Art: A therapy for stress relief and promoting creativity

Art, in its various forms, has been found to be a powerful tool for stress reduction. It provides a distraction, taking the mind off daily worries and anxieties, and lowering stress hormones like cortisol. Engaging in art for just 45 minutes can significantly reduce cortisol levels, leading to feelings of calm and relaxation. Art can also serve as a form of emotional release, allowing us to express and explore difficult emotions that might be bottled up inside. By putting these feelings onto the canvas or into a piece of music, we can gain a better understanding of them and begin to let them go. This cathartic experience can be a powerful way to manage stress and improve overall well-being.

Art can induce a state of mind known as “flow,” where worries and anxieties fade into the background, promoting relaxation and stress reduction. This state can be achieved through various activities, such as colouring in an adult colouring book, taking a pottery class, or doodling in a notebook. The beauty of art as a stress reliever is that it is accessible to everyone, regardless of skill level. Whether you’re colouring in an adult colouring book, taking a pottery class, or simply doodling in a notebook, the act of creating itself can be incredibly therapeutic.

Over the past two decades, there has been a significant increase in research on the effects of the arts on health and well-being. The arts play a crucial role in promoting health and well-being, preventing ill health, and supporting caregiving. It can contribute to a more inclusive and effective approach to health care.

A report synthesizes global evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being, with a specific focus on the WHO European Region. Results from over 900 publications, including over 200 reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-synthesis covering over 3000 studies and 700 further individual studies. It is identified that there is a major role for the arts in the prevention of ill health, promotion of health, and management and treatment of illness across the lifespan.

The report highlights the growing evidence base supporting the role of arts in improving health and well-being. It supports the implementation of arts interventions, such as recorded music for surgery, arts for dementia patients, and community arts programs for mental health. It also emphasizes the added health value of engaging with the arts by ensuring culturally diverse forms are accessible to different groups, especially disadvantaged minorities. The report encourages arts and cultural organizations to integrate health and well-being into their work, promote public awareness of the benefits, and develop interventions that encourage arts engagement for healthy lifestyles.

Music has been found to reduce anxiety, depression, emotional alienation, truancy, aggression, school attendance, self-esteem, cultural empathy, confidence, personal empowerment, and healthy nutrition among children specifically identified as at risk.

Music plays an important role in child development, particularly in mother-infant bonding. Music has been found to enhance maternal nurturing behaviours, reduce stress hormones in mothers and their infants, and increase perceived emotional closeness and the mother-infant bond. As infants grow, multiple studies have shown that singing can affect a number of behaviours associated with mother-infant bonding, leading to more intense engagement, visual attention, and movement reduction than occurs with speech. Arts and shared reading activities have also been found to improve parent-child relationships as children grow up. Research has shown that children who engage in music, particularly during early childhood, have structural differences in grey matter and white matter compared to those who do not. These effects extend to at-risk groups, such as those born prematurely or to dyslexic parents, and seem to be particularly supported by music above other forms of arts engagement. The extent to which these structural changes lead to higher intelligence, better memory, or stronger cognitive processing across childhood is debated, but studies have reported neural changes and significant differences in associated reading skills, sound-processing skills, and speech.

Childhood engagement in arts activities can predict academic performance across the school years, with earlier commencement associated with larger effects. Additionally, the arts facilitate creativity in children and adolescents, with creativity in childhood associated with a lower risk of developing social and behavioural maladjustment issues in adolescence.

The arts can be a valuable tool in palliative or end-of-life care, providing psychological and physical support, opportunities for communication and emotional expression, cognitive reframing of illness experiences, and enhanced social interaction. Arts therapies are associated with lower levels of sadness, anxiety, and depression, and higher well-being, emotional function, and quality of life. Arts activities also foster a sense of community within palliative care settings, improving relationships and communication with family members.

Arts engagement has been linked to greater spiritual satisfaction, providing existential comfort and meaning. Music and art therapy have been associated with physical support, such as relaxation, self-awareness, and reduced distress. Dance can help cope with pain and support people with terminal illness to feel connected with their bodies.

The arts have also been used to improve the environment of end-of-life care, with patient-produced photographs highlighting how surroundings support or hinder feelings of connection, identity, and value. Bereavement can be supported through the arts, such as creating community artworks.

Arts and music activities for families following bereavement can help with loss, support coping, maintain stable mental health, develop support networks, facilitate bond continuation, enhance meaning-making, reduce sadness, and support staff in providing empathetic and compassionate care.

The increasing interest from arts sectors in health is particularly timely and dovetails with several important developments in the global health policy arena. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development all emphasize the importance of engaging with the arts, increasing cultural capital within societies, and potentially promoting resilience, equity, health, and well-being across the life-course.The cross-sectoral nature of the arts and health field through: strengthening structures and mechanisms for collaboration between the culture, social care, and health sectors; considering the introduction or strengthening of lines of referral from health and social care to arts programs; and supporting the inclusion of arts and humanities education within the training of health-care professionals to improve their clinical, personal, and communication skills. The arts have been found to enhance social bonding, foster prosocial behavior, and promote a shared sense of success, physical coordination, attention, motivation, and group identity. They can also form a bridge between different groups, fostering greater social inclusion in patients with dementia, children and adults with disabilities, police and ex-offenders, and adults across different generations.