science
turns out there's loads of science to back up why making something with your hands, and being creative, is so beneficial for us.
take a look at some of the key research below. everything about mush has been built with this in mind.
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1. the neuroscience of making things with your hands
dr kelly lambert and the effort-driven rewards circuit
i came across the work of dr kelly lambert - a behavioural neuroscientist at the university of richmond in virginia - and it completely reframed something i'd felt but couldn't explain.
lambert spent her career studying what she calls the "effort-driven rewards circuit": a network in the brain connecting movement, emotion, and thinking.
when your hands make something tangible, this circuit fires - and your brain releases dopamine and serotonin in response.
here's the key bit: hands activate more of your brain's motor cortex than almost any other part of your body. more than your legs. more than your back.
they're neurologically disproportionate, because for hundreds of thousands of years, they were how we survived. our brains evolved to richly reward using them. then we stopped. and according to lambert, our brains noticed.
she also found that hands-on making likely stimulates neurogenesis - the production of new brain cells. this isn't just relaxation. it's active neurological repair.
she even has a name for what she thinks can help: "behavioraceuticals" — activities, not pills, that modify brain chemistry naturally. i love that framing. i think mush is exactly that.
dr kelly lambert, university of richmonddid we lose something vital to our mental health when we started pushing buttons instead of ploughing fields? from a neuroanatomical point of view, i believe the answer is an emphatic yes.
sources
Lambert, K. (2008).Lifting Depression: A Neuroscientist's Hands-On Approach to Activating Your Brain's Healing Power. Basic Books.
Lambert, K. (2022). Influence of effort-based reward training on neuroadaptive cognitive responses. Neuroscience, 500, 63–78.
2. why making is different from watching
csikszentmihalyi and the flow state
you've probably heard of flow state. but what's actually happening in your brain during it is wilder than most people realise.
flow was named by psychologist mihaly csikszentmihalyi (pronounced - amazingly - "chick-sent-me-high") after he ran one of the largest psychological surveys ever conducted. people everywhere - across cultures, ages, professions - described their best moments in almost identical terms. fully absorbed. time gone. completely present. he called it flow because that's the word that kept coming up.
in 2008, johns hopkins neuroscientist charles limb used fmri scanning to study jazz musicians mid-improvisation. he found that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - the part of your brain responsible for self-criticism and self-doubt - physically deactivated during flow. it didn't just get quieter. it switched off.
researchers call it "transient hypofrontality." your inner critic doesn't take a back seat. it goes home.
compare that to watching tv. research shows people consistently feel the same or worse after watching tv than before they started - mood flat, energy lower. during a creative session, the brain produces a completely different neurochemical cocktail: dopamine, endorphins, serotonin. it's why you feel genuinely restored after making something, rather than just... having passed the time.
csikszentmihalyi found a paradox too: people report being happiest during flow - yet they consistently choose passive leisure instead. we misjudge what will make us feel better. a mush box arriving removes the friction between you and the thing that actually helps.
mihaly csikszentmihalyi, psychologistpeople often report being happiest during flow states, yet they consistently choose passive leisure instead. we misjudge what will make us happy.
sources
Limb, C.J., & Braun, A.R. (2008). Neural substrates of spontaneous musical performance: an fMRI study of jazz improvisation. PLOS ONE.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row.
3. one creative session = feeling better tomorrow
dr tamlin conner and the impact of creativity on wellbeing
this is the study that, honestly, convinced me mush needed to exist.
researchers at the university of otago in new zealand - led by dr tamlin conner - asked 658 young adults to keep a detailed daily diary for 13 consecutive days.
each day they logged their creative activity and reported on three measures of wellbeing: positive affect (enthusiasm, energy), negative affect, and flourishing - a psychological concept covering meaning, purpose, engagement, and social connection in life.
the findings were unambiguous. people felt measurably more enthusiastic and showed significantly higher flourishing scores on the days after they had been creative than on other days.
not after exercise. not after a good night's sleep. after creativity.
but the part that makes this study particularly convincing is that the researchers tested the direction of causality - which actually comes first? they compared creative activity on one day against wellbeing on the next day, and vice versa.
the result was clear: being creative today predicted improved wellbeing tomorrow. but feeling good today did not make people more creative tomorrow. it's a one-way street. creativity causes wellbeing, not the other way around.
dr tamlin conner, university of otagodoing creative things today predicts improvements in well-being tomorrow. full stop.
there's more. the researchers found that this effect compounded over time. a single creative session improved the next day. but regular creative activity appeared to generate an upward spiral - creativity leads to feeling better, feeling better makes more creativity more likely. the habit builds on itself.
two final things that matter specifically to how mush works.
first: trying a new creative activity produces greater wellbeing benefits than repeating a familiar one. novelty stimulates neuroplasticity - your brain's ability to form new connections - in a way that repetition alone doesn't. which is why mush is a different project every single month.
second: skill level makes no difference to the benefits whatsoever. beginners and experts gain equally. you don't need to be good at this. you just need to do it.
sources
Conner, T.S., DeYoung, C.G., & Silvia, P.J. (2018). Everyday creative activity as a path to flourishing.The Journal of Positive Psychology, 13(2), 181–189.