It is important to us that we aid in this despairing mental health problem
Our Solution
It all begins with an idea. We saw the severity and prevalence of the mental health crisis in youth populations today, an issue only exacerbated by the pandemic and the challenges brought along by it, and we wanted to find a way to combat it. Knowing a complete solution simply wasn’t within our grasp, we thought to start small and make a difference in our very own community. Art was our way of combating mental health problems during the pandemic and we wanted to share its power with anyone else who might also be struggling. After looking into this more, we found that the relationship between the arts and mental health is well established in the field of art therapy, which applies arts-based techniques (like painting, drawing, and sculpting) as evidence-based interventions for mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression. There is also growing evidence that the arts can be used in non-therapy contexts for promoting mental health, such as using performing arts to learn about the core subject areas in schools or doing visual art with adults who are mentally well and want to sustain that sense of wellness.
In other words, practicing the arts can be used to build capacity for managing one’s mental and emotional well-being.
Benefits of art on mental health:
-
With recent advances in biological, cognitive and neurological science, there are new forms of evidence on the arts and the brain. For example, researchers have used biofeedback to study the effects of visual art on neural circuits and neuroendocrine markers to find biological evidence that visual art promotes health, wellness and fosters adaptive responses to stress.
In another study, cognitive neuroscientists found that creating art reduces cortisol levels (markers for stress), and that through art people can induce positive mental states. These studies are part of a new field of research, called neuroesthetics: the scientific study of the neurobiological basis of the arts.
Neuroesthetics uses brain imaging, brain wave technology and biofeedback to gather scientific evidence of how we respond to the arts. Through this, there is physical, scientific evidence that the arts engage the mind in novel ways, tap into our emotions in healthy ways and make us feel good.
-
The arts have also been found to be effective tools for mindfulness, a trending practice in schools that is effective for managing mental health.
Being mindful is being aware and conscious of your thoughts and state of mind without judgement. The cognitive-reflective aspects of the arts, in addition to their ability to shift cognitive focus, make them especially effective as tools for mindfulness. Specifically, engaging with visual art has been found to activate different parts of the brain other than those taxed by logical, linear thinking; and another study found that visual art activated distinct and specialized visual areas of the brain.
-
Despite increasing evidence published in top, peer-reviewed journals, on the measurable benefits of the arts in education, such as increased academic performance and the development of innovative thinking, the arts continue to be marginalized in education.
Could further study of neurology’s correlation to art finally provide the evidence decision-makers require to prioritize the arts in education? If so, we may be on the verge of a renaissance that remembers our human instinct to create.
One thing is certain: the mental health crisis affecting young people implicates a systematic failure to provide the right tools for success. That should not be acceptable to anyone.
