By Kevin Ferrisi –

Ever hear of writer’s block? It doesn’t just happen to writer’s, it happens to creators all over the world. Being creative at the drop of a dime sometimes is a very difficult challenge. Most freelancers depend on their creativity for their livelihood. Freelance writers, designers, artists, photographers, and even web developers and programmers all rely on creative thinking to perform their jobs.

However, occasionally a freelancer finds that their creativity; that same creativity they’ve been relying on to earn an income; just isn’t there. The ideas just aren’t flowing like they usually do. I’ve been there, you’ve been there, we have all been there.

Here are 5 things I do when I am having a creative block:

1. Meditate
Tap into something greater than yourself. Let the creativity flow through you. Becoming aware and clearing your mind sometimes is all you need to open the gateway of unlimited creativity. Taking a few minutes to clear your mind will allow a space for new ideas to manifest. Buddhists, teachers and monks have been practicing meditation for hundreds of years. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs and creatives in the world practice it too to clear their minds. We all want a clearer picture of what’s ahead of us but, sadly, we can’t look into the future. What we can do, however, is sharpen our minds through meditation.

2. Exercise
Sometimes your creative juices just need a jump start like a rusty old car battery. Don’t be afraid to step away. Try to distance yourself from the project; take a break and come back to it with a clear head. Exercise is the most effective way to improve memory and attention. When you exercise, new brain cells are born in the brain’s gateway to new memories. In addition to stimulating new brain cells, exercise also leads directly to brain cells binding to one another. It’s a no-brainer; pun intended; that moving your body makes you smarter.

3. Research
See what others are doing. Immersing yourself in certain arts or cultures that you wouldn’t normally be interested in could lead to interesting inspirations. Explore what is out there and what has been done, what has worked and what hasn’t. Research can spark ideas faster than a tree in a wildfire and generate concepts that you might not have thought of. In college, they always taught that the number one rule in the creative process is research. And now being out in the field I understand the need more than ever.

4. Environment
Go work somewhere else entirely. You’d be amazed at where new ideas are hiding out. They’re often where you would least expect them to be. Often, most of us work in the same chair, at the same desk, in the same room day in and day out. This could leave to a creative dry spell. Being a freelancer, like most freelancers, I get to work from where ever there is an electrical socket and a wifi signal. If you can’t get out then bring something new in. Put some fun in your space. Doesn’t matter if it is listening to a completely different type of music than you usually do or redecorating your entire space. Surround yourself in something new and different so your thoughts can follow suit.

5. Sketch It Out
Whether it is a list of words or drawing stupid cartoons. Write your main ideas down in columns, and list absolutely everything that comes to mind. You can mix and match the lists for unusual and original combinations. Ideas will start to connect in your mind and before you know concepts snowball into an avalanche of success. Always carry a sketch pad. Write down any ideas as they come to you. Don’t go looking for inspiration. Let it come to you and capture it.

Being creative is definitely fulfilling but often times difficult. Next time you find yourself with an unsharpened pencil and just need a sharpener, try these techniques that I have found to work brilliantly.

“Stress is the body’s reaction to any change that requires an adjustment or response,” defined by Wikipedia. The body reacts to these changes with physical, mental, and emotional responses to your ever changing surrounding environment. Stress is a normal part of life, as we all know to well.

Many events that happen to you and around you, and many things that you do to yourself, put stress on your body. We need to become aware that you can experience stress from your environment, your body, and your thoughts. Your environment may not need to change, but it is how you react to your environment that can bring you peace of mind.

The human body is designed to experience stress and react to it. Stress can be positive, keeping us alert and ready to avoid danger at the drop of a dime. Stress becomes negative when a person faces continuous challenges without relief or relaxation between challenges. In other words if you don’t stop, like stop everything, every once and awhile and just do nothing, you do not allow your body to recover between obstacles. As a result, the person becomes overworked and stress related tension builds. The stress response is the body’s way of protecting you telling you it is time to take a break. When working properly, stress helps you stay focused, energetic, and alert. In emergency situations, stress can save your life sometimes offering you unexplained strength in certain situations.

The stress response also helps you rise to meet challenges. Stress is what keeps you on your toes during a presentation at work and sharpens your concentration when you’re attempting something important. But beyond a certain point, stress stops being helpful and starts causing major damage to your health, your mood, your productivity, your relationships, and your quality of life, pretty much every area of your life.

It’s important to learn how to recognize when your stress levels are out of control. The most dangerous thing about stress is how easily you get used to it sometimes without realizing it. It starts to feel familiar, even normal, as if it is suppose to be a part of life. You don’t notice how much it’s affecting you. The signs and symptoms of stress overload can be almost anything. Stress affects the mind, body, and behavior in many ways, and everyone experiences stress differently. Not only can overwhelming stress lead to serious mental and physical health problems, it can also take a toll on your relationships at home, work, and school.

Stress that continues without relief can lead to a condition called distress, a negative stress reaction. Distress can lead to physical symptoms including headaches, upset stomach, elevated blood pressure, chest pain, and problems sleeping. Research suggests that stress also can bring on or worsen certain symptoms or diseases. Imagine creating disease in your own body all because of the way you think? Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Here are 10 Tips that will help to relieve stress fast.
Written By Jeannette Moninger (WebMD)

1. Meditate – A few minutes of practice per day can help ease anxiety. “Research suggests that daily meditation may alter the brain’s neural pathways, making you more resilient to stress,” says psychologist Robbie Maller Hartman, PhD, a Chicago health and wellness coach. The process can be simple. Sit up straight with both feet on the floor. Close your eyes. Focus your attention on reciting, out loud or silently, a positive mantra such as “I feel at peace” or “I love myself.” Place one hand on your belly to synch the mantra with your breaths. Let any distracting thoughts float by like clouds.

2. Breathe Deeply – Give yourself a 5 minute break from whatever is bothering you and focus instead on your breathing. Sit up straight, eyes closed, with a hand on your belly. Slowly inhale through your nose, feeling the breath start in your abdomen and work its way to the top of your head. Reverse the process as you exhale through your mouth. “Deep breathing counters the effects of stress by slowing the heart rate and lowering blood pressure,” says psychologist Judith Tutin, PhD, a certified life coach in Rome, Ga.

3. Be Present – You rush through dinner, hurry to your next appointment, race to finish one more thing on your agenda. Now try something different: Slow down. “Take 5 minutes and focus on only one behavior with awareness,” says Tutin. Notice how the air feels on your face when you’re walking and how your feet feel hitting the ground. Enjoy the texture and taste of each bite of food as you slowly chew. When you spend time in the moment and focus on your senses, you should feel the tension leave your body.

4. Reach Out – A good social support system is one of the most important resources for dealing with stress. Talking to others , preferably face to face or at least on the phone, is a great way to better manage whatever is stressing you out.

5. Tune In to Your Body – Mentally scan your body to get a sense of how stress affects it each day. Lie on your back or sit with your feet on the floor. Start at your toes and work your way up to your scalp, noticing how your body feels. “Simply be aware of places you feel tight or loose without trying to change anything,” says Tutin. For 1 to 2 minutes, imagine each deep breath flowing to that body part. Repeat this process as you move your focus up your body, paying close attention to sensations you feel in each body part.

6. Decompress – Place a warm heat wrap around your neck and shoulders for 10 minutes. Close your eyes and relax your face, neck, upper chest, and back muscles. Remove the wrap and use a tennis ball or foam roller to massage away tension. “Place the ball between your back and the wall. Lean into the ball and hold gentle pressure for up to 15 seconds. Then move the ball to another spot and apply pressure,” says Cathy Benninger, a nurse at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.

7. Laugh Out Loud – A good belly laugh doesn’t just lighten the load mentally. It lowers cortisol, your body’s stress hormone, while increasing brain chemicals called endorphins that boost your mood. Lighten up by tuning in to your favorite sitcom or video, reading the comics, or chatting with someone who makes you smile.

8. Crank Up the Tunes – Research shows that listening to soothing music can lower blood pressure, heart rate, and anxiety. “Create a playlist of songs or nature sounds (the ocean, a bubbling brook, birds chirping) and allow your mind to focus on the different melodies, instruments, or singers in the piece,” suggests Benninger. You also can blow off steam by rocking out to more upbeat tunes , or singing at the top of your lungs!

9. Get Moving – You don’t have to run in order to get a runner’s high. All forms of exercise, from yoga to walking, can ease depression and anxiety by helping the brain release feel-good chemicals and by giving your body a chance to practice dealing with stress. You can go for a quick walk around the block, take the stairs up and down a few flights, or do some stretching exercises like head rolls and shoulder shrugs.

10. Be Grateful – Keep a gratitude journal or several (stash one by your bed, keep one in your purse, and one at work) to help you remember all the things that are good in your life. “Being grateful for your blessings cancels out negative thoughts and worries,” says Joni Emmerling, a wellness coach in Greenville, N.C.

What is fear? Does it even really exist? If fear is just a result of your thoughts traveling down a dark road, couldn’t that thought be persuaded to merge onto another path full of hope and optimism. How often do you avoid doing something you need to do because of fear? Come to the realization that fear does not exist anywhere except for in your own mind. You can conquer almost any fear if you will make up your mind to do so.

I recently challenged myself to become more aware of my thoughts and how my mind works. I am an over analytical, one-step-ahead, worrying type of person. I made it my personal goal to be more positive and focus on what I want out of life rather than focus on the current hardships I may have going on. Ultimately I have decided that I always have two choices. I could choose to be miserable and fearful or I could choose to be happy and optimistic.

I have been reading a lot about how powerful the mind really is and it’s astonishing to think how a small change of thought can lead to big changes in life. I have always known deep down inside that by thinking positively and being grateful for what you do have, you can shape your future by the simple power of positive thought. But it is fear that derails your positive thinking toward a dark hole because of the uncertainty of the future. Basically proclaim what you want, knowing inside that you can get it, and taking the steps to achieve what you want. Do not let the what-if thinking distracts you from what’s happening right in front of you. If you are always living in the moment, you always know that right now you are just fine and everything will work out.

Most people go through a bad situation and dwell on the negative experience and in doing so they manifest more bad experiences. Very few people go through a bad situation and think about the good that has come from that negative incident or how worse off things could have been. It’s those few people who put things into perspective and make a negative into a positive that have success in life. And I do not mean just financial success, but success in relationships, career, health, and emotional well-being. It is those people who can reflect and understand the importance of why that bad thing needed to happen.

I have found that it is simply up to you to decide how you feel and in turn shape where you want to go in life. If you choose to be fearful the very things you fear with become your reality. You have to actively train your brain to think positively and be grateful for the things you have. This positive thinking will bring you good things. It will be a challenge to retrain your brain, but I can guarantee you that it’s worth it. It’s not always easy to change your thought patterns because these are patterns that have been learned and become every day habits. Taking control of our thoughts is one of the greatest successes you can achieve.

This week I challenge you to replace every negative thought that pops into your mind with a positive thought and see how quickly your moment, day, or week turns into something good. Try and stay aware of your thoughts and how they affect your surrounding environment and the outcomes of a situation. It can’t hurt you to try. I think we all lose sight of how powerful our minds are and how important it is to be happy and positive at all times. Like attracts like, so shape your own world by thinking positive! Sometimes it just takes the realization of the simplicity of the matter. So many leaders of thought have argued over the centuries for the meaning of life, but there is one thing they all agree on, and that is, you are what you think!