or at work. “Arts experiences boost critical thinking, teaching students to take the time to be more careful and thorough in how they observe the world,” says Jay P. Green and fellow researches in an article in Education Week.
And the more arts experiences a person has, the bigger the boost to academic success—especially for children from the lowest socioeconomic status (SES), according to another study authored by J.S. Catterall. “Overall, students in the high-arts group outperformed their low-arts counterparts on all measures of academic achievement, and a positive relationship was found between arts participation and academic achievement for students in the lowest quartile of SES.”
While much of the research focuses on children, the benefits of pursuing creative endeavors doesn’t stop with adolescence. We can take a page from kids and use art experiences to benefit our academic (or work) endeavors.
Hacks to Help You Improve Your Academic Self-Care Quotient with Art
Fortunately, the term ‘art experiences’ covers a wide range of things. Visiting an art museum can benefit us as much as attempting to paint a picture. Doodling on a napkin in a restaurant at lunch can help us as much as attending a live theatre or ballet. Working to take the perfect photo of a flower with your phone camera provides the same benefits as quilting or knitting.
You don’t have to be artistic to be creative. If you want to improve your academic self-care quotient, try what Robert Stebbins calls a project-based leisure time activity. A project-based leisure activity “results in something new or different, showing imagination, skill, or knowledge.”
With project-based leisure activities, you start the endeavor with no plan to turn into an expert. You simply do the activity—whether you attend an arts festival or the symphony. Doodling falls into this category. I’ve doodled all my life and have no aspirations to go pro. The immediate reward of doing something artistic helps flush our brains of whatever has us feeling blocked or stymied.
These hacks will help you check your use of creativity and improve your academic self-care quotient.
1. Analyze what You Already Do

I spent most of my life thinking I wasn’t very creative because I couldn’t draw or paint. But I’ve participated in a variety of artistic experiences over the years. Some of them on a regular basis. I doodle when I need to concentrate on something but feel blocked. Photography makes me feel carefree and energizes me. And I’ve always found it easier to draw out directions to someone’s house than to just listen to a person explain where they live.
Analyze how you use creativity in your life and give yourself credit for the ways you already use it. Then ask yourself what artistic activities you’d like to try.
2. Identify the Daily Gaps
If you go through life feeling stressed and in a brain fog, you may want to consider adding a creative hobby to your schedule. Does your job make you feel unappreciated, frustrated, or burnt out? Can you identify a time of day when you feel the worst? Identify when you need a boost the most and set an alarm on your phone or watch to remind you to take a small break to do something creative.
You can doodle for five minutes, analyze a painting, listen to classical music, or color in an adult coloring book. Any one of these activities will trigger your brain’s reward center and boost your energy so you can get back on task. Your brain will thank you.
3. Identify the Big Picture Gaps
Make a list of artistic activities you enjoy and identify the last time you participated in each of them. As our lives fill up with children, work, and responsibilities, we tend to cut out the things we deem frivolous or unnecessary. Just like schools, the arts get axed first. But if we want to improve our academic self-care quotient, we need to schedule in regular artistic experiences.
Sign up for an art class, buy tickets to the local symphony, schedule in regular art museum visits, or join a community choir or band. Take time to put art on your calendar, and you’ll reap the benefits in other areas of your life.
4. If You Have Kids
If you have kids, make sure you teach them the importance of art experiences. Take them along to the theatre, the symphony, or the art museum. Let them see you try new things, whether you choose to decorate cakes or learn to play the clarinet.
According to an article from Walden University, art activities help foster resiliency, tolerance, empathy, and critical thinking. We can’t rely on budget-conscious schools to supply a full range of artistic experiences for our kids.
5. Art and Grace
Art appreciation and artistic endeavors can leave us feeling vulnerable. What if it looks horrible? How can an art critic think that piece should hang in a museum, all I see is a soup can? Remember to have grace (tolerance) for other people’s endeavors, opinions, and conclusions. What speaks to me might not speak to you when looking at the same painting.
Give yourself grace, too, as you learn, participate, and evaluate all things artistic.
How Do You Incorporate Art into Your Life?
I’d love to hear from you. How do you incorporate art into your life? Do you find creativity a helpful tool for figuring out academic problems? What is your favorite artistic hobby?
Who knew art could help you become a life-long learner? #art #lifelonglearner #selfcare Click To Tweet
Thank you for this post today Anita! You have inspired me to get creative again.
I love classical music & haven’t been listening to it lately, so I’ll go & do that now. 😀
Blessings,
Jennifer
Tea With Jennifer recently posted…Bursting the Bubble of Weariness
I’m glad we can get creative by listening to other people’s creativity! Enjoy your concert!
Anita Ojeda recently posted…A Must-Have Middle-Grade Novel for the New School Year
I have incorporated art in my life through music and also taking pictures. I don’t do either well, but they enrich my days. Just last night, we had a big noisy sing along as a family!
Michele+Morin recently posted…What Difference Does it Make that We Live in a Beautiful World?
That’s the beauty of hobbies, right? We can enjoy them no matter what our level of expertise.
Anita Ojeda recently posted…A Must-Have Middle-Grade Novel for the New School Year
I do love taking photos of landscapes … and I own a bible that has coloring pages in it, but sadly, they sit uncolored.
Perhaps I should schedule time to fill them in …
Jerralea+Winn+Miller recently posted…Bittersweet
I’ve found that scheduling time for creative endeavors works the best for me. Otherwise, I find other ways to fill my time.
Anita Ojeda recently posted…A Must-Have Middle-Grade Novel for the New School Year
I love classical music, but I haven’t made time for it much recently. I make cards for my family. I love a couple of drawing games, though my skill is only stick figures (Telestrations is my favorite). Maybe triggering that reward center is part of the enjoyment! A couple of the Instagram posts I follow are purely for the beauty of the crafts or landscapes they show.
Barbara Harper recently posted…Remembering How God Has Led
I’ll have to check out the drawing games!
Anita Ojeda recently posted…A Must-Have Middle-Grade Novel for the New School Year
This is all so true, Anita! I am a doodler as well and enjoy my adult coloring books on a weekly basis for a little down time to refresh my brain. I never had any aspirations to be an artist, but the act of creating anything is so good for boosting the mind. I even turn to creative cooking sometimes when I need a break to just create. There are so many things we can do to stay tapped into that part of our brains. Great post!
Shelbee
http://www.shelbeeontheedge.com
Most of my cooking is creative ;)–I seldom use recipes!
Anita Ojeda recently posted…A Must-Have Middle-Grade Novel for the New School Year
I love doodling – I believe that all children can be taught to draw their mother’s face – I think I read that somewhere in graduate school in an 17th century article on educational theory. They just need teachers to break down the process (the science of it). Just like in writing. Yes – some kiddos can organize without outlines – but I’ve found some people don’t see patterns innately and need them broken down. Once broken down, the once struggle math student has a future as an engineer, the unsuccessful writer and grammar student becomes a poet, the uncomfortable art student becomes a Monet. As I learned more about Central Auditory Processing Disorder for one child, I understood more how I learned. Yes – doodling makes a difference. A teacher, though, who breaks down the patterns of perspective, creates an artist. (I think I went off on a tangent – but I so agree with your post and I felt so for your students who were struggling! I’m glad you let them doodle!)
How fascinating! I see patterns sometimes, but I have a harder time creating them, if that makes any sense?
Anita Ojeda recently posted…A Must-Have Middle-Grade Novel for the New School Year
I love how so many people are starting to catch on to how important setting aside time to be creative is for all of us!
Lauren Renee Sparks recently posted…A “New to Me” Bible Study Method
Right? Creativity feeds our souls (and our academics).
Anita Ojeda recently posted…A Must-Have Middle-Grade Novel for the New School Year
I like the idea of doodling to get going with writing. I’ll need to give that a try.
Lesley recently posted…When The Future Seems Uncertain…
Let me know if it helps!
Anita Ojeda recently posted…A Must-Have Middle-Grade Novel for the New School Year
This is exactly why we must fight to keep art, music & other “creative” classes in our schools. Thanks for the reminder that we need to have creative & active hobbies.
Barb+Hegreberg recently posted…The Divine Adventure by Rebecca Friedlander [REVIEW]
Exactly! We must keep creative clases in our schools–they are so important to holistic health and learning.
Anita Ojeda recently posted…A Must-Have Middle-Grade Novel for the New School Year
I’ve always called myself a life-long learner. Such an interesting perspective on making sure kids and us adults remember to make room for the arts and realize creativity comes in many forms. And I love the doodle research!
Karen+Friday recently posted…Confident God’s Able of Immeasurably More
If we don’t use it (creativity, our brains, our muscles), we lose it. But thank goodness we can spark regrowth by starting anew!
Anita Ojeda recently posted…A Must-Have Middle-Grade Novel for the New School Year
I definitely fall into the category of needing to give myself grace in my artistic endeavors. 🙂 I remember being much more creative as a child; it was easy to create things with kits that held all the pieces and instructions. But as an adult, I felt my lack more than my enjoyment with the arts. Thanks for the encouragement to dabble back in them again in whatever ways it can work for me.
Lisa notes recently posted…Halfway Through 2021, Is Your Life Back to Normal? —Grace & Truth Linkup