The creative strategy I have selected for this assessment is meditation. As a creative strategy, meditation would be classed as a distraction method. I chose to do meditation as I struggle with high anxiety quite frequently. Especially while I’m trying to be creative, the pressure of succeeding and my thoughts going too fast creates a situation where I am often unable to create or think clearly and I need to find a way to clear my mind, so I can concentrate better on my projects. While researching, I found multiple articles on how beneficial meditation can be to help you achieve a clearer headspace. A piece that made me select meditation for this assignment was a sentence found on Huffington Post. “As opposed to actively trying to quiet your mind, when you meditate, your mind will quiet itself — all on its own.” (Casano, T. 2015). This stood out to me because there have often been times where I have had a moment of high anxiety, however while trying to calm myself down I’ve unintentinally made my anxiety worse by attempting to fix it and over thinking about how to find a solution to the problem. I thought that if meditation would be able to calm my mind it would be a beneficial method to add into my everyday life. There was a study done in2014 by cognitive psychologists Lorenza Colazato and Dominique Lippelt at Leiden University which suggested that meditation can actually make you more creative. “Certain meditation techniques can promote creative thinking, even if you have never meditated before. The study is a clear indication that you don't need to be an experienced meditator to profit more from meditation.” (Colzato, L., Lippelt, D. 2014). I then decided to do more research into the history and roots of meditation to see what kind of information I was able to find and what would be beneficial to my cause and to educate myself more on the uses for meditation.
Meditation is a practice that has been used for thousands of years all around the world, said to have originated around 3,000 B.C., it is believed to have started in India and later expanding to China and Japan. Meditation was mostly used as a spiritual practise, practiced in religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. In approximately 1,500BCE, the ancient Vedas of India were practising meditation. They were the first to document the practice. Whereas meditation used in Buddhism was first documented around 500-600BCE. In Buddhism, there are four main components to meditation which are concentration, tranquilly, insight and mindfulness and are used to within their Buddhist beliefs to reach enlightenment where Hindu’s use meditation to reach spiritual enlightenment. Buddhists and Hindus both use meditation as a part of their spirituality and have brought their beliefs into the western world helping create the rise in popularity of people practicing meditation. One of the best parts of meditation is that it can slow your brain down from overthinking, which as creative people we all tend to do. Meditation helps us slow down our thought process and teaches us how to be more present in the moment by concentrating on one’s self rather than the environment around us causing us distress. It makes you more centred, helping you to concentrate and calm down. I was intrigued by the history of meditation and the multiple benefits, so I decided to find out how meditation is actually done. By using online guide “Meditation: The Secret to Fighting Stress, Anxiety and Overwhelm” (Diamond, E. 2012) I learnt some tips on how to begin this process.
There are several different ways to meditate but they all include the same principles. You need to be in a quiet room, find a comfortable position in which you can relax (preferably sitting down on the floor with a straight back), close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. Some people like to add yoga as a part of their meditation while others prefer to just concentrate on their breathing. Each method works depending on what you are trying to achieve, for concentration and relaxation it is said to be more beneficial to make breathing the focal point for the session especially for beginners. For beginners, meditation can be hard to hold for too long, so I aimed for 5-10 minutes a day however for people who are more advanced in meditation they can hold meditation for upwards of an hour. After you have eliminated distractions and found a comfortable position, you can begin to focus your mind on the present. This can be very difficult if your mind is racing or you are easily distracted, however it is an important step in meditation. Now you can begin to pay attention to your breathing. Take deep breaths slowly in and out, as you progress your breathing should become slower and deeper. The first few of times you meditate it is expected for your mind to wander and to have a difficult time not becoming distracted. If you get distracted, try to think back to your breathing. Depending on how long you are trying to hold your meditation for, after a few minutes you can complete your meditative state. When you feel you are calmer and want to complete your meditation session just open your eyes and get up slowly. Your anxiety should be calmed, and your mind should be feeling clearer making it easier to concentrate better on the rest of your day.
As meditation is used to help with many things such as stress, anxiety, enhanced self-awareness, enhanced attention span, improved sleep and as pain relief, I believed it would be the most beneficial method to add to my life for two weeks. I wanted to concentrate the most on using meditation to assist in calming my stresses and anxiety. To begin with, I decided to add meditation into my morning routine by setting aside approximately 10 minutes to sit down and meditate. I noticed on about day 6 that this was not doing much for my day as in the mornings my stresses were minor to begin with. After this realisation I began to use meditation as a part of my afternoon routine. At the end of the day when I was finished with my daily tasks and my mind was racing I attempted meditation. I found that this was a lot harder to do as I would be so anxious and worked up, stopping my brain from going too fast was problematic. It would take me a little more time to be able to get into a meditative state. I would sit there and begin to get frustrated with myself because I was unable to concentrate to begin with. However, as I continued with the meditation process and it began to work, I was calm and I was able to concentrate on my meditation properly. After I would be finished meditating I noticed a huge difference in my mood. My head was clearer, and I was a lot calmer. I was now able to relax, and I could go into the evening without much stress and I was able to concentrate with a lot more ease than previously before. On days where I was particularly stressed, I would walk away from the situation which was creating my anxiety and meditate. I found that by taking that time while I was stressed to stop and breathe it calmed my anxiety immensely and was incredibly beneficial. By the end of the two weeks I was able to meditate for a slightly longer period of time and was able to begin the meditation process easier than before.
As a creative strategy, I believe meditation is a great option for people who need help concentrating more and clearing their minds if they suffer from high stress or anxiety. Other creative strategies were appealing to me also, however for my personal needs, if I added another way to speed up my creative thinking it would have been less beneficial and more detrimental to my thought process. Meditation was a good choice for me specifically and I learnt a lot about not only other cultures and their spiritual history, but I also learnt that I am in control over my mind and my creativity and by taking small steps to better myself I can improve my mind and calm my anxiety.