Exploring creative mediums to help avoid burnout

*Disclaimer
The content of the article does not provide medical advice. It depicts only my personal experiences and research. It is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

In the past year, I came across a bunch of articles, blog posts, and forums, where designers and generally people in tech would complain and talk openly about feeling lost, tired, burnt out or even deciding to quit the industry altogether.

Working in tech can be very rewarding: we are free to work wherever we want, it pays relatively well, it can be creative, and solving problems feels pretty good, but it also comes with its own set of challenges:

High pressure and stress: tech roles often come with tight deadlines, high expectations, and a fast-paced work environment, leading to a large amount of stress. The job market is saturated and very competitive. With startups failing and layoffs happening even in established companies, job insecurity is a huge problem for tech professionals.

Continuous learning and keeping up with trends: the tech industry is constantly evolving, requiring us to stay updated with new technology and trends, which can be very challenging and time-consuming to do while trying to live a fulfilling social and personal life. Building up all this pressure can lead to stress and eventually burnout.

Imposter syndrome: We know that the industry is extremely competitive, and there is an unlimited amount of information available to anyone. We spend our time exploring amazing projects from amazing designers and developers and begin to doubt ourselves. This eventually can cause us to feel like we don’t belong or aren’t as competent as our peers.

Work-life Balance: We live in a culture that glorifies overwork, due to the increasing costs of living, many professionals opt to work on additional projects alongside their full-time jobs. This causes them to sacrifice evenings and sometimes even weekends too. It’s difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance, doing less of what you love and enjoy can make you feel fed up with your jobs, career, and lifestyle.

And even if we, designers, have secure jobs, are financially stable, and make time for our personal lives, there are everyday challenges that take a toll on our mental health and increase in intensity with the industry evolving:

• Balancing stakeholder and user need
• Limited resources and tight deadlines
• Subjectivity and design criticism
• Measuring, demonstrating, and proving impact

Excessive stress and burnout can manifest in various ways, and the signs can differ from person to person. The most common signs that I and my circle have experienced include:

• Fatigue and exhaustion. Feeling like you haven’t slept enough or slept too much.
• Lack of motivation or interest in work. It begins to seem like you are doing nothing interesting or meaningful.
• Irritability, impatience, or feeling overwhelmed. Simple questions, problems, or events at work can seem like a huge deal.
• Reduced creativity or problem-solving abilities. You opt for standard solutions, including creativity in work less and less.
• Thinking about work outside working hours. Walking the dog in the park on a Sunday morning and thinking about the upcoming Monday meeting.

It was very important for me to recognize the signs early to keep loving what I do and be an energetic and enthusiastic human being for my friends and family. After understanding that things were changing and work was consuming me, I decided to try what I heard was one of the most effective forms of relieving stress and anxiety — art.

Film Photography

We all take photos daily, we have a fully functioning camera inside our pockets all the time. We take a hundred pictures of our dogs a minute, document every meal we eat, and post expiring stories for our friends. So everyone is involved in photography one way or another.

But film photography, for me, turned out to be a way to slow down.

First of all, it forces you to understand how things actually work. How do you use a manual camera? How to choose a film? What is ISO, aperture, or shutter speed, and how do they depend on each other?

Most importantly, it makes you stop, analyze the environment, pay attention to the lighting, choose the perfect composition, and take a specific amount of special, emotional pictures with each roll of film. After finishing the film you have the pleasure of waiting for the pictures to develop and being excited and positively surprised for the art you made.

After my first roll, film camera became something I take on every vacation. Seeing pictures after coming home makes me excited for the trip all over again.

Focusing on finding a special shot lowers my heart rate, slows my chaotic brain down, and makes me think I am creating something that will last, make me proud, and remind me of that special moment.

I like to think that with each roll of film, I become better, and improve my creative vision, choosing the environment, subject, lighting, and composition.

Ceramics

Another excellent way for me to decompress is by doing ceramics. Most of us have seen videos online of people making perfect bowls, cups, or sculptures with perfect edges and smooth glazing. These videos made me sign up in a local studio for a couple of ceramic lessons.

From the first time I made my “Perfect” pasta bowl, I felt the benefit of using my fingers and hands to do art. And even after a long day of working, sculpting with clay had an instant effect on my heart rate, my thoughts, and my stress level at that moment. The sensory stimulation from engaging in crafts with my hands turned out to be calming and grounding.

Apart from stress relief, ceramics helped me learn to focus on tiny details, sketch my vision, and plan and execute my ideas. Doing ceramics made me appreciate the hand-made feel and imperfect objects with human touch.

By focusing on the process of creating art, you can become more present and less preoccupied with stressful thoughts. It can teach you patience and understanding that all good things take time, effort, and love.

Engaging in creating everyday useful objects can force you to think creatively, solve problems on the way, and activate different areas of the brain. I learned to measure to account for size reduction after firing, to structure objects so they are solid and can be used, and to paint and glaze ceramics to express my creative side.

Overall, ceramics, for me, is a way to reduce stress, enhance mindfulness, express emotions, and practice creative problem-solving.

Printmaking

Printmaking is a unique art form, that combines creativity with technical skills. It evolved throughout the centuries and with new materials and tools it became accessible to everyone.

I chose lino printing as it seems to be an easier material to work with as a beginner. Lino printing is basically using a sheet of linoleum to carve any image and then transfer the image to the paper.

Lino printing turned out to be the hardest of these three mediums. For the print to work, I had to come up with an illustration that would be manageable for me to curve. Thus it made me sketch, illustrate, and design proper composition.

After deciding on the illustration, comes the most relaxing and focusing process — Curving. Curving on linoleum is very satisfying and like ceramics it makes you focus on tiny details, teaches you patience, and gives you a medium to express yourself visually.

• Curving requires so much focus and concentration that it’s very likely to help improve your ability to concentrate on other tasks as well.
• Printing involves using your hands and fingers to manipulate tools, which helps improve fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

The key aspect of all three activities that contributed to reducing stress in my work life:

1. Learning to slow down - In tech, we are used to doing things quickly: making decisions, sketching, communicating, resolving problems. Rush contributes greatly to our stress. We feel like everything needs to be done right now and we lose the ability to stop, reflect, and slow down.
2. Creating things that will not change - This one might sound strange, but in tech, we are used to changes, improvements, and having disposable designs, we measure our success with business impact and user satisfaction, but with art, you get to create timeless things, you can hang them, use them, look at them and feel proud and amazed by your creative abilities.
3. Confidence boosts from improvement - Practice makes better. As I improved, I experienced a boost in confidence and self-esteem, which came from seeing tangible progress in my craft. These feelings translated into my work and personal life.

While in this article I suggest specific activities from my personal experience, it is important to understand that individual responses may vary. I would recommend exploring different creative activities to find what works best for you in managing your stress.

Additionally, if you feel stressed and burnt out, please, seek help from mental health professionals for personalized support and guidance in incorporating any activities into a burnout prevention plan.

Thank you for reading 🚀 Follow for more 🔥

1. Burnout: A Short Socio-Cultural History — Wilmar B. Schaufeli
2. Building work engagement — Caroline Knight, Malcolm Patterson, Jeremy Dawson
3. Role of Art Therapy in the Promotion of Mental Health— Apoorva Shukla, Sonali G Choudhari, Abhay M Gaidhane, Zahiruddin Quazi Syed
4. The Influence of Art Making on Anxiety — David A Sandmire, Sarah Roberts Gorham, Nancy Elizabeth Rankin, David Robert Grimm