The science of feeling alive: how creativity, play, beauty + wonder shapes your brain, health - and humanity 🧠
👋🏽 I’m Katina, Creative Health Scientist.
I study how creativity works in the brain - and why it’s the most overlooked aspect of our well-being.
Growing up in an immigrant family, I believed creativity was something you did after you were successful, when you were retired, rich or had loads of free time.
But that belief almost broke me. I had it all…and: Burnout, disconnection & that emptiness behind every achievement - the symptoms of what I now call creative starvation.
After getting my Master’s in Clinical Psychology at Columbia University and building my company, Daydreamers, I analyzed the creative behaviors of thousands of adults.
I became obsessed with understanding: What if creativity isn’t just a talent or luxury - but a fundamental aspect of being human? And, what if our lack of creativity in daily life is exactly what’s keeping us from feeling most alive?
This newsletter is my public research lab: It’s where I dissect the science behind Creative Health, the frameworks I’m building to support it and the movement I’m starting to make creativity accessible to everyone - not just artists.
I’ll not only be sharing a behind-the-scenes look at my upcoming book, Ted Talk and other personal creative projects, but breaking down exactly why your brain needs play, beauty, and wonder…just as much as it needs sleep.
Welcome 🫶🏽 And remember: Your creative brain is ancient. It’s our responsibility to keep using it, every day. Not because it’s “productive” - but because you are human.
How to join Creative Health
Every creative brain is different - choose the level works best for you!
🧠 CreativeRx
Think of this as my public-facing research notebook.
Every week, I share my observations on how my own creative brain is interacting with the world - and yours can, too. It’s a peek into what I’m noticing as a Creative Health Scientist: Ideas, concepts, practices and findings I can’t stop thinking about.
Think of it as a dose of creative thinking to restore your brain in an exhausting, overwhelming world. Here are some of my favorite recent reads:
→ Your creative brain doesn’t care if it’s ugly
→ The Renaissance Person is back: why “niching down” is bad for your creative health
→ We just entered the year of Creative Vitality
🌾 Field Notes
Behind-the-scenes access to building and shaping the field of Creative Health. If you want to support this work, believe in this movement and/or want to expand your own creativity - this is how!
Field Notes (fka Deep Dives) is my private research lab - it’s where I share all the juicy stuff I’m discovering before it's polished…or public.
It’s truly where the Creative Health field is getting built - with early-stage research, frameworks and practices that you get to test out & a community that’s shaping what comes next for creative fulfillment in our world today.
Choosing to be part of Field Notes gets you access to:
Field Guides (bi-monthly): Long-form, research-backed pieces on the science of Creative Health. Think - how creativity impacts your brain, health, thinking, coping and capacity to flourish. These are neuroscience deep-dives, practices you can actually use in your creativity and even chapters from the book!
Discourse Club (monthly): Live gatherings where we dig into ideas, articles or big questions - and practice creative thinking as a community. Sometimes it's just us, sometimes I bring in experts.
Office Hours (ongoing): Direct access to me. You can ask questions, give feedback on talks I'm preparing or chapters I'm writing, explore topics in Creative Health together. Sometimes via messaging, sometimes live conversations!
Full Archive: Everything I've written on Creative Health. All past Field Guides, research and tools. There’s a lot 🤓
First Access: Early invites to anything happening in my work / at Daydreamers - research studies, new tools, beta programs, etc.
Think of Field Notes as our club. Our Creative Health community. And, if you care about this work being in the world - it’s your way of helping us all be a little bit more creatively healthy, too 🫶🏽
🤓 Daydreamers Labs
Daydreamers is truly where all this work began. After years of building tools that strengthen Creative Health across the lifespan and impacting thousands of members lives, we’re back to our research roots.
If you want to be part of creative research sessions and experiments, get early access to the tools we're building and shape what Daydreamers builds next, join the waitlist here:
One last idea:
In my view, Creative Health isn’t just a series of emails. It’s the seeds of a movement.
And, every single one of you who chooses to subscribe helps prove to the world that creativity isn’t some “nice to have.” It’s not something we can demean, defund or deprioritize any longer. It’s essential for our brains, our health and our humanity.
The more of us who believe that? The harder it becomes to ignore.
So thank you. For being here. For caring about this work. For choosing to make your creative brain a priority 🫶🏽🧠
Let’s build this together. From my brain to yours!
