How Therapeutic Art Journaling Clears Your Energy for Better Sleep By Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC
It’s no secret that sleep is an essential part of your health and wellness. As a psychotherapist with 20 years of experience, understanding my client’s concerns about their sleep is a critical part of my work. After all, it’s difficult to feel better if you’re not sleeping well.
Therapeutic art journaling is an excellent way to unwind from your day and from any ongoing concerns or stressors that you may have. It’s similar to keeping a journal, but the addition of using simple art supplies brings a richness to your ability to communicate and process your experiences.
My clients have found that adding art into their journaling has led to deeper release of what’s bothering them while also feeling greater relaxation. Neuroscientists have confirmed this. Their studies have confirmed what I’ve long witnessed, the powerful positive impact of creativity on the brain.
Studies have shown several beneficial factors that support your mental, emotional, and spiritual health. These benefits include:
regulating your emotions by reducing anxiety and releasing dopamine, the “feel good” hormone;
improving neuroplasticity, the neurons that allow us to develop new coping strategies and adaptive behaviors;
enhancing your ability to focus and be present; and
activating your mirror neurons which helps you feel more empathy and a sense of connection.
As you can imagine, if you want to improve your sleep, these neurological gains from art therapy will help. Let’s look at what art therapy is and how it works, so that you can feel prepared to try these techniques.
What is art therapy and how does it work?
Art therapy is a form of communication that reflects your experience without being dependent on words alone. Through color, shape, and form, you become the translator. You’re empowered to be a curious observer who’s interpreting what’s happening inside of you onto paper. This act of observing allows you to take space with less effort from what’s churning inside.
Art therapy helps you validate your experience, relieve distress, and improve creative problem solving. You don’t have to be an artist to benefit from these practices. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, let your creative impulses guide the way.
To lessen your performance anxiety, start by selecting art supplies that feel familiar, like markers and colored pencils. I also recommend including supplies that are easy to blend together, like paints and chalk pastels. Blending typically represents the mixed emotions that come with difficult experiences. Blending colors can also be satisfying and relaxing, as it symbolizes transformation and change, which sparks hope.
There’s two steps that you need to take to benefit from the practice of art therapy.
The first step is to do the art project. Listen to what your creative instinct wants to do on the paper, even if it doesn’t make sense to you at the time. When you’re finished, give your creation a title. This usually offers insight into what the artwork represents from your subconscious.
The second step is to describe what your creation portrays by journaling or discussing it with someone you trust. Notice how you feel now compared to when you started. Did you find yourself becoming immersed in the experience? How did that serve you?
The therapeutic journaling techniques described below are designed to help you begin your art therapy practice with ease. I’d recommend having a therapeutic art journal specific for sleep. As you develop this skill and habit, it will send a signal to your brain that you are clearing your energy for better sleep.
1. Breathe in your favorite color. It’s no secret that when you are anxious you’re not breathing deeply enough to settle your nervous system. When you use your imagination to breathe in your favorite color, your breathing practice becomes more focused. You’re using your brain in an intentional way.
This exercise can be done by only using your imagination or combined with drawing or painting. If you’re going to combine this with a visual expression, I encourage you to do a before and after drawing to capture the effect it has on you. Both creations should reflect how you are feeling inside.
To begin, softly close your eyes and use your mind’s eye to scan the inside of your body from head to toe. Notice the quality of the energy that’s inside, perhaps picking up on where you feel tension and where you feel neutral or relaxed. Be curious about the emotions or sensations that you are feeling as you do. If you are going to draw or paint, create your “before” drawing expressing what you observed in your scan.
After you’ve done the body scan, use your imagination to breathe in your favorite color. Visualize a soft cloud of this color gently entering your body as you breathe in. Imagine the color spreading throughout your body with every breath you take. Notice what color you breathe out. Trust your creative instinct if it wants to be different from what you’re breathing in. Repeat this breathing practice until you feel satisfied.
When you feel finished, use your journal to draw how you feel now. Reflect the impact of this practice on your body, mind, and spirit through art. When the drawing feels complete, write what you’ve learned about yourself through this process. You may wish to observe any associations with the color(s) that you chose. Being curious about the meaning can enhance your practice.
2. Doodle, color, or paint with relaxing music. Research has shown that music can reduce cortisol, a stress hormone. Music increases serotonin levels, which helps to regulate your mood and improve positive thinking. Studies have shown that making art while listening to music enhances divergent thinking, a key element for creativity, while deepening your connection to your thoughts and feelings.
For this exercise, you may wish to have an adult coloring book if that feels more appealing than the blank page in your journal. This is an opportunity to give yourself permission to choose what’s best for you. After arranging your art supplies, listen to music that evokes how you wish to feel.
Turn on the music and begin to doodle, color, or paint. Following your creative desire as to what colors are calling your attention. Let your brush strokes or marks be guided by the music. Observe how your energy shifts. Create until your energy feels clear.
3. Use creative visualization to draw or paint your restful sleep. When I was in college, my mom gave me a copy of Shakti Gawain’s book, Creative Visualization. I became fascinated by the idea that your performance can improve by imagining yourself doing something well.
Since your beliefs and thoughts have an influence over how you carry out what you want in life, addressing thoughts, feelings and beliefs about sleep is really important. This is a practice of acceptance, acknowledging what is, and then imagining what it would feel like to sleep well.
Draw or paint what a restful sleep would look and feel like to you. Listen to what feels right for this assignment, you may wish to be literal with the images you’re imaging or perhaps you want to make your creation more abstract. There is no right or wrong here, and each time you do this exercise it may change.
5. Transform your energy by using the “art-it-out” brain dump technique. The phrase, art-it-out, evolved from the work that I do with the cancer community. It’s the catchphrase we use to describe the process and how art therapy impacts your emotional wellbeing.
Art-it-out is the act of getting off your chest the thoughts and feelings that are bothering you. This is a form of validation that honors your experience without judgment or trying to force yourself to feel better and more positive. You’re demonstrating self-acceptance when you express what most try to repress or avoid.
The brain dump technique is an exercise in containment. In your journal, draw a large shape in a color of your choosing, where you will write down any thoughts, feelings, or experiences that you wish to clear before bedtime.
Give yourself a limited time to do the dumping. A time constraint helps you to not overthink or judge what is coming out. This is a free-writing exercise.
Once your time is up or you feel finished, it’s time to transform the image in any way that you wish. You might decide to scribble all over it, or wash it in solid colors, or do a collage of words and images that are affirming. The intent behind this is to recognize that life is always evolving and that you can do so playfully.
Better sleep is something that many of us wish for in our lives. As you build the habit of therapeutic art journaling into your nighttime routine, may you find that your body, mind, and spirit become acclimated to a good night’s rest.
Stephanie McLeod-Estevez, LCPC, is an art therapist and a breast cancer survivor. Her unwavering passion lies in empowering women to embrace life boldly, through connecting to their innate creativity and resiliency. To learn more about her coaching services and story, visit www.stephaniemcleodestevez.com. Subscribe to her free newsletter, "Spark Curiosity, Live Radiantly," for complimentary Art Therapy Guidebooks and exclusive access to enriching workshops.