JOURNALWhen Creativity Disappears: Understanding Your Nervous System and Creative Energy
Discover why creative blocks are often about regulation, not inspiration, and what actually helps when you're too tired to create.
You used to have ideas. They'd arrive unbidden – in the shower, on walks, in that drowsy space between sleep and waking. You'd see connections others missed, feel pulled towards projects that lit you up. You made things because you couldn't not make them.
But lately, nothing. Or worse, the ideas come but you have no energy to meet them. Your body feels too heavy. Your mind scatters across a hundred small urgencies that somehow never include the creative work you actually care about.
Maybe you've tried to force it – sat down with your journal, your canvas, your keyboard, waited for something to arrive. And when it didn't, you wondered: why the flip can’t I create anymore?
Your creativity isn't gone. Your nervous system is depleted.
The nervous system behind the block
Creativity isn't just about inspiration or discipline. It requires a particular nervous system state – regulated enough to be present, open enough to play, grounded enough to sustain attention.
When our nervous system is running on fumes – braced against the next demand, holding years of activation, constantly scanning for what needs attention – creative energy becomes a luxury we can't afford. Not because we don't want to create, but because our system is using every available resource just to keep us functioning.
Hyperarousal might look like scattered thoughts, restless energy, starting ten things and finishing none. You have ideas but they feel frantic, untethered. You can't settle into anything long enough for it to deepen.
Depletion shows up differently. A blank mind. Heavy body. The creative spark that used to ignite so easily now feels unreachable, like it belongs to someone else entirely.
Both of these states are natural, and provide valuable information about what your nervous system needs.
Why ‘just create anyway’ doesn't work
There's a particular kind of advice that floats around creative communities: show up anyway. Do it even when you don't feel like it. These snippets of advice suggest discipline over inspiration. And yes, sometimes that works. Sometimes the act of beginning is what opens the door.
But when your nervous system is dysregulated, forcing productivity rarely serves your work or your wellbeing. You might produce something, but at what cost? The depletion deepens. The creative well runs drier.
This is where understanding your body's signals changes everything.
If you're wired and scattered (hyperaroused), creativity needs grounding first. Not discipline, but regulation. Something that helps your system settle enough to focus.
If you're depleted and blank, creativity needs resourcing. Not pushing through, but genuine replenishment. Space for your nervous system to remember it's safe to play again.
The invitation isn't to abandon your creative practice. It's to tend to the conditions that make creating possible.
What creative energy actually needs
I work with a lot of people who've lost touch with their creative energy. Often they're changemakers, carers, people doing meaningful work in the world. They used to make things – art, writing, music, campaigns, projects that felt alive. But somewhere along the way, the demands piled up. The pace accelerated, and creativity fell away.
What I’ve noticed though is that creativity doesn’t just ‘go away’. It's always here, waiting for a nervous system that has capacity to hold it.
When you're hyperaroused – wired, restless, scattered, your body needs to discharge some of that activation before you can settle into creative work.
Movement that's bigger than your usual routine. A walk that's actually vigorous. Dancing in your kitchen. Shaking out your hands and arms.
Breath that emphasises the exhale, signalling to your nervous system it's safe to slow down.
Grounding through your feet. Literally feeling the floor beneath you, the weight of your body, the temperature of the ground.
Not to "get creative" but to create the conditions where your system can regulate enough to focus.
When you're depleted – blank, heavy, disconnected, forcing productivity will only deepen the depletion. What your system needs is genuine nourishment.
Rest that's actually restful, not just scrolling or collapsing in front of a screen.
Connection – with people, with nature, with something that reminds you you're not alone.
Gentle sensory pleasure. Warmth on your skin. A texture you love. Music that reaches something in you.
Permission to not produce anything at all for a while.
This isn't indulgence. It's how your nervous system recovers enough capacity to create again.
The environment matters
Your surroundings have a profound effect on your nervous system state, which means they also affect your creative capacity. Harsh fluorescent lights. Cluttered spaces. Constant noise. Stale air. These aren't just uncomfortable – they're activating. Your nervous system has to work harder to feel safe, which leaves less energy available for creativity.
I'm not suggesting you need a perfect studio or ideal conditions, but small shifts can create surprising spaciousness. Opening a window for fresh air and natural light. Tidying your desk just enough that it doesn't add to the visual overwhelm. Adding something living – a plant, cut flowers, even a bowl of water you can see and touch.
Going outside, even briefly. Feeling your feet on grass or looking up at the sky. Noticing the clouds, trees, the way light moves.
You’re not likely to find these tips in Joe Blogg’s Book of Tips for Productivity, because they’re not hacks. They’re just simple, everday ways of signalling to your nervous system that it’s safe. From that softer place, creativity becomes accessible again.
When the well runs dry
There are seasons when creative work is just not available. Maybe you're in a period of intense caregiving. Or navigating grief. Or simply exhausted from years of giving more than you had to give.
The most creative thing you can do in these times is to deepen your capacity to hold what’s here, even if that’s a creative nothingness. Let your nervous system recover. Let the well refill without demanding it produce anything.
I know this can feel terrifying, especially if creativity has been central to your identity or livelihood. There's a fear that if you stop, you'll never start again. That the inspiration will leave permanently.
But creativity isn't that fragile. Human’s capacity to create is woven into who we are – it is our birthright and it’s our biology. It doesn't disappear because you rest. It waits. And usually it returns in ways that surprise.
The rhythm returns
Creativity has always moved in cycles. High-energy bursts followed by quiet incubation. Periods of visible output and periods of internal gathering.
What we've lost in productivity culture is the understanding that both are necessary. That the fallow times aren't laziness or failure – they're how the soil becomes fertile again.
Your nervous system knows this rhythm. It moves naturally through states of activation and rest, arousal and recovery. When you work with these cycles instead of against them, creativity becomes sustainable. And you trust that each phase serves the others. That the quiet periods aren't absence, but preparation. That the energy will return when your system has the capacity to hold it.
Embracing the ebbs and flows
When you stop pathologising creative ebbs and start understanding them as nervous system information, something shifts.
You stop battling yourself. Stop feeling guilty for not producing when your body is depleted. Stop forcing output when your system needs rest.
You develop the capacity to notice: what does my nervous system need right now to support creative work? And some days the answer is: make the thing. Other days it's: walk outside and look at the birds.
Your relationship with creativity becomes less about discipline and more about attunement. Less about pushing through and more about creating conditions where inspiration can arrive naturally.
And the work you make from this place? It's different. More aligned, more honestly yours.
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Hello, I’m Shannon
I'm a somatic practitioner supporting people who care deeply – changemakers, campaigners, creatives and carers – as they learn to sustain their important work without burning out.
Through gentle, body-led practices, we listen to what you're carrying, release what's ready to shift, and help your nervous system find more ease. My work is trauma-informed and shaped by what emerges in the moment.
If something here resonated – or stirred something you've been sensing – I'd love to hear from you.