Everyday Creativity Through the Arts

Everyday Creativity Through the Arts

We know that creative approaches can lead to innovation across many domains. But what about a more ‘hands-on’ experience through art practices that enable us to express ourselves creatively?

There’s been a growth in studies that quantify the mental health and overall well-being benefits of creative practices. Engaging in creative activities has been attributed to improving rates of depression, reducing the body’s response to stress, assisting with cognitive decline, boosting the immune system to an increase in happiness.

Participating in the arts through everyday little-c creative activities and utilising the creative potential that we all possess at any age, by engaging in dancing, drawing, painting, performing and more broadly craft making, are being understood as an essential part of a holistic healthcare system.

Crafting a healthier mindset

Research is showing that hand-based craft activities have a direct and quantifiable benefit through their meditative action, activating brain areas that correspond, and even contributing to a sense of calm and an improved emotional state. Yarn crafts such as knitting and crochet often incorporate mental challenges that assist to develop eye-to-hand coordination, fine motor dexterity and act to increase our attention spans. They also provide a space for mindfulness and, when undertaken in a group setting, can reinforce social connections.

For over a century, arts and crafts have been a core part of occupational therapy emerging after World War One in response to the post-traumatic stress disorders experienced by returned soldiers. Crafts like knitting and basket weaving were offered to shell-shocked soldiers both as a diversion therapy to take their minds off their pain and the associated negative thoughts, as well as skill development geared towards re-entering the civilian workforce.

Fast forward to today and it’s been shown that repetitive actions undertaken with crafts like knitting, crochet, needlework, woodwork and ceramics allow one to enter a flow state, the perfect immersive state of balance between skill and challenge.

Research is also showing that making art can lead to a reduction of cortisol, a biological indicator used to measure conditions in the body such as stress. The higher a person’s cortisol level, the more stressed a person is likely to be. Studies have shown that cortisol levels, taken before and after an art-making session, resulted in a statistically significant lowering of cortisol levels. Participants of the study provided written feedback that indicated that they found the art-making session to be relaxing, enjoyable and helpful for learning about new aspects of self.

So what really is stress?

Neuroscientist Dr Sarah Mckay says that stress is a ‘highly nuanced orchestrated response to a real or imagined threat or challenge that includes biological, behavioural, cognitive and emotional elements’. The ability to respond to a threatening situation is critical for survival but long-term exposure to stress has detrimental effects on the body and brain. The effects of stress vary at different stages in life depending on the brain areas that are developing or the degree of stress exposure, with early childhood, adolescence and ageing the most vulnerable periods. But just because you’re stressed doesn’t mean you’re not coping as not all stress is bad. Good stress, eustress, is the type that can motivate and facilitate learning and change.

Innovative approaches to healthcare

Consider a future where doctors, instead of prescribing tablet medication, advise you to take up a new creative art and craft to improve your mental and physical health. This scenario is getting closer with numerous research findings pointing to the demonstrated positive impact of the arts. In this age of medication dependency and expensive healthcare, it points to the enormous benefits of an arts-based healthcare system.

The evidence shows how arts-based approaches can help people stay well, recover faster, manage their long-term health conditions and experience a better quality of life overall. The United Kingdom is leading this discussion with healthcare and government professionals calling for informed and open-minded studies to progress this approach. There’s also growing recognition that the medical professions are under increased pressure to meet their patients’ needs. GPs know that people are living longer and in some cases are socially isolated with less community support.

‘Social prescribing’ refers to situations where GPs prescribe activities in the community, in preference to prescribing medication. GPs integrate these activities into their suite of healthcare offerings, referring patients to a link worker – someone familiar with the local community who will recommend social and recreational activities including therapeutic art, craft, music and dance activities to match their interests. Its strength is as a complement to, rather than a replacement of, more traditional forms of treatment. This approach is also linking social prescribing to another sad reality of modern life – loneliness and its associated symptoms of anxiety. A shift away from over-prescribing towards a more preventative approach has enormous potential to deal with disease, as well as stress, isolation and loneliness.

The benefits of creative activities on mental health

There’s a growing understanding that creativity is good for us and can make us happy, but this view has lacked the studies to measure these benefits. However, an important dynamic has emerged in the studies on mental health and well-being from participating in creative art-based practice. These are showing quantifiable benefits that can complement a biomedical view by focusing on not only the sickness or its symptoms, but on the whole person, resulting in a greater impact on healing and recovery. These are activities that can be undertaken by all of us to improve our overall quality of life and leveraged more effectively for the greater public good.

Health psychologists are also recognising how the arts might be used to assist in emotional injuries, as well as self-reflection approaches to alter behaviours and thinking patterns. Research on the connection between art, healing and public health assessed more than one hundred studies in an effort to determine the creative therapies most often employed.

Four primary therapies emerged: music engagement, visual arts therapy, movement-based creative expression and expressive writing with significant positive effects on health. The researchers were specifically interested in the intentional use of these art modalities and creative processes to foster health and well-being outcomes.

The research clearly demonstrated that art-based engagement has significant positive effects on mental health:

• Music engagement can decrease anxiety and calm neural activity
• Visual arts therapy can be a refuge from the intense emotions associated with illness
• Movement-based creative expression can relieve stress
• Expressive writing can help one to process life events and can positively impact mental health.

While evidence-based research takes time to show the health impacts, there are numerous recent studies demonstrating the mental and neurological benefits of art- and craft-based activities.

Here’s a selection of case studies to show the progress being made.

• The emergence of a vibrant art and craft movement in Christchurch, New Zealand post the 2011 earthquake is part of a growing understanding of the value of community-focused recovery responses. Studies undertaken on the role craft can play in healing post-traumatic experience illustrated its value in processing key elements of the disaster, creating opportunities for social support, giving to others, generating learning, meaning-making and developing a vision for the future.

• There’s been a spotlight on the role of knitting and the significant psychological and social benefits that accrue from collective participation. A major 2013 United Kingdom study from Cardiff University reported ‘in a survey of 3,545 knitters worldwide, respondents who knitted for relaxation, stress relief and creativity also reported higher cognitive functioning, improved social contact and communication with others’. It reported they derived a sense of accomplishment, connection to tradition, increased happiness, reduced anxiety, enhanced confidence, as well as increased cognitive abilities (improved memory, concentration and ability to think through problems).

• Another study observed the benefits of introducing knitting into the lives of thirty-eight female hospital patients admitted with anorexia nervosa. The subjects were asked to report on the effects knitting had on their psychological state. The study showed 74 per cent reported feeling ‘distracted’ or ‘distanced’ from negative emotional and cognitive states, as well as more relaxed and comfortable. Over half said they felt less stressed, a feeling of accomplishment, and less likely to act on their ‘ruminating thoughts’. This preliminary data suggests that knitting may benefit inpatients with eating disorders by reducing their anxious preoccupations about eating, weight loss and shape control.

• Knit for Peace in the United Kingdom carried out both a widespread literature review looking at the health benefits of this craft as well as a survey of over one thousand knitters in their network. Their report points to the effectiveness of knitting (and crochet) in helping older people become more resilient, specifically with results including improvements in mental and physical health, lowering blood pressure, distracting from pain, slowing the onset of dementia, overcoming isolation and loneliness and increasing a sense of well-being.

This unique network also donates their finished pieces to those in need in hospitals, women’s refuges, refugee drop-in centres and camps. This giving act contributes to an increased sense of usefulness, self-worth and inclusion in society, all assisting to decrease elderly knitters physical decline. Knitting can no longer be dismissed as an old-fashioned pastime as it has proven that its health-giving qualities should be seriously promoted.

• Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder affecting an estimated ten million people worldwide. It causes a host of movement-related symptoms, and patients often describe challenges with everyday tasks that require fine motor control. As their mobility decreases, patients lose their autonomy and self-confidence and suffer cognitive and mood problems. Enter ‘Dance for PD’, a program underpinned by peer-reviewed studies. It’s designed to combat both physical and mental sides of the disorder through creativity, social interaction, and intentional movement, cued by music to activate specific brain regions. Early research shows improvements in motor and cognitive function as well as mood.

• Numerous studies of community spaces and, in particular, men’s sheds in Australia, are observing how these spaces are contributing to the lowering of depression in older men. Men’s sheds enable older men to socialise as they participate in a range of woodwork and other activities. Studies point to a decrease of self-reported symptoms of depression and concluded the social environment, with its sense of purpose, relationships created and enjoyment, as well as learning new creative skills, could be the main contributing factor. Men’s sheds also have an important role to play in addressing gendered health disparity as the social focus contributes to health-related literacy.

A further research consideration from these types of studies is that the benefits being evidenced could be from the social connections that art and craft gatherings enable. For those who are ill or may suffer from social anxiety or are just shy, the strength of these activities is in the coming together, enabling individuals to participate collectively. Either way it’s recognised that to distract from an uncomfortable or stressful focus is in itself a valuable outcome.

The evidence is growing that a variety of arts-based approaches can improve quality of life and the associated benefits of improved mobility, mental health, speech, memory, pain, learning and more. Taking up an art-based practice, whether it be as a regular activity with the added social connections or through a more focused and deliberate practice, could potentially lower the cost and burden of chronic disease, neurological disorders and mental health issues for millions of people. The more we understand the relationship between creative expression and our physical and mental well-being, the more we’ll discover the healing power of the arts.

Check out the additional resources where you’ll find a curated article that documents the growing scientific research underway to quantify the mental and physical health benefits these art and craft based activities can provide, and why doing rather than just viewing, points to why we all need to take a dose of daily art.

Utilising the arts to assist learning

Evidence suggests that experience in the arts may facilitate creative thinking and effective problem-solving across a broad range of domains. These are the findings of the American National Science Foundation, which has evaluated the effects of learning from activities including musical performance, drawing, visual aesthetics and dance.

They’ve found training in an art-based discipline shares neural networks with other higher cognitive functions. This enhances the learning effects, strengthens the brain’s attention system, which in turn can improve cognition more generally.

The brain neural pathways dedicated to attention play a crucial role in learning and memory, contributing to its importance in cognitive performance. A focus on learning and performing an art discipline is shaping the brain networks through ‘activity-dependent plasticity’. What we do daily is reflected in the wiring patterns of our brain and the efficiency of our brain’s networks. If we find an art practice that excites our passion and engages us wholeheartedly, and we stick with it, we should notice improvements in other cognitive areas in which attention is important.

Specifically, the cumulative research shows that:

• Experience with musical structure can enhance the learning of language structure. Moreover, long-term musical experience is known to last for years and it’s possible that such experience may provide protective effects against brain ageing and even the disruptive effects of hearing loss.
• Dance integrates the rhythm of music and the representation of language. As music and dance evoke emotions and stimulate visual imagery, they can also maintain attention, allowing a higher level of memory retention.
• Visual art learning relies on a system of perception, cognitive and motor functions, that enable a more effective network of cognitive processing.

Both art learning and production involve a complex interplay between multiple sensory, motor and higher cognitive mechanisms. The studies conclude that art should be regarded as a cognitive process and understanding how we use symbolic form to organise our thinking processes can have implications for learning.

Do the arts have a superpower?

A study from the Mayo Clinic sought to pinpoint various activities that either predicted cognitive impairment or protected against it during the final years of life. We know that an active social life in both midlife and late life is linked to fewer instances of mild cognitive impairment. This study also found that the creative behaviour that had the greatest protective effect, was artistic activity, such as painting, drawing, and sculpting. It also observed that regularly engaging in craft activities such as woodworking, quilting or sewing was also linked to fewer incidents of mild cognitive impairment. The study supports the idea that engaging the mind creatively may protect neurons from dying, stimulate the growth of new neurons, develop new neural pathways or may help recruit new neurons to maintain cognitive activities in old age. It also found greater results when the activity began in midlife and persisted through to later life.

Despite the view that the creation of art is a basic human need, playing an essential role in our evolution and ability to adapt, it’s only recently that research has finally caught up to the notion that it’s also something we can’t afford to live without. This research is making it clear that experiencing or creating art has a dynamic effect on our brain. This form of creativity can potentially address some of the most difficult issues of our time including chronic stress and associated illnesses, pain management and addiction, learning differences, depression and mental illness, and reduced productivity and innovation. That sounds like a superpower to me!

Copyright Ó 2020 Maria Simonelli

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