The Benefits of Creative Arts on Health and Wellness

By Lydia Wallie, Nutrition Director

What do music engagement, visual arts, and expressive writing have in common? They’re all methods that can be employed for fostering better health. Here are some of the main outcomes researched:

Music engagement.

  • Shown to decrease anxiety

  • Restores emotional balance

  • May help to restore effective functioning in the immune system partly via the amygdala and hypothalamus

  • Decreases cortisol

  • Improves mood and decreases depression

Visual Arts.

  • Decreases negative emotions and increases positive ones

  • Improves medical outcomes and trends toward reduced depression

  • Stress and anxiety reduction

  • Increased healing, well-being, and sense of purpose

Expressive Writing.

  • Better immune system functioning

  • Long-term improvements in mood and health

  • Improved control over pain and depressed mood (1)

Find ways to engage yourself with the creative arts and observe how your health and well-being change!

Source:

(1) PMID: 20019311

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