A One-Week Art Push From Conscientia Health Aims to Ease Year‑End Overwhelm

A short, friendly invitation to pause amid year‑end rush

Conscientia Health’s founder, Dr. Simbiat Adighije, has rolled out an “Art Challenge” meant to give people a simple way to reset during the busy end‑of‑year stretch. The campaign asks participants to spend a few minutes each day for a week on quick creative acts — nothing fancy, no skill required — with the goal of easing stress and sharpening mental clarity.

Who Dr. Adighije is and why this matters now

Dr. Simbiat Adighije is the founder of Conscientia Health, a nonprofit focused on mental wellness and accessible care. She trained in clinical medicine and has spent years working on initiatives that make mental health tools easier to use for everyday people. That background matters here: the challenge is pitched not as art school but as a practical mental break designed by someone used to translating clinical ideas into plain language and short, doable steps.

Small creative acts with a simple aim: calm your mind

The structure of the Art Challenge is intentionally low‑friction. Participants are encouraged to pick one short activity each day for seven days. Typical suggestions include doodling for five to ten minutes, arranging a small collage from magazine cutouts, taking a few photos that capture a mood, or writing a single paragraph about a memory. Materials are everyday items: paper, pens, a phone camera, scraps from around the house.

The challenge emphasizes process over product. You do not need to show anyone your work, and you do not need to aim for beauty. The idea is to give your hands and mind a different task to break patterns of rumination and fatigue. Conscientia Health recommends setting a timer, choosing a quiet corner if possible, and focusing on the sensory parts of the task — the feel of a pen, the smell of glue, the way light hits a photo — to pull attention away from worries.

Beyond the daily activity, the campaign suggests short reflection steps: jot a sentence about how you felt afterwards, or note one image or idea that lingered. These tiny records can help people notice if creative breaks actually change their mood or mental energy over the week.

Why simple creative breaks are getting more attention

Year‑end months bring packed schedules, tighter deadlines and social obligations. Across clinics and mental‑health groups, professionals report rises in burnout, sleeplessness and anxiety as people juggle work and holiday pressures. Low‑barrier tools matter because many popular options — long therapy sessions, multiweek classes — aren’t possible for someone in the middle of a chaotic week.

Short creative tasks are attractive because they can fit between meetings, while food is in the oven, or during a commute. Research and clinical experience suggest that brief periods of focused, pleasant activity can reduce the intensity of negative thoughts and restore attention, at least in the short term. The Art Challenge is positioned as a way to harvest that short‑term benefit in an easy, repeatable form.

What Dr. Adighije said and the tone behind the push

In a statement announcing the challenge, Dr. Adighije framed it as a practical nudge: “We’re not asking people to become artists. We’re asking them to give their minds a small, kind task to do when stress starts to pile up.” The message is gentle and practical, meant to lower the barrier to trying something new.

How to take part and what happens next

Anyone can join. Conscientia Health has shared a short starter guide with daily prompts and suggestions for materials; people can adapt the ideas to their own schedules and resources. The organization invites participants to share images or short notes about their experience on social channels using a campaign tag, or to keep their practice private if they prefer.

Conscientia Health plans to collect informal feedback after the first runs of the challenge to see how people respond and whether participants notice changes in mood or focus. For readers looking for a quick mental reset this season, the Art Challenge offers a zero‑pressure way to try a creative pause and see if it helps — even if only for a few minutes at a time.

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