meditation

When Your Brain Needs a Vacation

August 7, 2026 By LDSPMA Leave a Comment

Vacations are lovely things—and we all want one. Even if you don’t think you do, you do. But even on a holiday excursion, it can be hard to get our brains to unplug. I just spent a week in Hawaii, and while many wonderful things happened, there were also some stressful and frustrating moments. I felt like my brain could use a break from my vacation!

Sometimes we just need a mini-vacation for our minds—no airfare or luggage required. As someone who struggles with OCD, anxiety, and depression, I’ve learned a few tricks to help me decompress. Here are five ways to give your brain a reset:

Take a Break from Screens

We all have small screens in our pockets or purses at almost any given moment. Many of us work in front of screens—I’m staring at three as I write this. Airports and restaurants have them everywhere. Even cars have screens nowadays. We’re surrounded by them. These devices can help with virtually everything, but they can also be detrimental to our health. Studies have shown that excessive screen use can interfere with both brain function and sleep.

It can be helpful to take breaks from all those screens. What does this look like? Maybe it means ignoring social media for a day … or a week. Perhaps it’s leaving your phone in the other room while you work or spending a day outside. Maybe it means taking your family for an evening bike ride instead of sitting together while everyone looks at individual gadgets and the TV plays in the background. Find a way to unplug.

Take a Reading Day

When I was in college, right before finals week, we scheduled “reading days”—time set aside to study and prep for exams. I always wished those days were actual reading days, so I sometimes took a day to read a book purely for pleasure. It may sound lazy, but taking a break from rigorous study can be good for your mental health. One of the best ways to recharge your brain is to get lost in a good book. I’d recommend choosing a physical copy or putting your phone in airplane mode while reading or listening on your device to avoid distractions.

Reading lets you experience the world through other points of view and empathize with people you may never meet. And, you know, sometimes it allows you to fly with dragons or speak to penguins. Reading is magical.

I’ve found taking an occasional reading day can be super beneficial for my work. I return to my desk more invigorated, with new ideas swimming through my brain. So visit a bookstore or your local library, choose a book that draws you in, and spend the day reading.

Try a New Art Medium

I’ve written about this before, but one way to break out of a creative rut and reset your mind is to experiment with different art mediums. There are tons of super cute crafting kits for beginners. You could make a favorite character from yarn or clay, or try a paint-by-numbers project. Choose something low-key and stress-free.

You can even put on some music or an audiobook for a soothing soundscape while you work.

Meditate

I’ll be honest: I have yet to master the Jedi way of sitting down and communing with the Force. I took a meditation class in college and spent half the class napping and the other half dreaming up stories. Meditation is supposed to slow your mind so you can more fully connect with the world around you, but my thoughts rush too fast. For many people who struggle with mental health issues, this restlessness is common. One approach doesn’t work for everyone.

I’ve found two types of meditation that work for me. The first is imagery meditation. If you’re a writer or an artist, you probably already do something similar. Begin by picturing a scene, perhaps on a beach where the waves crash and recede along the shore. Now imagine a boat approaching the shore. Who’s on the boat? Maybe it’s a friendly fisherman who wants to chat about your life. Maybe he takes you on a boat ride. Imagine the ocean lapping against the hull of the boat, the sun sparkling against the waves, and dolphins leaping out of the water. Just sit with the image for a few moments, taking a few deep breaths and letting the story play out. This is imagery meditation. It’s the only “traditional” type of meditation I can do.

I also do yoga. Yoga focuses on breath and movement. Because you’re moving your body, it is easier to stay in the moment. There are tons of beginner yoga videos online that will recharge your brain and benefit your body.

Visit a Favorite Nature Spot

If you’ve spent any amount of time on the internet, you may have heard the saying “go outside and touch grass.” This advice has merit. Sometimes we need to reconnect with reality. I highly recommend finding a local nature spot. Perhaps it’s a nearby park. Maybe your neighborhood has a walking trail, or there’s a lake near your home. Maybe you’re one of those lucky souls who lives close to the ocean. Find a place where you can just breathe and “nature bathe.”

My husband and I often take walks around a local duck pond. It may not be the quietest spot, but seeing geese and ducks glide across the surface calms my soul. Find a place where you can “touch grass,” reconnect with the natural world, and give your brain a break from the artificial glow that constantly surrounds you.

We only have one brain. It’s up to us to keep it functioning effectively. As creators, everything we do requires brainpower; we need to care for our most essential creative tool. Sometimes our brains just need a little vacation to give them a reset. If life’s been stressing you out, try using one of these methods to give your brain a break!

KaTrina Jackson

Author, Editor

KaTrina Jackson loves penguins, chocolate, and piano music, and spends much of each day trying to fit those loves in around her jobs as a freelance editor and a project manager for Eschler Editing. She graduated with a degree in editing and publishing from Brigham Young University. She’s a member of three different writing groups, attends and teaches at multiple writing conferences, has volunteered with LDSPMA since 2021, and recently published her first novel. When she’s not writing, editing, or reading, she can be found practicing yoga, teaching piano lessons, or watching Disney movies while working on a cross-stitch project. She and her husband live in Olathe, Kansas.

Passion and Persistence: Nurturing Creativity through Contemplation, Focus, and Endurance

June 16, 2023 By LDSPMA 1 Comment

The process of creating art, expression, and interpretation is often nurtured by passion and persistence. The Prophet Joseph Smith once observed that “when you feel pure intelligence flowing unto you it may give you sudden strokes of ideas . . .” While much of the inspiration I’ve developed and refined through the years has come incrementally, there are also occurrences when I experience “sudden strokes of ideas” in my mind and heart. This phenomenon of contemplative creativity stems from what many would describe as “the whisperings of the Spirit.”

One of my distant ancestors, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, once commented, “I love you for the part of me that you bring out.” True mastery demands patience, perseverance, and passion that transcend setbacks, strictures, and refinements. Unlike many of our friends in the sciences, artists are often frustrated by defining or articulating their trade. So often, the processes of designing, developing, and creating are known to them only, and further attempts to outline and replicate their work are stymied again and again. Little wonder that a frustrated Ammon in the Book of Mormon haltingly noted that he could not give expression to “the smallest part which I feel” (Alma 26:16).

Seeking Improvement

It comes as no surprise to many artists that their work goes unheralded, and the adulation of accomplishment is silently celebrated in the innermost recesses. Most artists enjoy their craft independently from critics, sophists, and naysayers. While many are their own greatest fan, they are simultaneously their own sharpest critics. The educator William Lyon Phelps once noted, “…I love to teach. I love to teach as a painter loves to paint, as a musician loves to play, as a singer loves to sing, as a strong man rejoices to run a race. Teaching is an art so great and so difficult to master that a man or woman can spend a long life at it, without realizing much more than his limitations and mistakes, and his distance from the ideal. But the main aim of my happy days has been to become a good teacher, just as every architect wishes to be a good architect, and every professional poet strives toward perfection.”

Meditation

While the best artists appreciate steady hands, God works best with quiet minds. Ancient prophets like Nephi, Enos, and others often referenced their consistent practice of meditation practice. The phrase “search, ponder, and pray” so often gives short shrift to the “ponder” portion of receiving revelation. Many artists confess that their ideas came in the silence of the night. Drawing from an intrapersonal intelligence often takes time to silence, train, and focus the mind within contemplative practices. If God would use our hands to further His work, He should expect that His children would “be still” drawn out to Him in prayer, ponderings, and meditative methods.

Those who achieve greatness are no strangers to hard work. Stretching and toil soften soil that sprouts seeds of progress. A law both in nature and self-mastery is that force and inertia move objects, tasks, and souls forward. While these processes are not easily clustered into rote checklists, it is only fair to burgeoning and eager pupils that they are given protocols and strategies that have demonstrated effectiveness in the conception, development, and design within creative frameworks.

To those who are asking the essential question, “What lack I yet?” consider the following twofold principles that often provide fruitful and satisfying yields for those engaged in the creative process.

Using Contemplative Practices

Dr. Arthur Zajonc, who is a renowned authority on contemplative practices, suggests prayer as part of this meditative process. He said, “The prayer may be recited silently or aloud, but in all cases with full attention to the words and thoughts spoken. As with the tempo of poetry, we slowly and patiently live into the words and thoughts of the prayer as completely as possible” (When Knowing Becomes Love: Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry, 2009, p. 59). Turning our thoughts, our desires, and our souls upward in conscientious prayer and meditation fosters fertile soil for seeds of growth and development. Begin each session within the creative process by asking the Lord to use your hands to create and further His work.

Many artists begin their creative process by asking for guidance and discipline from sacred and/or spiritual sources. Zajonc further observed, “In all traditions of meditation, moral preparation is preliminary to everything else” (p. 62). There are heavenly tutorials awaiting those who are willing to climb to the top of “mountains” to hear them (1 Nephi 18:3). Not all who want to hear the still small voice are willing to experience the perspiration that so often precedes inspiration. This brings us to the second principle—toil.

Toil and Endurance

Henry David Thoreau famously observed that “the cost of a thing is the amount of . . . life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run” (Walden, Economics, p. 280).

Elder Henry B. Eyring further explained, “The good works that really matter require the help of heaven. And the help of heaven requires working past the point of fatigue so far that only the meek and lowly will keep going long enough. The Lord doesn’t put us through this test just to give us a grade; he does it because the process will change us” (Waiting Upon the Lord, September 30, 1990). While the creative process is in many ways its own reward, it also proves capricious when trifled with. Creators find that impatience and hastiness are promptly punished as more than one artist has added a final stroke when stamina stemmed and fatigue frustrated what was once a promising piece.

Working “past the point of fatigue” should not suggest that we “run faster than we have strength” (Mosiah 4:27). Rather, this should be understood as a demonstration of due diligence and endurance. Demonstrate to yourself and others that your work of art was indeed work.

I hope promising artists will continue to find expression and instrumentation sufficient to explore and explain their views, their hopes, and their vision. Often, that inner still small voice is quelled by the battering of self-perceived doubts and deficiencies. However, like all things eternal and all things beautiful, art keeps finding footings strong enough to allay apprehensions and endure past mote and mire to fashion tabernacles, temples, and towers reaching ever upward. Never let the barking and bugling of adversaries deteriorate the quiet encouragement of those who give expression to the stirrings of the soul. Keep creating, my dear friends. Eternity is heralding your craft, guiding your hands, and lifting your vision.

Joseph A. Browning

Dr. Joseph A. Browning lives in LaBelle, Idaho, and works as a seminary and institute teacher for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He and his wife, Shanna, have six children. Brother Browning received his PhD in Instructional Design in 2016. His current assignment as a seminary teacher is to coordinate special education methods, protocols, and pedagogies within seminaries and institutes for the Idaho East Region. He loves the outdoors, going on dates with his wife, and spending time with his family.