When Thinking Harder Stops Working

Why anxiety is often a sign to change brain state, not mindset, and how creativity became a core VANTA teaching

I want to start this somewhere honest, because that’s where this work actually began.

Recently, I noticed myself feeling more anxious than usual. Not overwhelmed, not spiralling, not dysfunctional. Just tighter. Mentally busier. Less internal space. The kind of anxiety that doesn’t stop you functioning, but quietly drains colour, creativity, and ease from everything you do.

What stood out immediately was that nothing external was “wrong”.

Work was progressing. VANTA was evolving. Training was consistent. Life was full, but contained. From the outside, everything looked fine. And yet internally, I could feel my brain working too hard, trying to manage things that didn’t actually need managing.

That’s a familiar pattern for me. And for many of the women I work with.

When something feels off, the instinct is to think more. Refine the plan. Analyse the feeling. Optimise the system. Solve the discomfort. It’s a strength. It’s also the very thing that can keep the nervous system stuck. So instead of asking what was wrong with me, I asked a different question.

What mode am I stuck in?

That question is what led me back to creativity. Not creativity as output, or branding, or expression. Creativity as state. As regulation. As a way of changing how the brain is operating, not what it is thinking about.

That’s also what led me back to the work of Dr Martha Beck, whose approach to anxiety and creativity I’ve always respected, but this time experienced from the inside rather than the intellectual lens.

What became clear very quickly is something we now teach explicitly at VANTA. Anxiety is not always a sign that something in your life needs fixing. Sometimes it’s a sign that your brain is stuck in a mode that no longer fits the complexity of your reality.

 The Brain That Tries to Help by Overworking
One of the most useful ways to understand anxiety is not as an emotional failure, but as a neurological strategy that has outlived its usefulness.

Dr Martha Beck often describes anxiety as a state where the brain is dominated by a narrow, verbal, problem-solving mode. This is sometimes referred to as left-hemisphere dominance. That framing is a simplification, but it captures something very real in lived experience.

In this state, the brain is busy. It narrates constantly. It predicts, plans, worries, and scans for risk. It believes safety will come through understanding and control. This mode evolved to solve immediate, concrete problems. It is excellent at logistics, planning, and analysis. It is not designed to hold uncertainty, transition, or emotional complexity.

When the brain cannot find a clear solution, it does what it knows best. It thinks more. This is the biggest trap and this is why anxiety so often gets worse when you sit still and try to reason your way out of it.

I recognised this pattern in myself immediately. The mental tightness wasn’t coming from fear. It was coming from over-responsibility. From a brain that had been running in high-functioning mode for too long without switching states.

And that’s when the realisation landed. Calm wasn’t going to come from better thinking. It was going to come from changing how my attention was organised.

Why Creativity Calms the Brain Without Trying To
Creativity is often misunderstood as something decorative or optional. A nice extra once the real work is done. In reality, creativity is one of the most reliable ways to move the brain out of threat and into safety, because it changes what the brain is doing at a fundamental level.

When you create without a goal, without evaluation, without outcome pressure, the brain stops scanning for problems and starts sensing patterns. Awareness widens. Time softens. The nervous system downshifts without being forced. This isn’t about distraction. It’s about state change.

I didn’t come back to creativity because I wanted to produce anything. I came back to it because I could feel my system needed a wider channel. Less compression. Less narration. More presence. What surprised me was how quickly the shift happened when I stopped trying to use creativity as a tool and simply let it be an experience.

That insight now sits at the heart of how we teach regulation at VANTA.

 Creativity as Regulation, Not Expression
At VANTA, we don’t frame creativity as self-expression. We frame it as nervous system literacy.

The women who come to us are not lacking insight. They are not disconnected from their bodies. They are often deeply aware, highly capable, and extremely responsible.

What they are lacking is permission to stop managing themselves. Creativity provides that permission, but only when it is unstructured and non-performative. The moment creativity becomes productive, the thinking brain takes over again.

This is why so many women say they are “not creative”, while simultaneously feeling calm when walking in nature, cooking intuitively, rearranging a space, or moving without choreography. The nervous system doesn’t care what you call it. It cares about the state.

 The VANTA Creativity and Calm Protocol
This protocol emerged directly from my own experience and was refined through client work. It is intentionally simple, because complexity activates the very mode we are trying to shift away from.

This is not something you do to calm down. It’s something you do to change state, and calm follows if it wants to.

Begin by orienting to the body. Sit or stand comfortably and bring attention to physical sensation. Not the idea of your body, but the felt experience. The contact of your feet with the ground. The weight of your body. The temperature of the air. Let sensation come before words.

Thoughts will still arise. That’s fine. You’re not trying to stop them. You’re just not following them.

After a minute or two, introduce a sensory anchor. Sound, touch, or sight works well. Something simple and neutral. This gives the nervous system a reference point outside of internal narration.

Once you feel a slight softening, move into free creation. Choose one medium only. Writing, drawing, movement, or making. Set a short container, five to seven minutes.

There is one rule. No editing. No judging. No fixing.

If you write, keep the pen moving without rereading. If you draw, don’t aim for an image. If you move, let sensation lead rather than choreography.

Focus on the feeling of the pen. The movement of breath. The weight of your body. Finish by noticing your internal state, not to assess it, but to acknowledge it. Wider, quieter, less urgent are common experiences, but there is no right outcome. What matters is repetition, not performance.

 How This Became Part of VANTA Teaching
VANTA is not about eliminating stress. It’s about building capacity.

Physical training teaches the body that effort is survivable. Aerobic work teaches the nervous system to regulate stress over time. Creativity teaches the brain that not everything needs to be solved.

These elements work together.

When I noticed my own anxiety shift through creative state change rather than problem-solving, it became clear that this wasn’t personal. It was a method.

The modern, high-performing female nervous system is often over-trained in cognition and under-supported in regulation through play, intuition, and non-verbal awareness. This is why creativity should be integrated into your toolkit,  alongside strength, conditioning, recovery, and sleep. Not as an optional extra, but as a core capacity.

Midlife Is a State Change, Not a Breakdown
Midlife often gets framed as a problem to fix. Hormones to manage. Energy to recover. Motivation to rebuild. In reality, it is a neurological transition as much as anything else.

The strategies that worked earlier in life stop delivering the same returns. Thinking harder increases fatigue. Pushing more increases resistance. Control creates tension instead of safety. This is not failure. It is feedback.

Creativity becomes essential here because it allows the nervous system to reorganise around meaning rather than control. This is why so many women feel drawn to new forms of expression, learning, or identity in this phase. Their own body, their instincts direct them to it.

At VANTA, we don’t suppress that impulse. We translate it into grounded, usable practices that support both performance and wellbeing.

 Anxiety as Information, Not an Enemy
One of the most important shifts for me personally, and one we teach explicitly, is this:

Anxiety is not always a sign you need to change your life. Sometimes it’s a sign you need to change how you are relating to life. When the brain is stuck in constant narration, creativity opens another door. A quieter one. A wider one. That’s what I experienced myself. Not dramatically. Not instantly. But reliably.

Coming Back to a Wider Mind
The goal is not to eliminate anxiety forever. That would be unrealistic and unnecessary. The goal is to recognise when your system is stuck in a narrow channel and know how to open it again.

Creativity is one of the most accessible ways to do that. Not polished creativity. Not productive creativity. Just the kind that reminds the brain it is more than a problem-solving machine.

This is where Dr Martha Beck’s work and VANTA’s philosophy meet. In the understanding that growth, regulation, and performance do not come from force.

They come from alignment. And alignment begins not by thinking harder, but by listening differently.