A Creative Lifestyle for Healthy Aging

Creativity has been found to promote a healthy lifestyle and keep your mind active. Being creative isn’t all about art and painting, it can be other methods that suit your personality and mode of expression better. Here are some methods and benefits of creativity, whether you’re starting your artful journey or exploring new avenues.

The Benefits of a Creative Lifestyle

Being creative is using imagination or original ideas to produce artistic work, solution, method, or device. It doesn’t matter what ways you choose to implement creative outlets in your life because you’ll always reap the benefits:

• Boosts in communication and socialization in a community setting
• Enhanced balance, flexibility, and strength
• Fosters a sense of achievement and purpose
• Promote brain health, memory, and intellectual stimulation
• Reducing anxiety, depression, loneliness, and stress

As we age, we may be more forgetful or experience memory problems. Luckily, living a creative lifestyle is a great way to improve brain health and memory in addition to having a fun time. This is because the creative process involves memory recall of experiences and information to make connections between seemingly unrelated things.

Art Therapy

Art therapy is a mental health treatment to help patients identify, express, and resolve their thoughts and emotions through methods of expression. This creative treatment engages the mind, body, and spirit to accomplish several things:

• Build social skills, self-esteem, and emotional resilience
• Improve cognitive functions
• Reduce conflicts and distress

Arts and Crafts

The arts are a great way to tap into our memories and emotions. Painting, knitting, sculpting, drawing, collaging, any sort of arts and crafts provide the perfect opportunity to improve our fine motor skills and cognitive abilities through problem-solving and innovative moments. If you have a favorite hobby or have always wanted to start one, now’s the time to pick up your utensils to stay sharp and independent!

Cooking

Many sensory experiences tie into our memories and connection with joy, and cooking is a fantastic way to explore new and familiar tastes, sounds, and smells. Cooking allows us to tap into special memories with family or traditional recipes. It also gives us the opportunity to experiment by modifying or trying new dishes. This is certainly the tastiest way to get creative!

Music

Music activates many different regions of the brain, strengthening mental pathways the more they are used, such as auditory stimulation and motor skills that aren’t usually connected. Moving your body to music you enjoy is a form of physical artistic expression that improves balance and flexibility and shows emotions, feelings, and imagination. Singing is effective for verbal memory and recalling verbal information through lyrics. There’s also the muscle memory of playing an instrument and the creative energy of creating music to express yourself!

Performing

Getting to perform and see stories come to life can be a creative way to connect with others and ourselves as we age. Theatre allows us to connect with our humanity and emotions, including laughter, which is always regarded as the best medicine. But it also provides new experiences and opportunities to expand your social networks, whether in making the art or going to view it. Like singing and dancing, acting allows us to improve our recall and release emotions and memories through movement and expression.

Reading and Writing

In keeping with the importance of stories, reading and writing are also great methods for inspiration and creativity while improving cognitive and physical abilities. Read anything that stimulates your mind and passions, such as going down the rabbit hole on a historical moment, reading childhood favorites, or exploring the newest styles and genres. And for writing, it doesn’t matter if it’s a novel, making a list, or journaling your feelings. As long as you practice those fine motor skills, practice your recall, and challenge your mind, this creative skill is beneficial to your health and independence.

Creativity is essential for our brains! Learn more about your options for memory care with individualized resources based on your needs through our 5-minute survey powered by Roobrik here.

At Life Enriching Communities (LEC), we’re committed to ensuring patrons feel well-equipped to plan their future and age how they wish. Explore more resources on senior living or contact us today to learn more about our legacy of services and programs that bring meaning and purpose to every stage of life.