Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us

the organization Americans for the Arts has funded studies to discern how, why, and where hospitals and healthcare facilities use the arts.

People who engage in the arts every few months, such as going to the theatre or to a museum, have a 31 percent lower risk of dying early when compared with those who don’t.

Once they have created a physical representation of their experiences, service members are often able to bring words and greater meaning to their creations.

The primary goal in the beginning is to provide a way for service members to externalize their thoughts and feelings in a nonjudgmental environment.

Sometimes soldiers returning from war can’t share their stories because there’s an actual shutdown in the Broca’s area of the brain. This is one of the regions responsible for speech and language in the frontal lobe. It’s the same place that can be affected in stroke patients, rendering them speechless. When the Broca’s area isn’t functioning effec

He developed a working theory: Keeping a secret is a form of active inhibition. “Concealing or holding back strong emotions, thoughts, and behaviors…was itself stressful,” he explained in a journal article in 2017. “Further, long-term, low-level stress could influence immune function and physical health.”

The first drawing is of yourself. The second is “you with your biggest problem.” The third is “you with your problem solved.”

Jim has used a three-drawing technique for years that has been extremely helpful.

drawing helps to stimulate the verbal processing regions of the brain, supporting cognitive processing and, eventually, helping us to find the words. Drawing activates multiple regions in the brain that force our brain to process information in new ways while inspiring us to imagine and create new images in the brain.