The Brain Benefits of Art

Here are some of the best ways that picking up your paint brush can benefit your brain and mental health.

Art stimulates the imagination

If you consider yourself a right-brained (artistic) person, you can enhance creative skills you already possess. If you think of yourself as left-brained (analytical), creating art will stimulate your creativity and imagination.

Art makes you more observant

Leonardo da Vinci said, “Painting embraces all the ten functions of the eye; that is to say, darkness, light, body and color, shape and location, distance and closeness, motion and rest.” Creating art helps you learn to “see” by concentrating on detail and paying more attention to your environment.

Art enhances problem-solving skills

Unlike math, there is no one correct answer in art. Art encourages out-of-the-box thinking and lets you come up with your own unique solution.

Art boosts self-esteem and provides a sense of accomplishment

We stick our kids’ artwork on the fridge to boost their self-esteem. Hanging your latest work of art on the wall can instill you with the same feeling.

Art reduces stress

Painting, sculpting, drawing, and photography are relaxing and rewarding hobbies that can lower your stress level and lead to an overall improvement in well-being.

Art enhances cognitive abilities and memory, even for people with serious brain conditions

Dr. Arnold Bresky is a physician who has created a program he calls the “Brain Tune Up” that utilizes art therapy for patients that have Alzheimer’s and dementia. He has seen a 70% success rate in improvement of his patients’ memories. He believes that by drawing and painting, they are connecting the right and left hemispheres of the brain and growing new brain cells.

Art & Healing: Can Art Be Medicine?

Besides helping patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s, art used as therapy has successfully helped people with anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic pain, cancer, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder, and other serious health conditions.