When I engage in art making I relax. I enter my happy place where I can stay for hours without realising the time passing. You can try to. You do not need to have any artistic talent to benefit from creative activities.
The process of making is enough to offer some healing and tranquillity. You do not need to even create any masterpiece or anything at all, you can just simply play with patterns, colours or just doodle.
You can also keep it to yourself, you do not need to show it to the world. I personally have an art journal, a sketchbook, where I just try things out, doodle, make a note of a motivational quote and decorate a page with it and treat it as a form of diary which I engage with at least for 10-15 min. a day. You can have a diary like that too.
I have also participated in making a short video about my art with fellow champions from Time to Change Greenwich Hub, to show how art may start a meaningful conversation about mental health.
The film is now available on YouTube