Self-care is a pretty hot topic these days, even for artists who often feel busy, stressed, and creatively burnt out.
Therefore, it’s important to understand how self-care for artists can improve your life by minimizing stress and supporting your health.
That’s why, in this article, I’m exploring 7 self-care tips to help you:
- Manage your creative energy in a way that encourages productivity without sacrificing your well-being
- Improve your mental, physical, and spiritual health
- Implement intentional self-care habits that will reduce overwhelm and promote rest
By the time you’re done reading, you’ll have 7 amazing self-care strategies to help you stay inspired and creative.
Table of Contents
What Is Self-Care for Artists?
Self-care is the intentional act of taking care of one’s mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health to improve one’s well-being.
As an artist, creative self-care involves habits that help you manage your energy so that you avoid art block and creative burnout.
It should be noted that self-care is not selfish.
In fact, practicing self-care is a conscious and intentional decision to focus on improving one’s health and personal welfare.
How Do Artists Use Self-Care?
Self-care is often associated with activities, routines, or decisions that help you lead a healthier and more balanced lifestyle.
As such, self-care often focuses on different aspects of personal health including:
- Personal hygiene
- Food and nutrition
- Fitness and exercise
- Psychological and emotional needs
- Coping with or preventing illness
Now that you have a good understanding of what self-care is, let’s have a look at 7 positive self-care tips for artists.
1. Schedule Regular Breaks
Whenever you’re working, it’s important to make sure that you’re not over-working yourself.
Therefore, make sure that you schedule time for breaks at regular intervals so that you give your mind and body a rest.
If need be, say no to tasks that aren’t a priority and learn to prioritize only the tasks that are necessary. Don’t feel guilty about saying no once in a while.
And most importantly, ensure that you make time for art regularly so that you can use your creative time as a means to relax, destress, and unwind.
After all, self-care and art go hand-in-hand because making art can be very therapeutic and even cathartic for some people.
As well, you can use your breaktime to do some of the other tips mentioned on this list, such as doing stretches, drinking a glass of water, meditating for a few minutes, etc.
2. Declutter and Organize Your Workspace
Messiness and disorganization make people feel stressed because visual clutter is known to induce anxiety.
For this reason, decluttering and organizing your workspace is an excellent form of self-care for creatives and artists.
Here are a few things you can do to improve your workspace:
- Organize art supplies, books, and materials into their proper containers and drawers
- Clean and wipe down dusty or dirty surfaces
- Dispose of any item that is no longer serving a purpose or which is no longer providing you any value
- Dust shelves or vacuum any area that needs tending to
- Throw out food or unsanitary items that are dirtying up your space
By organizing and tidying up your home or work space, you’re likelier to be more productive and less likely to procrastinate.
If managing your time is a struggle, then check out this informative article to learn about time management for artists.
3. Create a List of Artistic Goals
A good way to motivate yourself and to keep yourself accountable is to create 2 lists of goals. Your lists should be organized as such:
- A list of realistic short-term goals that you can complete in a few days or within a few weeks
- A list of ambitious long-term goals that you will complete in a few months or in a year
The goal of this exercise is to identify your intentions. Why do you want to accomplish these goals? What are your motivators? What do you plan to achieve?
When you write down your artistic goals, you can always refer back to them whenever you feel art blocked, creativity stuck, or lacking inspiration.
If you learn how to set SMART art goals and review them regularly, you’re more likely to find success because you have a plan of action with steps to help you achieve those goals.
Simply read your list of goals whenever you feel tired or uninspired. Reminding yourself of your goals is likely to help you find motivation and encouragement.
4. Connect with Friends, Family, and Community
Make sure that you give yourself a self-care day once in a while when you don’t focus on any work. After all, you deserve it!
During your self-care day, you should spend time with friends and family doing the activities that you love to do.
For instance, you can watch movies with your family. Or go to dinner with your friends. Or attend a local community event.
If you prefer to stay home, you can engage with your favourite online art communities by liking other artists’ work, leaving comments, watching your favourite YouTube creator’s videos, etc.
Engaging with your art community can rekindle your inspiration because you’re interacting with like-minded individuals who share your passion for art.
Just unwind, chill out, and make the best of your self-care day.
5. Focus on Your Mental Health
As an artist, you’re constantly exercising your creative muscles.
However, there comes a point when your inspiration and creative juices are going to run out if you’re not taking care of yourself.
When this happens, your mental and emotional health may suffer. So, the best thing to do is to take a break whenever you feel exhausted.
This is why it’s important to embrace self-care for artists in order to minimize the consequences of negative emotional states.
So, what can you do to ensure that your mental health is in shape?
Related: How Art for Mental Health Changes Lives for the Better
Meditate Every Day
Meditating can have a lot of positive effects on the mind and body because this practice encourages you to sit in stillness, be present, and practice awareness.
In essence, it’s one of the best self-care ideas because it’s the antithesis to the multi-tasking and hustle culture that often leads individuals to burnout.
To get started, you can download the Calm app for guided meditation, or you can simply search for meditation channels on Youtube for lots of free resources.
Recite Daily Art Affirmations
One of my favourite self-care ideas is to recite or write down daily affirmations for artists.
Daily affirmations are statements that are spoken or written with the intention of framing your thoughts and emotions in a positive state of mind.
Every time you recite positive affirmations, they combat negative thoughts and limiting beliefs that you may be harbouring.
6. Improve Your Physical Health
Let’s be honest:
You probably aren’t treating your body as well as it deserves. Especially if you’re sacrificing your mental and physical health for productivity’s sake.
As artists, we spend a lot of time sitting at our computers, physically creating art or products, and pulling late night work sessions.
But it’s not really sustainable, is it? That’s why we experience high stress levels and burnout.
So, here are a few self-care tips that can inspire you to treat your body more respectfully so that it can function at its maximum potential.
Stretch, Exercise, or Take a Walk in Nature
As an artist, you more than likely spend a lot of time at your desk or computer chugging away at whatever work you need to complete.
However, all that sitting isn’t good for your body.
So, instead of vegging on the couch, make sure you do some stretching or yoga whenever you feel your muscles cramping.
Do this at regular intervals throughout the day—such as every 30 minutes—to ensure that you’re not sitting in one spot for too long.
If you have more time at your disposal, schedule regular exercise or fitness into your calendar and make sure you stick to those routines.
Eat Healthier Foods
Everyone knows that eating a poor diet can lead to many health problems.
Junk food, sugary drinks, too much takeout, and greasy foods are way too tempting to eat because they are so readily available and convenient.
However, are the adverse health affects really worth it? After all, if your body is sick and it can’t function, you won’t be able to work as hard or as well as you would like to.
So make sure you are taking adequate breaks to enjoy a nutritious snack or a glass of water.
And if you work from home, make sure you’re not working in or near your kitchen so that you can reduce temptations.
7. Disconnect from Digital Devices
Self-care for artists wouldn’t be complete without encouraging you to disconnect from the digital world every so often.
Why?
Well, in this day and age, we’re more glued to our smartphones, screens, and TVs than ever before. The addiction to drama, news, and social media can often make many of us feel stressed out or upset.
For these reasons, you should conduct a digital detox on a regular basis to disconnect from the virtual world and its stress-inducing stimuli.
There are many ways you can disconnect, such as:
- Leaving your smartphone or laptop at home
- Charging your digital device in a different room
- Turning on the Do Not Disturb or Airplane Mode options
- Turning off the device completely
- Deciding on a certain time period during the day (such as first thing in the morning or at dinnertime) when you’re not allowed to check any of your digital devices
Once you have disconnected, get involved in something fun.
For example, you could go for a walk or visit a nearby park. Maybe you can play a board game with your family or get cozy with a blanket and a good book.
Conclusion
You have learned about self-care for artists in the form of 7 strategies that are trailered to help artists relax, rest, and thrive.
Incorporate some of these creative rituals into your everyday life so that self-care becomes a natural part of your daily routine.
Remember, the benefits of looking after your well-being are many:
- It improves your mental fitness
- It nourishes and strengthens your physical health
- It calms your mind and stabilizes your emotional state
- It reduces stress, overwhelm, anxiety, and depression
- You can practice these self-care ideas on your own without spending a single dollar
Just remember that there is no one-size-fits-all self-care program. So, experiment and figure out which strategies work best for you.
Next, decide on which self-care tip you want to add to your daily routine, and then start reaping the wonderful benefits!
What is your favourite self-care habit for artists? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Miranda Balogh
Artist & Online Educator
Scheduling regular breaks when working is a must for me. I’ll work for an 1hr then take a 10min break then get back to it. If not I will power through for hours and the later half of that is blah content because my brain is tired lol.
This is so relatable! The breaks are worthwhile when you look at the bigger picture because you end up being a lot more relaxed and productive. Thanks for sharing your experience!
These are all great self care ideas. Taking regular breaks for me is a must. I am so much more productive when I take breaks instead of trying to push through.
I completely agree with you!
This is so important for creatives of all types to hear! I create written word rather than art, but this all still applied to me. I find that if I create a bunch one day, I need to take an easy rest day the next. I will be using several of these tips!
I relate to you. That’s why I like dedicating specific days to creative tasks so that I can spend the day in a creative flow and then take a rest the following day.
great ideas to keep in mind thanks for sharing
You’re welcome!
This is SO helpful, everyone should practice self-care.
I agree! The benefits of self-care can be enjoyed by everyone.
It’s always so hard to practice self-care but it is so important because you can’t take care of anyone if you can’t take care of yourself. And I think people never associated creatives with burning out but sometimes it is even worse for us. I’ve tried to do something of the things on this list. I think they are awesome tips. I mean even exercising is great self-care!
Yes, I agree with everything you have said! Thank you for sharing your perspective on burn out and self-care.
These tips are great for any kind of content creators….like bloggers. Thanks for your article!
Very true! This list of self-care ideas can benefit all types of content creators.