Mom Brain in Overdrive? Find Your Calm with These Creative Tricks
Anxious mind? Overwhelmed heart? Let’s create a moment of calm for you, mom.
It’s amazing what a few creative tricks can do for your mental well-being.
As a mom, it’s easy to feel like you’re constantly juggling a thousand things at once—meals, school drop-offs, work deadlines, and somehow squeezing in time for self-care.
The anxiety and overwhelm can sneak up on you, turning even the simplest tasks into monumental challenges. But what if you could hit pause and reset your mind, even in the midst of all the chaos?
Enter creativity—not the Pinterest-perfect kind, but the raw, honest, and freeing process of expressive art.
When you tap into your creative side, you’re not just escaping the stress; you’re channeling it into something tangible and transformative.
It’s like giving your overdrive a pause button, leaving you with a sense of calm and clarity you didn’t know you had time for.
Hey! I’m Kayla
I’m a mom to a busy four-nager (plus gestating one more) and a counsellor and coach for overstimulated moms looking for a creative escape.
When my mind is in overdrive, I often feel anxious, and my creativity is the first thing to suffer. What I really need are my coping tools, especially these creative tricks.
What's a creative trick?
Creative tricks are creative coping tools for moms, ways to deal with all the overactive mom brain stuff.
They are intentional tools you use to express yourself, regulate your emotions, have fun, and just be goofy.
Being creative isn't always about art (but it totally can be). It can be lots of things like cooking, baking, writing in a journal, reading, getting in touch with your spirituality, organizing stuff, taking photos, listening to music, doing art (like painting or making collages), or just playing around.
For me, this looks like: painting, building forts, paper crafts, dancing, listening to music, baking, and making silly faces.
However, if given a choice, I would choose productivity over creativity every time.
It takes a lot of intention for me to actually get to my silly side.
So, how do you create space for creativity when your mind is on overdrive?
Creating space for creativity in an overactive mind might seem like trying to find calm in the middle of a storm, but it’s entirely possible—and incredibly rewarding.
Start by acknowledging your feelings instead of pushing them aside.
Give them a name, even if it’s just “stress,” and allow yourself a moment to sit with it. Then, intentionally carve out 5 minutes of your day for one of these creative tricks.
It doesn’t have to be complicated - a simple doodle, a few lines in a journal, or even arranging objects around you in a pleasing way can be enough.
5 ways to find your calm with these creative tricks:
Make Something (anything)
In today's modern culture, we are always 'ON'. It's amazing how we can spend our entire day taking in information, communications, and thoughts without stopping to checkin on how we feel.
Being creative offers an outlet and a release from all of the anxiety provoking things.
When we take a moment to put something out into the world, something amazing happens. There is a shift in our bodies and our thoughts, and it feels amazing (the antidote to anxiety).
Anything that feels good, do it now, seriously stop reading this and create something. I promise that by doing these things, your mental and physical health, happiness, and self-worth will improve.
Journal (written or art)
Expressing yourself doesn’t have to take a lot of time. You can do it even if you only have 5 minutes.
Grab a piece of paper and write.
Don’t hold back.
Allow yourself to be mad, to be overwhelmed.
Let it all out.
Write until there are no more words.
You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to; it’s just a piece of paper.
Repeat this until the anxiety calms down a little.
Read a Book
No matter how stressed out you are, a good old-fashioned book or magazine can make it all disappear.
Your favorite type of books can take you to a whole new place—a place where there are no chores and everyone is on time.
Reading helps to calm you down, keep you in the moment, and quiet the overactive mind.
Music Listening (click to listen to one of my playlists!)
It only takes twenty minutes of music listening to decrease your anxiety, boost your mood and increase your happiness.
Intentional music is listening to music with the intention of feeling better, increasing happiness and/or decreasing depression & anxiety. Intention plays a huge role in the success of this coping mechanism.
Creative Hobby
In one of my recent mom groups, I asked about creative hobbies, and a bunch of moms said they struggle to find time for being creative. I totally get it – some days feel super busy.
But what if we're not as busy as we think?
If we don't make an effort, we might end up just watching TV or scrolling.
Getting into more active hobbies could help you forget about time and just focus on doing something for you (guilt-free).
When you use these cool creative tricks, also known as coping tools, every day, it becomes your mental oasis – a safe space for your mind to escape and breathe. The key is to approach it without judgment. There's no right or wrong in creativity, only expression.
When you let yourself be creative, you're also giving yourself permission to regulate, slow down, and channel your overactive mind into something that actually helps you deal with the daily grind of motherhood.
I find that doing these creative tricks and playful activities helps me chill out, reduce my stress and anxiety, and allow for new ideas to come up. It's my go-to way to practice real self-care.
