Quick Fix: Drawing as Stress Relief
How To! with Mike Pesca
Peach Fish Projects
4.3 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 June 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this bonus episode for Slate Plus members, our conversation about harnessing the power of drawing continues as Wendy MacNaughton walks Courtney through a drawing meditation that helps people relax and refocus.
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The show is produced by Rosemary Belson, with Kevin Bendis. Our technical director is Merritt Jacob and our supervising producer is Joel Meyer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone, I'm Susie Weiss, and I've noticed there's just simply not enough podcasts in the world. So I'm launching my own. Let's go. Let's go, baby. Second Thought is a weekly show about pop culture. The stuff everyone's been binging, arguing about, obsessing over. Here's the thing about heated rivalry. I mean, even the most devoted swifties, I think we can agree, not our best work. We'll be hosting thoughtful conversations with culture's most important figures. Talk about genius. |
| 0:22.6 | Talk about generational talent. |
| 0:23.7 | Coming to headphones near you |
| 0:24.8 | on April 17th with a first guest you won't want to miss. Available wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:34.8 | Welcome to Quick Fix, a special bonus episode from How To. |
| 0:39.4 | Today, I'm bringing you part of my conversation with artist and author and my dear friend Wendy McNaughton. |
| 0:45.4 | In the main episode, we talked about how drawing can help you be present and see things you overlook in everyday life. |
| 0:51.4 | But drawing also might be just the thing we need right now for dealing with |
| 0:55.1 | this overwhelming world. Tell us about how drawing can calm our nervous systems. |
| 1:03.7 | Because as discussed, this is a moment of absolute panic, trauma, re-trauma, instability, grief, violence. |
| 1:17.0 | I mean, it's just like, the list goes on and on, man. |
| 1:19.9 | I mean, life in a poly crisis, am I right? |
| 1:22.3 | So all of us are feeling, and not all of us, I won't speak for everyone. |
| 1:25.9 | A lot of us are feeling, not all of us, I won't speak for everyone. A lot of us are feeling very emotionally, uh, disregulated. What can drawing do to help us calm down and get grounded again? |
| 1:38.8 | Drawing can help us calm down and get grounded again. That's exactly what it can do. |
| 1:43.3 | Okay, how? How does that work? You can do it |
| 1:45.8 | by drawing. So drawing is kind of this magic tool that we can use. All we need is a pen and a piece |
| 1:54.1 | of paper and a few minutes and it can lower our heart rate. It can help our focus. It drops our |
| 1:59.3 | shoulders. It helps us process hard feelings. |
| 2:02.6 | Thoughts come up and kind of let them go through and we'll feel different when we finish making a |
| 2:09.8 | simple drawing. Then we start, I think what's key to this is that it's not a quote unquote good |
| 2:14.6 | drawing. We're not talking about doing some, I don't know, like a |
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