Have you done anything creative today?<\/p>\n
Research shows that creativity<\/a> boasts remarkable mental health benefits, including emotion regulation<\/a>, cognitive flexibility, and social connectedness (Jean-Berluche, 2024).<\/p>\n Whether you\u2019re painting, writing, playing music, or making a craft, art can provide imaginative ways to express ideas and feelings, a process that can be therapeutic. The important thing is to focus on the process, not the product, in order to tap into the full mental health benefits of art (Kumar et al., 2024).<\/p>\n One study found that both active (e.g., painting) and passive (e.g., walking around an art museum) engagement with the arts consistently activates neural circuits in the brain associated with emotion<\/a> regulation, offering a glimpse into the mechanisms underlying the association with art and better mental health (Barnett & Vasiu, 2024).<\/p>\n Daisy Fancourt, PhD, Professor of Psychobiology and Epidemiology, and Head of the Social Biobehavioural Research Group at University College London, has focused her research on the connection between the arts and health. In her new book, Art Cure<\/a>, she shares insights from her research findings on art and mental health and offers tips on practicing creativity in the same way we prioritize diet and exercise for better health.<\/p>\n Heather Rose Artushin: Share a bit about your background and what inspired you to write Art Cure.<\/p>\n Daisy Fancourt: I\u2019ve worked as a scientist researching how the arts affect our health for 15 years. But when I tell people what I do, they\u2019ve rarely heard about the evidence base\u2014it has remained this bizarrely well-kept secret. <\/p>\n People often talk about their own experiences of feeling happier or more relaxed when they engage in the arts, but they are often unaware that there is this incredible evidence base comprising thousands of studies using neuroimaging, physiological monitoring, blood samples, wearable sensors, big data, even DNA<\/a>. So my inspiration with Art Cure was to share this incredible science to hopefully transform the way people think about and engage with the arts in their own lives.<\/p>\n HRA: How can everyday acts of creativity improve our mental health? <\/p>\n DF: The arts are a remarkable tool for supporting mental health. At a psychological level, creative activities can help us to understand, process, and regulate our emotions, build a sense of control and mastery, help us build positive self-identities and self-esteem<\/a>, and provide us with meaning and purpose. <\/p>\n At a physiological level, when we engage in creative activities, we activate reward centers at the heart of our brains involved in our pleasure response, including increasing levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine<\/a>, which is involved in feelings of happiness<\/a>. We also experience decreases in stress<\/a> hormones<\/a> like cortisol and autonomic nervous system<\/a> activity, leading to lower heart rate and blood pressure. We even experience changes in our immune systems, with regular arts engagement helping to lower levels of inflammation that are linked to both our physical and our mental health.<\/p>\n HRA: Why do you think, despite this evidence for its benefits, that the majority of adults don\u2019t engage in creative pursuits on a regular basis? What barriers are there to creative expression in adulthood? <\/p>\n DF: Unfortunately, just one in 20 American adults engages with the arts on a day-to-day basis. And just one in six reads for pleasure each day. Some of the reasons for this are practical ones\u2014people might not have access to arts venues, or there may be financial and logistical barriers. But arts engagement is something we could all do in our homes. The barriers here, though, are often more psychological\u2014not feeling we\u2019re \u201cgood\u201d at art, or \u201ccreative\u201d or \u201cartistic,\u201d or not knowing how to do arts or crafts activities. Most of all, many people are unaware that engaging in the arts is a health behavior, like exercise and diet, that can have tangible and sizable benefits for our health. Fortunately, as I show in Art Cure, there are simple behavioral science hacks we can all use to identify and unblock these barriers.<\/p>\n HRA: How can we work to include the arts as a pillar of health, alongside sleep, diet, and exercise? <\/p>\n