Hi friends,
Today I want to share some thoughts from Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross. I know from my own experience that doing art in any form is pretty much therapeutic. And I wanted to find scientific evidence about it to talk about it more confidently based on it. And I got what I wanted from this book.
I spent quite a while reading it as the font is tiny, and some parts are written in a rather scientific and dry way, sometimes it felt like wading through research papers. But the ideas I found there were totally worth the effort.
Many of us tend to think of the arts as either entertainment or as an escape. A luxury of some kind. But what this book will show you is that the arts are so much more. They can be used to fundamentally change your day-to-day life. They can help address serious physical and mental health issues, with remarkable results. And they can both help you learn and flourish.
Girija Kaimal, an associate professor in the creative arts therapies program at Drexel University, found that for the majority of people, making art for as little as 45 minutes reduces the stress hormone cortisol, no matter your skill level or experience. Making art is physiologically calming. It's like sleep or a walk: basic wellbeing hygiene.
Work of Daisy Fancourt, a British psychobiology and epidemiology researcher at University College London, found that “people who participated in arts activities more than once a week, or who attended cultural events at least once or twice per year, had significantly higher life satisfaction than those who did not. This was the same across socioeconomic levels. People who engaged in the arts were found to have lower mental distress, better mental functioning, and improved quality of life.”
We live in a highly stressful, changing time and environment. Globally, nearly 1 billion people struggle with their mental health. For the first time since these statistics have been collected, mental illness is increasing at a faster rate than physical disease.
I love how emotions and stress are framed in the book - not as enemies, but signals to process:
You cannot stop the myriad human emotions that arise in you. That's physiologically impossible. And it shouldn't be the goal. Besides, our emotions are not the problem in and of themselves. They are useful biological communicators that have evolved with us over millennia to help us survive. It's getting stuck in our emotions where the problems can arise. The goal, then, is to facilitate how emotions move through you. Mental wholeness is having the inner capacity and resourcefulness to navigate the daily fluctuations of your life, even when you are feeling difficult emotions.
Stress isn't a feeling or an emotion. Rather it's a physiological response to our emotions. There is a well-researched stress cycle:
- The first stage: Alarm
Your body registers the emotion (danger, fear) and activates the autonomic nervous system. Hormones like cortisol and adrenaline surge, heart rate and blood pressure rise, and blood sugar increases to prepare you for fight, flight, or freeze.
- The second stage: Adaptation
If the stress situation isn’t resolved quickly, the body prepares for the long haul by continuing to release stress hormones. This can lead to insomnia, muscle pain, indigestion, allergies or frequent colds, trouble concentrating, impatience, and irritability.
- The third stage: Recovery
When the stressor is removed or processed, the body can return to homeostasis. This recovery stage can happen relatively quickly if the stress cycle is allowed to complete.
If you get stuck in the stress cycle (alarm, adaptation, no recovery), you're burnt out. Burnout is a psychological syndrome that emerges after a prolonged response to chronic stress, where we become exhausted and detached. It is often associated with work, but it can happen in other aspects of our lives, including parenting.
I observe how many emigrants (and emigration is undoubtedly a strong and constant stress) intuitively start singing in choirs or attending pottery workshops, even though they never did it before. This gives community and art practice, which really helps reduce stress and anxiety.
We humans often greatly underestimate the impact of simple regular things: good sleep, quality nutrition, walks in the fresh air. We want a “real medicine”, a “magic pill”, but the truth is that many health problems (physical and psychological) are solved not by tablets, but by these simple regular actions.
Your art practice isn't a waste of time and money, it's an investment in your wellbeing.
My favourite line:
Consumption is the enemy of fulfillment. The more you consume, the less satisfied you become. The more you create, the more energised you feel. Stop getting satisfaction from intake. Start getting it from output. Creation beats consumption. Making beats buying.
I find it really profound. Hope some thoughts were useful for you.
Warmly,
Olya