Summary: Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen

Your Mind on Art (2023) presents extra­or­di­nary obser­va­tions into how cre­ative pur­suits and aes­thet­ics – from melodies and rhythms to sketch­ing and indoor styling – can recon­fig­ure our brains and enhance our lifestyles.

Introduction: Discover the myriad ways you can experience a better life through art and design

There’s a high like­li­hood that you are some­what acquaint­ed with the realm of art heal­ing. You could visu­al­ize in your thoughts dis­tressed youths being urged to com­mu­ni­cate their emo­tions through illus­tra­tions and art­work. How­ev­er, the ver­i­fied meth­ods and ther­a­peu­tic mer­its of art extend far beyond this.

Amidst a wealth of data from med­ical exper­i­ments and peer-reviewed analy­ses, you will encounter a vari­ety of meth­ods aimed at enhanc­ing your gen­er­al men­tal well-being and health. Every instant of every­day life, your sens­es – togeth­er with your mind – are absorb­ing and inter­pret­ing the world around you. And with­in this abstrac­tion, you’ll find out how the rou­tine employ­ment of art has the capa­bil­i­ty to reor­ga­nize your brain and enrich every facet of your life.

Our receptivity to aesthetics

Before delv­ing into the diverse ther­a­peu­tic advan­tages that art can deliv­er, we must pose two crit­i­cal inquiries. The pri­ma­ry one being, What con­sti­tutes art? And the sec­ondary one is, How do we inter­pret art on a bio­log­i­cal stratum?

While indi­vid­u­als have been debat­ing the frame­work of art for gen­er­a­tions, for the aims of our dis­cus­sion, we intend to encom­pass a broad spec­trum. In real­i­ty, we are going to take inspi­ra­tion from the Irish poet John O’Dono­hue who artic­u­lat­ed, “Art is the core of consciousness.”

This may seem a tad enig­mat­ic, but in some regard, it’s quite uncom­pli­cat­ed too. Art is omnipresent. It’s in the out­line of your car­pet, the form of your pot­ted flo­ra, and the con­fig­u­ra­tion of your furnishings.

Magsamen and Ross have craft­ed a phrase for this con­scious­ness; it’s termed pos­sess­ing an aes­thet­ic approach. If you by now boast a strong aes­thet­ic approach, you might be the sort of per­son who fre­quents art muse­ums, is often stirred by melodies, and is obser­vant of a cham­ber’s inte­ri­or scheming.

Nev­er­the­less, whether you’re cog­nizant of it or not, you’re inces­sant­ly being influ­enced by aes­thet­ics. The hue of the walls, the illu­mi­na­tion, and the sound aura of your cur­rent sit­ting space are all affect­ing you. Pos­sess­ing an aes­thet­ic approach mere­ly sig­ni­fies that you have an under­stand­ing of this inter­re­la­tion and are pre­pared to cap­i­tal­ize on it.

This brings us to the sub­se­quent issue of the phys­i­o­log­i­cal impact art has on us. As human beings, we are con­tin­u­ous­ly inter­pret­ing our set­ting through our sens­es. What we glimpse, what we lis­ten to, what we smell, the tem­per­a­ture and com­po­si­tion of the items we touch – these are the aes­thet­ics of our back­drop, and they are being absorbed and ana­lyzed on a moment-by-moment basis.

All of this holds the poten­tial to alter your emo­tion­al state. Fra­grances, sounds, and col­ors can cause a surge or dip in your blood pres­sure. They can spur the dis­charge of stress hor­mones. Or they can induce a sen­sa­tion of tran­quil­i­ty, safe­ty, and sleepiness.

A large por­tion of this tran­spires on a sub­con­scious tier. Neu­ro­science informs us that mere­ly 5% of your cog­ni­tive process­es are con­scious. The remain­der is tran­spir­ing with­out your delib­er­ate con­sid­er­a­tion. Your sens­es are being processed and your emo­tions are man­i­fest­ing sub­con­scious­ly. Yet by height­en­ing your aware­ness – or your aes­thet­ic mind­set – you can con­sid­er all of this and embark on using art to insti­tute endur­ing adjust­ments to your life and welfare.

Tackling tension, unease, and distress

There’s a like­li­hood you might har­bor a mixed sen­ti­ment toward art. Maybe some­one relayed to you dur­ing your for­ma­tive years that you lacked an innate flair for art, and ever since then, you sim­ply held the belief that art was des­ig­nat­ed for others.

If there is mere­ly one ele­ment you accu­mu­late from this syn­op­sis, let it be the com­pre­hen­sion that you are not required to be an artis­tic vir­tu­oso to yield the ben­e­fits of art. Form­ing some­thing with your hands, whether it’s a pen­cil-and-paper illus­tra­tion or a minia­ture clay fig­ure, is its own ful­fill­ment. A research endeav­or at Drex­el Uni­ver­si­ty dis­cov­ered that indi­vid­u­als can dimin­ish their cor­ti­sol stress hor­mone lev­els by devot­ing a mere 45 min­utes to art cre­ation. The study addi­tion­al­ly remarked that their pro­fi­cien­cy or prowess in art was of no con­se­quence. Craft­ing art is paci­fy­ing on a phys­i­o­log­i­cal level.

How­ev­er, that’s mere­ly the start­ing point. There have been numer­ous inves­ti­ga­tions in the past few decades link­ing to art ther­a­py. The find­ings sig­ni­fy that cre­at­ing art in a judg­ment-free back­drop can also bol­ster your immune respons­es, your vas­cu­lar respon­sive­ness, and your psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being.

In real­i­ty, you are not man­dat­ed to cre­ate art to derive cer­tain ben­e­fits from it. A 2020 probe at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don dis­closed that those who attend cul­tur­al func­tions at least once annu­al­ly were dis­cerned to have low­er psy­cho­log­i­cal anguish and an enhanced stan­dard of liv­ing – irre­spec­tive of their finan­cial tier.

Even though there is a belief that humans can under­go over 30,000 dis­tinct sen­sa­tions, we fur­ther pos­sess the ten­den­cy to become emo­tion­al­ly locked in cer­tain par­tic­u­lar emo­tion­al lanes. This can be inca­pac­i­tat­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly if the emo­tions trig­ger unease, stress, or despon­den­cy. Art has the exclu­sive capa­bil­i­ty of alter­ing how we feel as our sen­so­ry accep­tance is part of a com­pli­cat­ed, inter­con­nect­ed neur­al circuit.

Recall the last instance you abrupt­ly heard a melody that had escaped you since your high school days. Sim­ply a few sec­onds of that melody can evoke a range of emo­tions. It can haul you back to a very pre­cise time and place.

Aro­mas and savors like­wise hold a robust influ­ence. A par­tic­u­lar fra­grance or the taste of a spe­cif­ic dish can pro­voke a seem­ing­ly ignored child­hood mem­o­ry in vibrant detail. In this approach, sound ther­a­py is some­times inte­grat­ed with dia­logue ther­a­py due to its estab­lished advan­tages in mod­er­at­ing stress.

This is an invalu­able poten­cy. When you have lin­gered so long in an emo­tion­al rut that you are under­go­ing burnout, an image, a sound, an aro­ma, can facil­i­tate you snap­ping out of it and encoun­ter­ing a brief spell of tran­scen­dent tranquility.

In numer­ous cir­cum­stances, art pos­sess­es the extra­or­di­nary capac­i­ty to reroute your thoughts else­where. One method has been so effi­ca­cious it goes back to ancient civ­i­liza­tions. For Tibetans, the man­dala rep­re­sents a cir­cu­lar com­po­si­tion hous­ing col­or­ful, hal­lowed geo­met­rics with­in that is uti­lized to com­ple­ment med­i­ta­tive rou­tines. In the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, Carl Jung dis­cov­ered that as indi­vid­u­als filled in the geo­met­rics with­in the man­dala, it aid­ed them in nav­i­gat­ing their intri­cate emo­tion­al exis­tences and arriv­ing at the uni­fy­ing focal point.

Recent exam­i­na­tions have stood firm on the posi­tio­Jung’s notions. An inves­ti­ga­tion dis­closed in the Art Ther­a­py peri­od­i­cal exhib­it­ed notably dimin­ished lev­els of unease in indi­vid­u­als who engaged with man­dalas, con­trast­ed with those who exe­cut­ed unin­hib­it­ed sketch­ing on a vacant piece of paper. The ana­lysts opined that the man­dala neces­si­tat­ed just enough con­cen­tra­tion and intri­ca­cy to paci­fy and redi­rect a patien­t’s thoughts away from wor­ri­some rumi­na­tions. This “switch­ing-off” influ­ence that art can offer has proved to be invalu­able in terms of enhanc­ing men­tal well-being.

The for­ma­tion of art has been asso­ci­at­ed with the gen­er­a­tion of sero­tonin and endor­phins, which are linked to a more joy­ful, more emo­tion­al­ly unbarred frame of mind. This unbarred atti­tude is cru­cial when address­ing post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der as PTSD essen­tial­ly rep­re­sents an endur­ing con­di­tion where­in a trau­mat­ic inci­dent is impris­oned in our body and mind. It could be a dis­tress­ing, vio­lent expe­ri­ence, or a painful rift with a com­pan­ion. Either way, you haven’t been capa­ble of deal­ing with the instinc­tu­al emo­tion­al reac­tion. It’s become stag­nant and, under appro­pri­ate con­di­tions, it can resur­face once more and incite your stress hor­mones and ner­vous sys­tem into overactivity.

Thank­ful­ly, there has been an abun­dance of inves­ti­ga­tion in recent times explor­ing how an array of art tech­niques can aid in mit­i­gat­ing PTSD and harm­ful stress. Dra­ma ther­a­py, dance ther­a­py, paint­ing, sculpt­ing — all of these are meth­ods that can empow­er an indi­vid­ual to scru­ti­nize and artic­u­late their inner sen­ti­ments — which is a cru­cial phase in mit­i­gat­ing PTSD. For instance, dra­ma ther­a­py per­mits the indi­vid­ual an oppor­tu­ni­ty to step out of them­selves and to boost their own capac­i­ty for empa­thy by por­tray­ing oth­er indi­vid­u­als. And one peer-reviewed study dis­played that pro­grams involv­ing draw­ing yield­ed an over 80 per­cent decline in PTSD symptoms.

In the sub­se­quent sec­tion, we will shift away from stress and anx­i­ety and delve deep­er into oth­er phys­i­cal­ly ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fits that art can bestow.

Addressing discomfort and fostering physical well-being

We have already dis­cussed some of the occur­rences with­in your body dur­ing sen­so­ry encoun­ters, but it’s vital to acknowl­edge that this pro­gres­sion is not mere­ly psy­cho­log­i­cal — it’s phys­i­cal as well. The con­fig­u­ra­tion and oper­a­tions of your cells are also altered — ren­der­ing your reac­tion to art both phys­i­o­log­i­cal and biological.

Con­sid­er neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, for exam­ple. This is the capa­bil­i­ty your brain pos­sess­es to recon­fig­ure neur­al net­works and mod­i­fy its func­tion­ing. This evo­lu­tion does­n’t occur overnight, nat­u­ral­ly, but it does occur when you alter your sur­round­ings or adopt new rou­tines, such as inte­grat­ing a new art reg­i­men into your dai­ly sched­ule. This aids in elu­ci­dat­ing why an increas­ing num­ber of indi­vid­u­als are being pro­vid­ed with a pre­scrip­tion for art, both as a ther­a­peu­tic inter­ven­tion and as a pre­ven­tive measure.

Sev­er­al med­ical insti­tu­tions are catch­ing on to the advan­tages of the aes­thet­ic atti­tude as well. While craft­ing reha­bil­i­ta­tion envi­ron­ments, many hos­pi­tals take into account the col­or of paint and oth­er inter­nal design ele­ments. Aro­mather­a­py is being uti­lized to aid in alle­vi­at­ing nau­sea, and video games are now a preva­lent tool in the treat­ment of patients in recov­ery from a stroke. By and large, it’s not unusu­al to wit­ness art prac­ti­tion­ers col­lab­o­rat­ing with clin­i­cal per­son­nel in devis­ing patient care schemes at hospitals.

There’s even a term now — pal­lia­tive aes­thet­ics — which focus­es on pain man­age­ment approach­es that con­sid­er art and aes­thet­ics. BJ Miller is an inter­nal med­i­cine spe­cial­ist who suf­fered the loss of both his legs and one arm in a dread­ful acci­dent numer­ous years ago. He com­pre­hends that chron­ic pain can also be accom­pa­nied by an array of oth­er symp­toms, includ­ing fatigue, nau­sea, despon­den­cy, and insom­nia. Miller has dis­cov­ered art and aes­thet­ics, encom­pass­ing music ther­a­py, to be invalu­able assets in ame­lio­rat­ing mood and han­dling all of these symp­toms over the long haul.

He advis­es his patients to cul­ti­vate an aes­thet­ic atti­tude by being per­cep­tive of the moments dur­ing the day when they’re feel­ing bet­ter and endeav­or to inquire, What’s mak­ing the dis­par­i­ty? What’s the envi­ron­ment like? Is there a sound, a scent, a tex­ture, a hue? Cap­ture an image with your phone so you won’t forget.

Music and dance ther­a­py are also being employed to treat indi­vid­u­als with Parkin­son’s dis­ease, a neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive ail­ment that leads to phys­i­cal com­pli­ca­tions includ­ing tremors, unsteadi­ness, and dimin­ished coor­di­na­tion. Only recent­ly has sci­ence advanced clos­er to com­pre­hend­ing the impact that dance has on the human brain. A three-year explo­ration pub­lished in 2021 revealed that dance not only bol­stered the mood and qual­i­ty of life in indi­vid­u­als with Parkin­son’s but it height­ened the blood flow to the basal gan­glia, the region of the brain respon­si­ble for coor­di­na­tion and smooth mus­cle reg­u­la­tion. Con­se­quent­ly, dance ther­a­py less­ened the symp­toms of the dis­ease and enriched var­i­ous motor con­trol func­tions like ambu­la­tion and facial expressions.

In the con­clud­ing sec­tion, we will cul­mi­nate by swift­ly exam­in­ing some of the broad­er ben­e­fits of art that every­one can derive advan­tages from.

Developing with art

The author Kurt Von­negut Jr. once relayed to a group of sec­ondary school stu­dents the secret to a suc­cess­ful life. It had noth­ing to do with ambi­tion or resolve. He urged them to engage in art, any form of art. Poet­ry, music, paint­ing, sculpt­ing, it did­n’t mat­ter. It’s not about renown or wealth. It’s about cre­at­ing some­thing that will aid you in under­stand­ing your­self and “nur­ture your soul.”

Many of us were raised in an edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem that pri­or­i­tized rote learn­ing and stan­dard­ized eval­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, an increas­ing num­ber of researchers are real­iz­ing that play­ful artis­tic exper­i­men­ta­tion can yield health­i­er, more flour­ish­ing minds.

Tak­ing all of this into account, Magsamen and Ross have pin­point­ed numer­ous ways in which art and the aes­thet­ic approach can fos­ter a flour­ish­ing exis­tence. These encom­pass nur­tur­ing curios­i­ty, con­struct­ing enriched envi­ron­ments, and har­mo­niz­ing rit­u­al­ized prac­tice with reg­u­lar instants of fresh and unex­pect­ed experiences.

As psy­chol­o­gist Todd Kash­dan artic­u­lat­ed, a mean­ing­ful and ful­fill­ing life involves choos­ing to be curi­ous and prob­ing the unfa­mil­iar rather than evad­ing it. Engag­ing with art, with curios­i­ty and minus judg­ment, is an ide­al mode of deep­en­ing your empa­thy, as well as learn­ing to be at ease with ambi­gu­i­ty and uncer­tain­ty, which are inevitable facets of life that can induce unease in some of us.

Con­se­quent­ly, let’s endeav­or to encap­su­late this in a nar­ra­tive akin to a day in the art­ful life.

Upon aris­ing, you pro­ceed to the kitchen illu­mi­nat­ed by blue-white bulbs mim­ic­k­ing sun­light and trig­ger­ing your cir­ca­di­an rhythms. You pause to rel­ish the tastes and scents of your pre­ferred cof­fee or tea. You main­tain a dai­ly art rou­tine that’s as sig­nif­i­cant as your every­day phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and med­i­ta­tive prac­tices. You engage in the art devoid of expec­ta­tions or crit­i­cism, it’s about con­nect­ing with your­self and nur­tur­ing your own wel­fare. It could be half an hour of sketch­ing or, dur­ing week­ends, sev­er­al hours ded­i­cat­ed to a sculpture.

Fol­low­ing that, you allo­cate time to immerse your­self in nature and rev­el in the sights, sounds, scents, and rhythms of the nat­ur­al realm. You appre­ci­ate the intri­cate for­ma­tions and mar­vel that nature offers and trans­fer its inspi­ra­tion with you to the work­place. You also trans­port the virtues of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and cre­ative trou­bleshoot­ing into the work­place and pri­or­i­tize these over mere effi­cien­cy and productivity.

Post work, you seek out com­mu­nal artis­tic encoun­ters with your com­rades, such as live music or a dra­mat­ic per­for­mance. You cher­ish your social cir­cle, the exchange of ideas, and the capac­i­ty to cul­ti­vate empa­thy and fresh view­points in your worldview.

Does­n’t that sound like a gen­uine­ly ful­fill­ing day? Nat­u­ral­ly, each­day can­not pos­si­bly be this impec­ca­ble, but it has the poten­tial to become your aspi­ra­tion. Strive towards craft­ing a pleas­ing ambiance that nur­tures your wel­fare and aids in your con­tin­u­ous edu­ca­tion, devel­op­ment, and pur­suit of a thriv­ing existence.

Executive Summary

By fos­ter­ing an aes­thet­ic per­spec­tive, you can enjoy the numer­ous advan­tages that art pro­vides. Embrac­ing an aes­thet­ic out­look acknowl­edges your ongo­ing inter­ac­tion with the sur­round­ings and the pro­cess­ing of sen­so­ry encoun­ters. Numer­ous stud­ies demon­strate that art – be it in the form of sound, col­ors, draw­ing, paint­ing, danc­ing, or sculpt­ing – can alle­vi­ate stress, anx­i­ety, pain, and trau­ma, while also extend­ing life expectan­cy and enhanc­ing your over­all well-being. By estab­lish­ing a more aes­thet­ic envi­ron­ment and infus­ing more art into your dai­ly rou­tine, you can lead a health­i­er, more sat­is­fy­ing life.

About the author

Susan Magsamen is the ini­tia­tor and head of the Inter­na­tion­al Arts + Mind Lab, Cen­ter for Applied Neu­roaes­thet­ics at Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, where she serves as a fac­ul­ty mem­ber. She also serves as the co-direc­tor of the Neu­roArts Blue­print. Susan col­lab­o­rates with both pub­lic and pri­vate enti­ties, employ­ing evi­dence-based artis­tic and cul­tur­al prac­tices in var­i­ous domains such as health­care, child devel­op­ment, edu­ca­tion, work­force inno­va­tion, reha­bil­i­ta­tion, and social equality.

Ivy Ross is the Vice Pres­i­dent of Design for the hard­ware prod­uct divi­sion at Google, over­see­ing a team that has gar­nered more than 225 design acco­lades. She is a recip­i­ent of a Nation­al Endow­ment for the Arts grant and was ranked ninth on Fast Com­pa­ny’s com­pi­la­tion of the one hun­dred Most Cre­ative Peo­ple in Busi­ness in 2019. Ross holds the belief that the con­ver­gence of arts and sci­ences yields the most cap­ti­vat­ing and inno­v­a­tive concepts.

Book Review

Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Trans­form Us is a com­pelling explo­ration of how expo­sure to var­i­ous art forms can enrich our well-being, cre­ativ­i­ty, learn­ing, and social con­nec­tions. The authors, Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross are author­i­ties in the field of neu­roaes­thet­ics, the study of how the brain responds to aes­thet­ic encoun­ters. They offer com­pelling evi­dence from neu­ro­science, psy­chol­o­gy, biol­o­gy, and med­i­cine about how the arts can improve our phys­i­cal and men­tal health, fos­ter per­son­al growth, and strength­en com­mu­ni­ties. They also share insights from artists, sci­en­tists, and inno­va­tors who are using the arts to trans­form them­selves and the world.

The book is divid­ed into three sec­tions: The Art of Being, The Art of Becom­ing, and The Art of Belong­ing. With­in each sec­tion, the authors dis­sect var­i­ous facets of how the arts affect us indi­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly. They touch on top­ics such as reduc­ing stress, enhanc­ing mem­o­ry, ele­vat­ing mood, stim­u­lat­ing cre­ativ­i­ty, fos­ter­ing empa­thy, and cat­alyz­ing social change. They also pro­vide prac­ti­cal sug­ges­tions and activ­i­ties for read­ers to par­tic­i­pate in var­i­ous art forms and expe­ri­ence the ben­e­fits firsthand.

I found this book to be high­ly edu­ca­tion­al, moti­va­tion­al, and enjoy­able to read. The authors skill­ful­ly syn­the­size an exten­sive body of research in an acces­si­ble and engag­ing man­ner. Their use of nar­ra­tive, anec­dotes, illus­tra­tions, and quo­ta­tions effec­tive­ly illus­trates their points and res­onates with read­ers. They strike a bal­ance between schol­ar­ly find­ings and the per­son­al anec­dotes of the artists and experts they inter­viewed. This book serves not only as a guide to neu­roaes­thet­ics, but also as a cel­e­bra­tion of the diver­si­ty and rich­ness of human creativity.

This book enlight­ened me on the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of the arts in many ways. The evi­dence of how the arts can help peo­ple cope with stress, trau­ma, pain, and ill­ness had a pro­found impact on me. I also appre­ci­ate the rec­om­men­da­tions for inte­grat­ing more arts into our dai­ly rou­tines and using it as a tool for per­son­al growth and social change. I believe this book is a valu­able resource for any­one curi­ous about explor­ing the influ­ence of the arts and using it for their well-being and satisfaction.