What does leisure have to do with mental health–arts, creative and leisure practices and living with mental distress

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the role of leisure, arts and creative activities in cultivating health and wellbeing across different contexts. Leisure sports have historically been considered beneficial for achieving health, and similar focus has recently been placed on arts and creativity. Recent research into the role of arts and creative engagement for wellbeing highlights the benefits of these modes of engagement on emotional wellbeing and social connectedness. In this article, we examine the ways arts, creative and leisure practices and mental health converge, co-exist and collide. We draw on feminist leisure studies scholarship and Sarah Ahmed’s work on emotion to discuss insights from our research into the everyday experiences of people living with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD). We utilise qualitative methods to investigate people’s experiences of meaningful leisure practices and the dynamics between leisure practices and living well with the distress. We explore how leisure activities initiate complex processes of discovery and production of meanings, identity and wellbeing. Our discussion emphasises that leisure practices contribute to producing everyday forms of self-care and provide transformative space for self-discovery yet are simultaneously inseparable from the politics of living with mental distress while navigating accumulated effects of distress.