Art Health

For thousands of years, people have searched for the meaning and beauty of life in music, painting, poetry and other arts. Now scientists are finding that the arts can benefit both your mental and physical health.

Visiting a gallery is not simply about experiencing those things that make us feel better. It helps people to work through their emotions, and leads to an enhanced sense of wellbeing. This means it helps us to develop emotional resilience. Art is everyday therapy for the soul.

BENEFITS OF VISITING AN ART GALLERY

A study showed that, on average, students who visited an art museum performed 9% of a standard deviation higher in their ability to reason critically. These included the students’ observations, interpretations, evaluations, associations, instances of problem findings, comparisons and instances of flexible thinking.

Art is communication and therapy. Art makes us more human, it helps us to communicate in a different, personal language. The stimulus of the creative mind allows people to positively isolate from reality, which provides a mental rest that lowers stress and generates relaxation and happiness. This helps for aggression and nervousness.

Measurement of the steroid stress hormone cortisol is increasingly employed as an objective biomarker of stress. It takes about 15 minutes for a stressor to elicit increased cortisol secretion. Research has explored the impact of positive experiences within a naturalistic setting on cortisol levels. Visiting an art gallery for a brief lunchtime visit substantially influences both the subjective experience of stress, as well as levels of the stress hormone cortisol. It is well known that males are more responsive to stressful events, and those that entered the gallery with high levels of cortisol had a more significant drop in cortisol and stress.

THE BRAIN AND ART