How the Arts Can Benefit Your Mental Health (No Talent Required)
When dr. Frank Clark was in medical school to become a psychiatrist, he decided to write his first poem.
“All that chatter that’s been in my head, everything that I’ve felt, I can just put on paper now and my pen can do the talking,” he said, remembering his thoughts from then.
At the time, he was struggling with depression and relied on a number of things to keep it at bay, including running, therapy, medication, and his faith.
“I had to find something else to fill the void,” he said. It turned out that poetry was the missing piece in his “wellness puzzle.”
“I saw an improvement in my mood,” said Dr. Clark, who now sees patients in Greer, SC. “It gave me another outlet.”
The idea that art can improve mental well-being is something that many people understand intuitively, but can lose sight of — especially if we’ve lost the connection to the dancing, creative writing, drawing, and singing that we enjoyed as children.
But there is “really robust evidence” suggesting that creating art, as well as activities such as attending a concert or visiting a museum, can benefit mental health, said Jill Sonke, research director at the University of Florida Center. for Arts in Medicine.
Here are a few easy ways to improve your mood with art.
Try the three-draw technique
Dr. James S. Gordon, a psychiatrist and the founder of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine, pioneered something called the “three sign technique.” It’s in the new book “Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us.”
“In my experience, art like this goes beyond words to help us understand what’s going on with ourselves and understand what to do with it,” says Dr. Gordon in the book.
You don’t need to be good at drawing – stick figures are OK.
Start drawing yourself quickly; don’t think about it too long. The second drawing should show you with your biggest problem. The third drawing should show you after your problem is solved.
This practice is designed to encourage self-discovery and give people agency in their own healing — and you can do it with or without a therapist, said Susan Magsamen, assistant professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a co-author author of the book.
Color something complicated
If you’re one of the many people who have turned to adult coloring books, it may come as no surprise that research shows that this activity can help alleviate anxiety.
Coloring within the lines, for example of a complicated pattern, appears to be particularly effective. A study one that evaluated students, and another that graded older adultsfound that spending 20 minutes coloring a mandala (a complex geometric design) was more helpful in reducing anxiety than free-form coloring for the same length of time.
Susan Albers, a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic and the author of “50 Ways to Calm Yourself Without Food,” described coloring as a “mini-mental vacation.” Focusing on the texture of the paper and choosing the colors we like makes it easier to shut out distractions and stay in the moment, she said.
“It’s a great form of meditation for people who hate meditation.”
Enjoy more music
Listening to music, playing an instrument or singing can all be beneficial, research shows.
a Study from 2022for example, surveyed more than 650 people in four age groups and asked them to rank the artistic activities that helped them “feel better” during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. The youngest participants, aged 18 to 24, overwhelmingly rated musical activities as most effective. Singing was at the top of the list of activities in all age groups.
Other studies have found that to sing lowers levels of cortisol, a hormone the body releases when it is under stress. If an examplemothers who had recently given birth and regularly sang to their babies had less anxiety.
Ms. Magsamen noted that music can be effective in reducing stress because things like rhythm and repetitive lyrics and chords target multiple parts of the brain.
“I sing in the shower,” said Ms. Magsamen. “I sing at the top of my lungs to the radio.”
Write a poem
Dr. Clark has continued to write poetry since graduating from medical school and provided some tips for those interested in trying it.
First, banish any thoughts that you are not creative enough. “I think we are often our own worst critic,” he said. “I believe anyone can write poetry.”
Start with a simple haiku, suggested Dr. Clark for. Haikus consist of only three lines: the first and last lines have five syllables, and the middle one has seven.
Consider getting your friends involved too – a suggestion from a 2020 paper in the Journal of Medical Humanities exploring the “healing power” of poetry.
As the authors wrote: “Simply by reading a poem once a week, sharing a poem with a friend, or taking five to ten minutes of your own time to write about a favorite memory, a current idea, a concern or hope, can all be effective first. steps in experiencing the benefits of poetry.”