Integrating art and creativity into your life, even for a few minutes a day, can have positive effects on your mental and physical health, according to scientific studies. Incorporating them can slow cognitive decline, reduce heart disease risk and improve well-being as you age.
Engaging in the arts is the “forgotten fifth pillar of health,” alongside diet, sleep, exercise and nature, said Daisy Fancourt, a professor studying the effect of the arts on people’s health, in her new book, “Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives.” There are plenty of ways to integrate creativity into your life, even if you aren’t a particularly artistic person.
Check out local resources
Spending time indulging in creative pastimes can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be to reap health benefits. Look for inexpensive opportunities in your community. If you have museums or other cultural institutions nearby, “see if they offer any hours free of charge,” said The New York Times.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Latest Videos From
Check with your library to see whether it offers free passes to some of these places, too, Fancourt said to the outlet. Local churches might hold musical performances that cost nothing. You can also check out plays put on by local schools or community theaters. They are not as expensive as a professional production, and it’s a “lovely way of supporting local artists.”
Introduce creativity into your social life
Try swapping drinks or dinner with your friends and family for more creative activities. When Fancourt meets up with her sister, “we often do mindful coloring,” she said. It doesn’t have to be a formal endeavor; you can just get together with people and discuss your latest creative endeavors. Making it a group activity may motivate you to continue injecting creativity into your daily life.
Find an activity that meets your current needs
With so many facets to the creative life, there is bound to be an endeavor that scratches an itch. Think about “which psychological needs aren’t being met in your life,” said The Guardian. If you’re feeling out of control in your everyday life, “pick a hobby that lets you take the lead without needing instruction,” such as “drawing, creative writing or clay modeling.”
If you want to acquire a new proficiency, try tasks that will “allow you to develop a new skill.” Giving yourself a goal to work toward, like a “performance or a gift to give to friends,” can be a “good motivator.” Remember that failure is “essential to building a sense of accomplishment,” so if those scarves you knitted unravel, “practicing dealing with such failures can build your sense of resilience.”
Spend time in nature
Immersing yourself in nature can help you link to your brain’s creative side. In a study titled “Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning Through Immersion in Natural Settings,” a group of hikers who spent four days in nature without devices increased performance on a creativity/problem solving task by 50%.
Nature, in this study, provided “emotionally positive stimuli,” said VeryWell Mind. By reducing phone and computer use, the participants weren’t “switching tasks or multitasking, attending to sudden events, maintaining task goals or inhibiting irrelevant actions.” Spending quality time outdoors improved the group’s creativity test scores because stepping away from technology and into nature helps you “think creatively about solutions and alternative options.”
Embrace the new
Diversity of arts experiences is “just as important as frequency of engagement,” said New Scientist. Every creative encounter offers “different sensory treats for our brains and bodies,” each with its own health benefits. Experiment with different versions of creative experience, heading for “moderate novelty” that is “outside your comfort zone, but still something you think you will enjoy.” Also, focus your engagement on real-life interactions over virtual, as “screen-based arts activities tend to be the ultra-processed foods of the arts world.”
