MAKING ART BENEFITS THE BRAIN     

During self-isolation due to coronavirus, many are turning to the arts. Perhaps they seek a creative outlet or opportunity for expression, but it’s also possible that their attraction may be driven by an innate desire to use their brains in ways that make them feel good.

As a professor and arts educator for over 20 years, I have witnessed the mental benefits of an arts-rich life — but don’t take my word for it. There is a powerful and compelling case, supported by cutting-edge research, that the arts have positive effects on mental health.

Mental health issues affect nearly half of the global population, at some point, by age 40. Add to that, recent challenges of the pandemic for maintaining mental wellness, managing fears, and uncertainty, and one thing is clear: it’s time to think differently when it comes to how we engage our minds.

The arts offer an evidence-based solution for promoting mental health. While practicing the arts is not the panacea for all mental health challenges, there’s enough evidence to support prioritizing arts in our own lives at home as well as in our education systems.

FOR MANAGING WELL-BEING — The relationship between the arts and mental health is well established in the field of art therapy, which applies arts-based techniques (like painting, dancing, and role play) as evidence-based interventions for mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression. There is also growing evidence that the arts can be used in non-therapy contexts for promoting mental health, such as using performing arts to learn about the core subject areas in schools or doing visual art with adults who are mentally well and want to sustain that sense of wellness.

In other words, practicing the arts can be used to build capacity for managing one’s mental and emotional well-being.

NEUROESTHETICS — With recent advances in biological, cognitive, and neurological science, there are new forms of evidence on the arts and the brain. For example, researchers have used biofeedback to study the effects of visual art on neural circuits and neuroendocrine markers to find biological evidence that visual art promotes health, wellness, and fosters adaptive responses to stress.

In another study, cognitive neuroscientists found that creating art reduces cortisol levels (markers for stress), and that through art people can induce positive mental states. These studies are part of a new field of research, called neuroesthetics: the scientific study of the neurobiological basis of the arts.

Neuroesthetics uses brain imaging, brain wave technology, and biofeedback to gather scientific evidence of how we respond to the arts. Through this, there is physical, scientific evidence that the arts engage the mind in novel ways, tap into our emotions in healthy ways, and make us feel good.

MINDFULNESS AND FLOW — The arts have also been found to be effective tools for mindfulness, a trending practice in schools that is effective for managing mental health.

Being mindful is being aware and conscious of your thoughts and state of mind without judgment. The cognitive-reflective aspects of the arts, in addition to their ability to shift cognitive focus, make them especially effective as tools for mindfulness. Specifically, engaging with visual art has been found to activate different parts of the brain other than those taxed by logical, linear thinking; and another study found that visual art activated distinct and specialized visual areas of the brain.

In short: the arts create conditions for mindfulness by accessing and engaging different parts of the brain through the conscious shifting of mental states. For those of us who practice regularly in the arts, we are aware of those states, able to shift in and out, and reap the physiological benefits through a neurological system that delights in and rewards cognitive challenges. Neuroesthetic findings suggest this is not an experience exclusive to artists: it is simply untapped by those who do not practice in the arts.

This article was originally published on The Conversation by Brittany Harker Martin at the University of Calgary. Read the original article here.