Rest and creativity
A reminder: Why rest is essential for optimal creativity and mental health
When it dawned on me that I’d done 18 years without a day off to rest, I could have punched myself in the face.
This time it wasn’t a day off with the flu, it was three days off to avoid what increasingly felt like it might lead to a fucking breakdown.
Anxiety, as any regular reader or listener of The Creative Condition will know by now, has been acute this year. Sleepless nights in double figures, and all kinds of jumping through hoops in a mental landscape resembling the upside down of Stranger Things on too many bad days with a racing heart.
Only when I felt like I couldn’t work thanks to the paralysing fear did I acknowledge that I could be burned out.
That’s when it dawned on me that any time off I’d taken in my freelance career – and I’d been generous enough – was to do something, go somewhere, or care for someone. Never just to stare at a wall and drink a hot beverage. Or to get in bed and watch wrestling. To play a game, go for a stroll, or visit the cinema.
The classic irony is, I give my creativity coaching clients tools and structures, reasons to do this, because I know what happens when you don’t rest. But practising what you preach is a fine art.
When I did it, it was a revelation. I could almost see my teenage self saunter in, flop on the bed, and pick up a video game remote. I watched the wrestling, napped, and called some friends whom I’d been meaning to catch up with.
It wasn’t an immediate fix, but it was no coincidence that I felt a renewed optimism and inner peace come the third day, and now, I’m trying to make every Friday a slower, more ponderous day, challenging myself to stay organised so I can fit my work into 4 focused days rather than stretching it over 5 semi-efficient ones. On Fridays I can go for a longer dog walk. Start later, finish early, make some art just for me, write a story, or, if I’m really brave, do absolutely nothing and stare at the ceiling, knowing that this is just as critical a part of creativity’s diet as making or idea generation. You can’t do either of those things well if you’re exhausted and anxious. That much I’ve learned in a challenging year, and I’m incredibly thankful I did.