Curiosity, creativity and wellbeing

Speaker 1

Hello everyone, my name is Caroline, Caroline Wheeler and you’re very welcome to today’s zero talks. So my name is Caroline and I’m going to talk today about what exactly curiosity is, creativity and well-being.

Speaker 1

And throughout today’s podcast we’ll talk a little bit more about what exactly they mean, what exactly does curiosity mean, what creativity means and how does this all impact on our well-being. So my name is Caroline and I’m part of the well-being team here with Cevo as well.

Speaker 1

So focusing on well-being is something that I’m very passionate about, focusing on improving it, maintaining it, finding it, seeing what is that’s unique to you that helps your well-being, seeing all these together as well as something that I’m very passionate about.

Speaker 1

So today we’ll talk about curiosity, creativity and well-being. They’re all things that are really you know quite relatively talked about quite regularly between people in psychology, people in mental health but before we delve in I think it’s really important to firstly talk about what exactly is curiosity, what exactly do we mean when we talk about creativity and same again, what exactly is well-being,

Speaker 1

what do we mean when we’re talking about well-being. So when you think of the three together, curiosity, creativity and well-being, they’re all really three concepts that are interconnected, they’re all joined together and they all play a very important really really significant role in human development and in our growth, in human growth overall.

Speaker 1

So these concepts when you put together, they’re really essential for individuals, essential for people to live a fulfilling life. So in order to live a fulfilling life we need curiosity, we need creativity, we need our well-being.

Speaker 1

But why? When you think about it, without these things our lives would look very different. They’re all essential for us to live a fulfilling life because they really help us, they really enable us to explore new ideas and to learn new skills and find purpose, find meaning in our lives.

Speaker 1

So throughout this podcast we’ll really explore the relationship between all these things, between curiosity, between creativity and well-being and how they really have an impact in our own personal way, in our own personal lives.

Speaker 1

So curiosity, what exactly do we mean by this? When we think about curiosity, it’s really defined as a desire to learn or a desire to know about something new or something unusual or something we’re interested in, that’s curiosity.

Speaker 1

So it’s an innate quality that we’re all born with. Think of children, they’re so curious, as young as they are you start to see that curiosity from such a young age and it’s something, it’s an innate quality that we’re all born with and it drives us to explore the world around us.

Speaker 1

Just with little babies, their creativity enables them to start exploring their world, exploring their surroundings, exploring their crib, their home, their new life around them. That’s what curiosity is, everything is so new and fresh that they want to explore.

Speaker 1

So it really is an essential part and it’s really essential for our own personal growth and development because it encourages us to seek out new experiences and expand our knowledge and understanding of the world that we live in.

Speaker 1

So people who are curious, they really tend to be more open-minded. you know, more adventurous, more creative and which can lead to more fulfilling and meaningful life. Certainly I know in my own personal life, anyone who I know who is that little bit more creative and that bit more curious and, you know, seeking those moments of exploration, there’s certainly that bit more open-minded, that bit more adventurous,

Speaker 1

that bit more creative and overall it’s when these are added together it can lead to much more fulfilling and meaningful life as well. On the other hand, so that’s curiosity, okay, all these things, the desire to learn, to know, to learn something new, something you’re interested in and something we’re born with.

Speaker 1

However, creativity, that’s something different. On the other hand, creativity, it’s the ability to generate new and innovative ideas and new concepts or new solutions. So it’s about creating something new, that is what creativity is and involves using our imagination and creativity to come up with something new and something unique.

Speaker 1

So creativity is essential really for personal growth and development as it allows us to really express ourselves in new and meaningful ways. It creates a new channel, I guess, for us to express ourselves in a different way and in a meaningful way that’s meaningful for us in our own lives as well.

Speaker 1

So people who are creative tend to be more innovative, more adaptable and even more resilient. That bounce back ability that they call resiliency and that can lead to a more fulfilling and successful life.

Speaker 1

So when we put this all together, creativity is something certainly different to curiosity. Curiosity is something we’re born with and creativity is really our ability to generate new and innovative ideas or new concepts or new solutions and really at the center of creativity is our imagination.

Speaker 1

Our imagination that is able to, I guess, create something that’s new and create something that’s unique and it really is something that’s essential for our own personal growth, our own development as well and it really allows us to express ourselves in new ways that are meaningful to us as well.

Speaker 1

And I’m sure if you think in your own life, when you think of people in your own life who may be that bit more creative or maybe that little bit more innovative and resilient, perhaps at the core of their ability to be innovative and resilient is the fact that they are creative people.

Speaker 1

It’s important to maybe think of the picture around you. Think of the life that you are living as well. Is it something that you see around you as well? So when we combine these two things, we’re talking about curiosity and creativity, when we combine the two together, we can really start to unlock our full potential, our full potential in our lives and achieve greater well-being.

Speaker 1

So research has shown the people who are curious and creative, they really tend to have better mental health. So better mental health and higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction. And on top of this, a greater sense of purpose and meaning in life.

Speaker 1

So combining these two things together, curiosity and creativity, research tells us can have a big importance in our lives. You know it tends to have such a positive impact on mental health, on happiness, on life satisfaction and you know a greater sense of purpose and meaning in life as well.

Speaker 1

These are all extremely important things to maintain and to grow as well so it’s important to see how we can combine these two things again. So people who live a life who combine this curiosity and creativity they’re more likely to engage in activities that promote well-being such as let’s say exercise, socializing, learning new things.

Speaker 1

All those things that are really important to have combined together as well and they’re more likely to engage in these activities that promote our well-being. So furthermore creativity and curiosity when they’re combined together they have been linked to improve cognitive function and brain health.

Speaker 1

So by challenging our minds with let’s say new experiences, with new ideas, new concepts, we can start to improve our memory and improve our problem-solving skills and improve our overall cognitive function as well.

Speaker 1

So this in turn can help prevent age-related cognitive decline and improve our quality of life as we age as well. So you know there’s so many positives when you think about it when we combine curiosity and creativity together.

Speaker 1

So not only on our mental health it’s been shown to improve our cognitive function as well, improving our memory, improving our problem-solving skills and our overall cognitive function. As a result all this can prevent age related cognitive decline such as let’s say life of dementia and whatnot and improve our quality of life as well as we age.

Speaker 1

This is particularly important as we’re growing up in a society with an aging population and people are living longer and longer as the years go on. So the importance to find ways to keep our curiosity and creativity maintained is important because it’s been shown to have an impact on our cognitive decline as well.

Speaker 1

So overall curiosity, creativity and well-being are three connected, interconnected ideas, three interconnected concepts that are really essential for our personal growth and for our personal development as well.

Speaker 1

So by cultivating our curiosity and our creativity we can start to unlock our full potential and achieve greater well-being. So whether it’s true exploring new ideas or learning new skills or expressing ourselves in new and unique ways curiosity and creativity can help us lead a more fulfilling and a more meaningful life as well.

Speaker 1

So it’s all really important. So let’s now focus some more on creativity. So creativity can be a very very powerful thing and can have a massive impact on our own personal well-being. So creativity is a powerful tool and it can be used to improve our well-being.

Speaker 1

So by engaging in creative activities we can reduce stress, boost our mood and improve our overall mental and physical health. So today we will explore how to use creativity to improve our well-being and achieve I guess a more fulfilling life which is always something that we’re striving towards or we’re working towards as well.

Speaker 2

Zevo is a fully integrated workplace well-being provider. We understand that every company has different goals, needs and characteristics. Our team of psychologists, performance nutritionists and experts in the field of physical health conduct in-depth research and thereafter develop and tailor strategic corporate well-being programs based on the outcome for each organization.

Speaker 2

Our health and well-being technology helps take the pulse of your employees’ well-being needs and promote positive engagement in your organization’s well-being programs. Encouraging them to move, nourish and inspire.

Speaker 2

Our broad range of services available both online and on-site are designed to improve employees’ overall well-being and increase engagement within the workplace. We aim to create the healthiest workplace across the globe to ensure that your most important assets, your employees are energized and thriving.

Speaker 2

Contact us today to start your workplace well-being journey, www.zevohealth.com.

Speaker 1

So why does creativity generally tend to decline as we age? And one reason might be that as we grow older, as we start to age, we start to become more aware of things. We start to develop knowledge. We start to know more about the world, about our life.

Speaker 1

And that’s mostly an advantage, of course. But it can may lead us to ignore evidence, or ignore facts that contradicts what we already think. So ignore the things that are there as well. And we become too set in our ways to change as well.

Speaker 1

So there’s a great article by Alison Gopnik and Tom Griffiths in the New York Times. And their article explores creativity. And specifically, they focus on creativity as we age. And according to their article, when we face a new problem, adults usually exploit the knowledge around the world that we’ve acquired so far, using knowledge that we’ve developed.

Speaker 1

So far, you know, from the life that we lived, and they keep all that knowledge, and you use the knowledge when they face a problem from the world around them as well. So we try to quickly find, as adults, we try to quickly find a pretty good, pretty decent solution that is close to the solutions that we’ve already had, or we’ve already used.

Speaker 1

So in other hand, exploration, as they’re trying something new, may lead us to a more unusual idea, a less obvious solution, or a new piece of knowledge. But it may also mean that a waste of time, that we waste time considering, let’s say, alternative possibilities, or possibilities that we might think are absolutely crazy.

Speaker 1

We may waste our time even considering them, because we think that they will never work. Something about preschoolers and teenagers have been known to do, though. That’s the difference, that they may, you know, as adults, we may see it as a waste of time considering other possibilities.

Speaker 1

But preschoolers specifically and teenagers tend to be quite good at focusing on all the other potential or crazy possibilities that, according to adults, will never work, but according to them, something to work focusing on.

Speaker 1

So this idea suggests a solution to evolutionary paradox that is the human childhood and adolescence. So we, as humans, have quite a long childhood and quite a long adolescence as humans. When you think of it in comparison to, let’s say, you know, animals, some of who are literally born and within seconds they’re up and walking around.

Speaker 1

You know, as humans, we have exceptionally long childhood and adolescence as well. So why make human children so helpless for so long and make human adults invest so much time and effort into caring for them?

Speaker 1

So according to Gopnik and Griffiths, childhood and adolescence may, at least a little bit in a part, be designed to resolve attention between exploration and exploitation. So these periods in our life give us time to explore.

Speaker 1

Before we have to face the stern and the earnest realities of grown-up life. So teenagers may no longer care that much about physical world’s works or how the physical world, you know, works, but they care a lot about exploring all the ways that the social world can be organised around them.

Speaker 1

They’re really important for a teenager focusing on, you know, the way the world is around them, the way school life world is around them, the way their social world is around them, the way their friends are around them, the way their hobbies are around them as well.

Speaker 1

So that may help them, each new generation, you know, develop a different understanding about the world. And so it’s important, according to Gopnik and Griffiths, this is their understanding of what’s happening here.

Speaker 1

In the least part, I guess it’s designed to resolve this tension between exploration and exploitation. So these periods in a life that give us really a time to explore before we have to face the realities of being grown-ups, of being a grown-up life and living in a grown-up world as well.

Speaker 1

But saying all this, how can we become more creative? We’ve talked a lot about the importance of being creative and the power of creativity can have in our life as well. So how can we be more creative?

Speaker 1

One of the best ways to use creativity to improve our well-being is to perhaps engage in artistic pursuits. So whether it is painting, drawing, writing or playing an instrument, creative activities allow us to express ourselves in a new and in meaningful ways as well.

Speaker 1

So artistic pursuits can be very therapeutic. They can certainly be therapeutic for many, many people because they can really help us to process emotions, to express our emotions and to reduce stress and to gain a sense of achievement, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of meaning and purpose.

Speaker 1

Artistic expression can also help us connect with other people as well, to develop those connections with others. And so as we share our creations with friends, with family and with the wider community, these moments help develop our connections and connect with other people as well.

Speaker 1

Another way to use creativity to improve our well-being is perhaps to engage in DIY projects. You know, whatever that might be in your life, if you’re building a shelf, if you’re painting a balcony, if you’re fixing a bin, if you’re painting your bedroom, whatever it is, you know, designing clothes, creating decor for your home, all these activities can be a really fun and rewarding way to express our own creativity.

Speaker 1

And DIY projects can help us learn new skills, which can boost our confidence and our own sense of self and self-esteem as well. So, DIY projects, you know, these are things that could be, you know, forgotten about that can be really impactful.

Speaker 1

And sometimes we may forget about the power of them, but if it’s something that you are, you know, used to doing, or perhaps you did in the past, perhaps there’s a moment to start re-engaging in them again.

Speaker 1

So, in addition to artistic pursuits and DIY projects, there are many other ways to use creativity and to improve our well-being. So, for example, we can use creativity to solve problems, to brainstorm new ideas and to find innovative solutions to challenges and difficulties that we may face in our lives.

Speaker 1

So, by approaching problems with a creative outlook, by a creative mindset, we can find new and really, I guess, efficient ways to overcome obstacles and achieve our own personal goals, what we’re working towards, what we’re striving towards as well.

Speaker 1

So, it’s really important, you know, lots of different ways to use creativity. Everyone’s unique in that way and it’s about finding that sense of creativity that works for you, that suits you and that you’re passionate about.

Speaker 1

We can use creativity to improve our well-being by simply incorporating more fun and play into our lives, like childhood, incorporating that back into our life, whether it’s playing games, engaging in sports or exploring the outdoors.

Speaker 1

Being playful and having playfulness in our lives is important because it can help us just reduce stress to help us boost our mood and improve our overall well-being. So by allowing ourselves to be more playful and creative in our lives, we can experience more joy and fulfillment.

Speaker 1

So what’s important, really incorporating more fun, more play into our lives that we were so used to in our childhood. They can really bring out that joy, bring out that sense of fulfillment, bring out that sense of achievement in our lives as well.

Speaker 1

So creativity, it’s a powerful tool. It really, really is. It can be used to improve our wellbeing. So by engaging in our artistic pursuits, our DIY projects, our problem solving, our playfulness, we can reduce stress.

Speaker 1

We can boost our mood and we can improve our mental and physical health as well. So perhaps the next time you’re feeling stressed, next time you might be feeling overwhelmed, try using, try incorporating perhaps a little bit of creativity into your day, whatever that might be for you.

Speaker 1

Colouring, playing football, playing a game online, painting, whatever it might be, try incorporating that little bit of creativity into your day. And you might be surprised by how much can really improve your overall wellbeing.

Speaker 1

So how do you become more creative? So there’s a great magazine article by Berzel back in 2017. And it has 32 ways, 32 easy exercises to boost your creativity every day. And they suggest scheduling 15 minutes of creativity into your calendar and trying a different exercise each day, each week to make it into a habit.

Speaker 1

So among the exercises listed are perhaps drawing an apple for one day using different techniques. So such as using a marker or colouring pencils or crayons or chalk, drawing an apple a day for one week, using different techniques.

Speaker 1

Such a simple thing, but it gets us creativity juices flowing. Create large freestyle stream of unconscious drawings over a table, completely with a large easel paper and draw until it’s filled. So imagine getting a table, filling it with a big piece of paper or big easel and just draw, just keep drawing with no purpose, just freestyle until it is completely filled.

Speaker 1

Take a different route home and photograph new things you see. So going off the beaten track, going a different way until you start to see new things, going outside of your routine, outside of norm can sometimes be that spark we need to get our creativity engaged.

Speaker 1

Write a poem about your day in the style of your favourite poets. If you’re that bit more inclined where you like your creativity more towards writing, writing a poem about your day in the style of your favourite poet could be certainly a fantastic way to go as well.

Speaker 1

And go to a museum at your sketchbook and draw a painting or sculpture that inspires you. There’s many museums around the world and I’m sure wherever you’re listening from today, there’s some type of museum or some type of local historical place that you could go to that you can just bring a sketchbook, a few pencils, pens, draw a painting or sculpture that inspires you of that area.

Speaker 1

It’s such a simple thing, but these little things can help spark something big. And in a blog post by graphic designer Anjaye Stramoulasti, they talk about nine exercises to spark creativity. And they have lots of different exercises that can really, really help.

Speaker 1

So one is 30 circles. So using a sheet with 30 circles have been drawn or printed, change as many circles into recognisable objects as possible within 30 seconds. So imagine 30 seconds with a page with 30 circles and you have those 30 seconds to make those circles into identical objects and recognisable objects as well.

Speaker 1

It’s really simple but sounds fun. Squiggle birds. This one takes just one minute to fill a paper with random squiggles. Then turn each squiggle into a bird, adding details like a beak or wings or feet on it as well, okay?

Speaker 1

So putting these all together as well, again, gets that creativity flowing. Alternative uses, select an everyday object, whatever it might be, and within three minutes, write down as many alternative uses as possible for that selected object.

Speaker 1

So this could be absolutely anything in that you have around you. And just take three minutes, write down as many alternative uses as possible for that object. And this helps you start to see life outside the box, start seeing the bigger picture, because this might be an object that you see every day.

Speaker 1

And then all of a sudden, you’re seeing it in a completely different light. What else do they have? Another one which I think is really nice, and it’s a simple one that we could engage with, is making a sandwich.

Speaker 1

So set a timer for five minutes, and they suggest, and build up a sandwich that describes your personality by drawing each layer. So each layer can contain anything you like, whether real food or everyday objects.

Speaker 1

And then at the end, name your sandwich. So putting these things all together can be really, really helpful. All we want is to spark this curiosity. And lastly, they suggest blind portraits. So here, you know, you can grab a partner, someone who’s tearing your life, or use a mirror to view your own face, and set a timer for five minutes.

Speaker 1

And using a pencil or a pen and paper, draw a portrait and keeping a continuous line and without looking at the paper. So we’re just looking at the partner, and you’re not looking at what you’re drawing, but it helps us focus on this creativity aspects in our life, that we are sometimes, like we’ve been talking about, become at the back of our minds.

Speaker 1

We’re so focused in our day-to-day life, that the creativity that was so forward in our childhood, that was so forward, perhaps in our adolescence as well, is all of a sudden at the back of our mind.

Speaker 1

We want to start bringing it more forward, bringing it into our everyday life as well. Okay, so overall, what we’ve been talking about today, is curiosity, creativity, and wellbeing. All are really, really important for our wellbeing.

Speaker 1

All are so vital as they’re all interconnected, and have an impact on not just our wellbeing, but also our general cognitive health, ensuring that we maintain our healthy cognition as we age, and help promote healthy aging as well.

Speaker 1

So overall, try and see how we can spark this creativity in our life. Spark what was interested for you, what works for you. And one way to do that is perhaps looking back, seeing what were the things that I engaged in as a child?

Speaker 1

What were the things that I really liked as a child? What were those things that I was passionate about? And that made me a good step to go with. And there’s loads of tricks and tips that I’ve talked about there, and ways that you can start, what else you can do to spark that creativity, like drawing an apple, or taking different routes home, or writing poems, or squiggle birds, or 30 circles.

Speaker 1

All these things together can help spark this sense of creativity. So overall, remain curious, remain creative, remain focused on your own personal wellbeing, and finding your, and re-finding, and re-engaging with your own personal wellbeing as well.

Speaker 1

So thank you again for listening to another episode of Zevo Talks. Take care, and we look forward to welcoming you back again in the future. All the best.