What if art weren’t just a pastime—but a biological necessity? Emerging research in the field of neuroaesthetics suggests that engaging with art is as essential to human well-being as sleep and nutrition. From reducing stress hormones to strengthening cognitive function, the science of how art affects the brain is reshaping the way we think about mental and physical health.
The book Your Brain on Art explores the measurable ways that artistic experiences edify us across every stage of life—from sharpening children’s executive function to protecting aging minds against dementia. Read on to discover four significant (and even surprising) benefits of art.
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The Benefits of Art
The field of neuroarts includes investigating the measurable benefits of art on our minds and bodies. In Your Brain on Art, Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross describe art as a basic human need on par with nourishment and rest. Making and enjoying art has measurable benefits for all areas of human health, including psychological, physical, and social well-being. The authors especially emphasize the benefits of the arts for mental health. Engaging with the arts can improve self-efficacy, emotional regulation, cognitive functioning, and the immune system, as well as reducing stress and generally improving quality of life.
(Shortform note: Susan Magsamen is the founder and executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics at the Pedersen Brain Science Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she is a faculty member in the Department of Neurology. Ivy Ross is the vice president of hardware design at Google.)
These findings are especially relevant today, as the authors say that the world is facing a mental health crisis that affects almost one billion people. (Shortform note: According to the World Health Organization, this figure has surpassed one billion as of 2025.) Depression, hopelessness, loneliness, and mental anguish are widespread, leading to increased rates of truancy, divorce, addiction, and suicide.
| How Badly Do We “Need” Art? One way to think about human well-being is through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. According to this model, human needs can be ranked according to how crucial they are for survival. We’re motivated to fulfill basic survival necessities such as food and rest before pursuing higher-level needs such as belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. It can be argued that the benefits of art that Magsamen and Ross describe fulfill higher-level drives rather than basic ones. However, in Transcend, Scott Barry Kaufman offers a modified version of Maslow’s hierarchy, dividing needs according to whether they provide security or whether they enable growth. Safety (both physical and emotional) is the most foundational level of this hierarchy, and Kaufman says emotional safety requires us to feel secure with the people around us. Since Magsamen and Ross say art led humans to associate social interaction with safety, Kaufman might consider art to be a need in the same way food and rest are. Also, as Magsamen and Ross note, mental illness can threaten a person’s safety and survival through outcomes such as divorce, addiction, and suicide. So making or experiencing art might help stabilize their emotional well-being and fulfill a need during periods of crisis. |
Let’s examine four areas in which, according to Magsamen and Ross, the arts can improve our lives: emotional regulation, stress management, childhood development, and geriatric health.
Benefit #1: Art Helps Us Manage Emotions
Art is processed in the brain through functions such as sensation, neurological reward, and assigning meaning. Magsamen and Ross explain that, since the brain is also where emotions are processed, we can use art as a tool for managing our emotions by deliberately exposing ourselves to artistic and aesthetic experiences.
Humans have a massive capacity for emotion. Some scientists theorize that we might be able to experience more than 30,000 emotions. Psychologist Robert Plutchik suggests that we have eight core emotions: joy, sadness, acceptance, disgust, fear, anger, surprise, and anticipation. He says they manifest in different combinations and intensities to give rise to thousands of other emotions.
(Shortform note: Plutchik also suggests that the eight core emotions are four pairs of opposites: Joy is the opposite of sadness, acceptance is the opposite of disgust, fear is the opposite of anger, and surprise is the opposite of anticipation. To clarify how different intensities give rise to other emotions, you can view each core emotion as a spectrum. For example, manifestations of fear can range from timidity to terror. Core emotions can combine to form secondary ones. For example, fear and surprise can combine to create a sense of awe. Understanding these spectra and combinations could help you identify your more complex emotions and use art to manage them.)
Magsamen and Ross say these emotions are central to our experience as human beings and were vital for our ancestors’ evolution. However, society sometimes sends us messages that our emotions are wrong, pushing us to suppress, repress, avoid, or control them. But it’s impossible to eliminate emotions, and the authors argue we shouldn’t try to do so. Instead, we should prevent ourselves from becoming mired in emotions by learning to process them more effectively—and art can be a powerful tool in this pursuit.
(Shortform note: In Mind Your Body, psychotherapist Nicole J. Sachs echoes the sentiment that society tells us our emotions are wrong, and she elaborates on some of the consequences of trying to eliminate our emotions. For instance, when we experience socially unacceptable emotions such as rage or despair, we suppress them, channeling them into socially acceptable emotions such as frustration or regret. However, those original emotions remain, tamped down in our psyches, and eventually they overflow, overwhelming our nervous system and activating the stress response. As a result, our suppressed emotions manifest as physical symptoms such as chronic pain. Sachs recommends using mindbody journaling to process emotions more effectively.)
Using Art to Think Better and Treat Trauma
Magsamen and Ross highlight the benefits of using art to improve thinking and emotional processing. Research has found that drawing and coloring activities light up the prefrontal cortex, the region that aids concentration and meaning-making. Even idle drawing, such as doodling, sets off the reward system, and people who do it often can think more analytically and remember information more easily. Drawing also activates the left hemisphere of the brain, where verbal processing takes place. Because of this, drawing activities can help people express difficult experiences in words, making it a useful tool in the uncovering and treatment of trauma.
| Drawing and Doodling Benefits: Context Matters Research indicates that doodling and drawing can be more beneficial in certain contexts than in others. It can help you stay focused during boring tasks when your mind might naturally wander or tune out. It can also be useful as a stimming behavior for neurodivergent people, such as those with autism or ADHD, helping them concentrate, lower stress, and self-soothe. However, when you need to pay attention to a visual stimulus, doodling and drawing can be distracting and result in poorer recall. Structured doodling (such as coloring in shapes) might also be more helpful for information retention than freehand drawing. When it comes to treating trauma, some evidence suggests that bilateral drawing (drawing with both hands simultaneously) can be especially effective, possibly because it activates both hemispheres of the brain. |
Writing is another artistic way to treat trauma and conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). People often feel they need to keep their traumatic experiences secret, and this self-inhibition causes stress that leads to both physiological and psychological symptoms. Writing about your experiences can reduce this stress and its accompanying symptoms. Scans show that it triggers activity in the mid-cingulate cortex, where negative emotions are processed. Therefore, writing about your emotions can help you identify them and come to terms with what’s happened to you. It can improve your coping skills and relationships, and it also has physiological benefits that include reducing pain, stress hormones, and blood pressure.
(Shortform note: In Mind Your Body, Sachs recommends a mindbody journaling practice that she calls JournalSpeak as a treatment for chronic pain and other physical symptoms. Her rationale matches what Magsamen and Ross say: Repressed emotions and traumatic experiences manifest as physical and mental symptoms, and writing practices such as JournalSpeak can help dig up those feelings and memories so they no longer cause stress. However, Sachs emphasizes that this type of writing is difficult and painful, and it can leave you feeling vulnerable, which is why her practice includes a 10-minute meditation session after the journaling to teach your brain that you’re safe and to regulate your nervous system.)
Magsamen and Ross say that, when trauma is so severe that we can’t put words to it, art can still be an avenue for expression and relief. Extreme trauma can impede the functioning of the Broca’s area (the part of the brain responsible for speech and language), shutting down your ability to verbally communicate. In these cases, creating visual art can be a way to express your trauma to others, making it easier for them to empathize with your experiences and to support you in your healing. It can also help facilitate verbal expression and reduce PTSD symptoms such as flashbacks.
(Shortform note: In Emotional Intelligence, psychologist Daniel Goleman outlines three stages of trauma recovery: regaining a sense of safety, reviewing the details of the trauma and mourning the loss it resulted in, and reestablishing a more normal life. Reviewing the details of the trauma must be done in a safe environment, so it’s essential to regain a sense of safety before moving on to the later stages. So, while writing can facilitate that second stage, it might do more harm than good if you haven’t ensured that your brain feels safe. This might mean that creating visual art is better suited to facilitating a sense of safety before you can move on to the next stages.)
Benefit #2: Art Helps Us Manage Stress
Magsamen and Ross contend that, while emotions can cause stress, stress itself is not an emotion. Rather, stress is a physiological response to a perceived threat in our environment. It starts with a sense of alarm, which causes the body to release stress hormones and activate the fight or flight response. If the stressor continues, the body goes on releasing stress hormones to adapt to the ongoing threat. When the threat resolves, the body returns to its previous state to recover from the experience.
While this response can help us survive short-term dangers, it becomes harmful when we stay in it too long. It drains our energy and depresses our mood, which can lead us to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as substance use and disordered eating. Part of the mental health crisis discussed earlier is due to people becoming stuck in this stress response. But, because art has inherent stress-relieving effects, we can use artistic experiences to escape from the stress response cycle so our brains and bodies can recover.
Sound can be particularly effective for this because it doesn’t require conscious effort to take in. As a result, it can work almost automatically to bring our bodies and minds back into a recovery state. Magsamen and Ross also suggest that the vibrations in sound waves directly alter the physical movement of our body’s cells, making sound even more powerful. You can use this knowledge to seek out specific sounds that you know make you feel better.
| Can Water Provide the Same Benefits as Art? In Blue Mind, Wallace J. Nichols characterizes the state of being stuck in the stress response as “Red Mind,” contrasting it with “Blue Mind”: a calm, peaceful, contented state similar to that achieved by meditation. He suggests that proximity to and engagement with water can shift us from Red Mind to Blue Mind (which gels with Magsamen and Ross’s suggestion that nature can provide similar benefits to art). Nichols also explains that water has a powerful sensory appeal (much like art) and that it contributes to creative inspiration. So, not only can you access some of the same benefits art offers by spending time near or in water, you can also use it to enhance your artistic practice. Nichols suggests you can use water to manage stress by purposely activating the stress response. Extreme sports such as surfing can trigger stress. But, because you’re doing it in a controlled, deliberate way, it helps you learn how to manage the stress you experience from less dangerous activities. This could also be why people enjoy art that elicits negative emotions, such as horror movies. Inducing those emotions in a safe context can make it easier to deal with them in real life. Also, like sound, water doesn’t require conscious effort to take in. Looking at water (even in pictures), listening to water, and floating in water are all passive activities that engage your involuntary attention and let your conscious mind rest. We can even see a resemblance between sound and water in their physical behavior: Sound travels via waves that create a ripple effect, not unlike waves in the ocean. |
Benefit #3: Art Enhances Children’s Development
Magsamen and Ross write that, from childhood, we have an inborn thirst for knowledge about the world around us, and we acquire it by forming connections and associations within the brain. Artistic experiences trigger the creation of these connections, making them highly effective facilitators of learning. Artistic practice from an early age also teaches skills and behaviors that translate across different fields, meaning that learning through the arts can improve abilities unrelated to art.
(Shortform note: Other experts also highlight humans’ inborn thirst for knowledge: In Brain Rules, developmental molecular biologist John Medina explains that babies are born with intense curiosity and demonstrate early use of the scientific method, using exploration to learn about the world. Also, research indicates that infants are capable of creative thinking from an early age. The neural connections that support learning and creativity continue forming throughout life, but they’re especially active during certain time spans in childhood development called critical periods. Some studies suggest that psychedelic substances, when combined with aesthetic experiences, might help reinitiate such critical periods, facilitating rapid neural growth in adults.)
For example, visual arts enhance children’s observational skills, visual imagination, self-expression, critical thinking, perseverance, and their ability to learn from mistakes. Music also has specific benefits. The authors cite research in which brain scans of musicians show more gray matter (the tissue in which the brain’s processing takes place) than those who don’t play music. Scientists believe this is because the process of becoming proficient with an instrument creates more neural connections in the brain, which requires it to grow more mass. This neural growth then helps the brain function in areas unrelated to music.
(Shortform note: The correlation between artistic engagement and improved brain function in unrelated areas can also work in the inverse: Practicing non-artistic skills might improve art skills. For example, strength training such as weightlifting can improve the fine motor skills needed for things such as creating visual art. Playing video games can also improve fine motor skills, as well as rhythm and timing abilities, which are crucial to playing an instrument.)
Magsamen and Ross say the arts can also aid greatly in children’s development of executive functions—the brain processes responsible for planning, making decisions, and executing tasks. These functions require coordinated activity across many different brain areas. The arts can stimulate this same type of coordinated activity, improving the brain’s ability to carry out these operations.
According to the authors, research also suggests that art can enhance our development and growth throughout childhood and young adulthood. Regular arts participation in childhood is linked to fewer social problems in teens, as well as better mental health, healthier relationships, and improved decision-making. The authors point to one study showing that children who read fiction several days a week were less likely to engage in substance use and more likely to eat healthy food.
| Poverty: A Variable in Arts-Outcomes Correlation? While there’s evidence that arts activities can result in major benefits, it’s important to be aware of the difference between correlation and causation when considering data. The connections between arts participation and the better outcomes referenced by the authors might or might not reflect a causal link. For instance, experiencing poverty is associated with poorer outcomes for children and teens, including social problems, mental illness, inadequate nutrition, executive functioning problems, and substance use. Arts participation can be costly. With musical instruments, art supplies, out-of-school classes, and private lessons, extracurricular activities can cost hundreds of dollars, and many children are less able or unable to participate in the arts because their families don’t have the money. In some cases, poverty might cause both lower arts participation and poorer outcomes for children and teens, rather than lower arts participation alone causing poorer outcomes. |
Benefit #4: Art Protects Us in Old Age
Arts engagement is also linked to longer lifespans and less cognitive degeneration in old age, say the authors. Music in particular can provide immense benefits to people with dementia. Because of the diversity of stimulation that music provides (tone, rhythm, harmony, pitch, volume, and more), it increases activity across many different areas of the brain. Listening to or making music can spark sudden recollections or greater lucidity in dementia patients.
Arts-based therapies are also highly beneficial for people nearing the end of their lives, as art can trigger the release of hormones such as dopamine and oxytocin that help people feel better. Making artwork about one’s life can help people make meaning of their pasts and leave something of themselves behind after they die. Songwriting lets them communicate with others, reducing loneliness. Tactile activities such as dancing or strumming a guitar provide oxytocin, which can improve sleep and blood pressure.
| Aging and Sensory Loss Art and aesthetic appreciation depend on processing information from our senses. However, many older adults experience age-related sensory impairment. For example, hearing loss affects about a third of people between ages 65 and 75, and up to half of those over 75. Research shows a link between hearing loss in older age and an increased risk of cognitive degeneration such as dementia, so those with hearing impairments might be less able to benefit from music in the way Magsamen and Ross describe. However, people with sensory impairments can still access the benefits of art. For instance, people with hearing loss can find ways to enjoy and make music. They can often sense the physical vibrations caused by the music, and interpreters can use sign language to convey the meaning of lyrics. You might also be able to treat hearing loss using hearing aids. Likewise, people with visual impairments can make visual art using their sense of touch to detect textures, and existing visual artworks can be recreated in 3D so that visually impaired people can enjoy them. Experts say that most older adults are able to adapt to and compensate for sensory impairments. Also, most sensory loss is the result of environmental factors, which means protecting your senses as you get older can help reduce sensory loss. Here are some steps you can take: • Exercise. • Eat a healthy diet. • Protect your ears from loud noise. • Avoid straining your eyes. • Avoid smoking. • Expose yourself to different smells and flavors. • Use lotion and sunscreen to protect your skin. |
Wrapping Up
The evidence is clear: Art isn’t a luxury; it’s a practical tool for better health. Whether you’re managing stress, processing difficult emotions, raising children, or navigating the challenges of aging, engaging with art in even small, everyday ways can produce real, measurable improvements. You don’t need to be an artist to start reaping the benefits of art.
To dig deeper, read Your Brain on Art and Shortform’s guide to the book. You’ll learn how art spurred humans’ development as a social species, the principles of neuroarts, and how you can use the arts to flourish. Throughout our guide, we add historical and scientific context for Magsamen and Ross’s ideas—as well as perspectives and advice from other experts in neuroscience, psychology, and art.
