Why Creativity Is The Most Powerful Health Tool You’re Not Using with Professor Daisy Fancourt #654
Professor Daisy Fancourt, a leading health researcher, discusses how engaging with the arts is the forgotten fifth pillar of health, alongside nutrition, movement, sleep, and relaxation. She presents extensive scientific evidence linking creative pursuits to improved mental and physical health, longevity, and reduced inflammation.
Deep Dive Analysis
22 Topic Outline
Introduction to Arts as the Fifth Pillar of Health
Scientific Evidence for Arts and Health Benefits
Music's Impact on Blood Pressure and Stress
Arts Engagement and Longevity
Arts, Dopamine, and Pleasure Centers
Epigenetic Aging and Arts Engagement
Defining Active vs. Receptive Arts Engagement
The Role of Enjoyment and Emotional Range in Arts
Arts for Psychological Needs and Control
Arts in Palliative Care and Bereavement
The Importance of Arts in Childhood Development
Overcoming the 'Not Artistic' Belief
Russell's Story: Arts on Prescription for Recovery
Arts and Dementia Care
Practical Ways to Integrate Arts into Daily Life
Arts, Inflammation, and Immune System Benefits
Expressive Writing and Wound Healing
Ambient Music for Anxiety in Surgical Settings
Arts on Prescription for Mental Health
Arts and Spillover Effects on Other Healthy Behaviors
Arts in Deprived Communities and Criminal Justice
Personal Story: Music for Premature Babies
7 Key Concepts
Fifth Pillar of Health
The concept that engaging with the arts is as fundamental to mental and physical well-being as nutrition, movement, sleep, and relaxation, supported by decades of scientific research.
Dopaminergic Mesolimbic System
A reward system in the brain activated by engaging in arts, leading to the release of dopamine, which contributes to feelings of pleasure and anticipation, particularly powerful in temporal experiences like reading or listening to music.
Epigenetic Clocks
A method of measuring biological age by observing patterns of DNA methylation, where chemical tags attach to DNA, influencing gene expression. Regular and diverse arts engagement has been shown to decelerate epigenetic aging, similar to physical activity.
Cognitive Reserve
The brain's resilience against cognitive decline, which can be built through activities like regular arts engagement. This allows individuals to compensate for longer, even if physical signs of dementia accumulate, delaying the impact on daily life.
Predictive Coding Abilities
The brain's capacity to navigate an unpredictable world by constantly making predictions. Engaging with arts feeds the brain diverse emotions and scenarios, honing its ability to regulate emotions and plan responses, thereby increasing resilience.
Ambient Music
A genre of music, pioneered by Brian Eno, designed to be relaxing but unpredictable. It combines slow beats, nice tones, and consonant sounds with random combinations to trigger dopamine responses and relaxation, unlike bland "elevator music."
Spillover Effect
The phenomenon where engaging in one health-promoting behavior, such as arts engagement, makes an individual more likely to adopt other healthy behaviors like exercise or healthy eating, creating a virtuous cycle.
8 Questions Answered
Arts engagement has tangible and meaningful effects on the mind, brain, body, and behavior, often with similar effect sizes to physical activity or sleep, making it a crucial component of overall well-being.
Yes, studies show that adding daily music listening to lifestyle changes and medication can lead to additional reductions of about 9-10 points in systolic blood pressure, due to music's potent calming effects.
Regular engagement in arts and culture is linked to longer lifespans, decelerated biological aging (including younger brain ages and epigenetic ages), and a reduced risk of dying, independent of other lifestyle factors.
Receptive engagement (e.g., watching a drama) involves receiving and responding, while active participation (e.g., dancing, making art) involves using your body, hands, and generating ideas, often leading to greater cognitive and physiological benefits.
While it's always better to enjoy the activity, it doesn't always have to evoke positive emotions. Engaging with art that triggers negative emotions (e.g., sad songs) can still be beneficial for mental health by allowing cathartic experience and emotional regulation without real-world consequences.
Music, particularly familiar songs from their youth, can reduce emotional agitation during challenging times like bathing or mealtimes for dementia patients, as the brain region for long-term musical memory is often preserved late in Alzheimer's disease.
Yes, studies show that making music can provide a short-term boost in immune activity, and regular arts engagement over time is associated with lower inflammatory profiles and a dialing down of inflammatory pathways in the body.
Yes, expressive writing is a core art form and has been shown to significantly speed up wound healing and alter inflammatory levels, demonstrating its impact on physical recovery.
11 Actionable Insights
1. Integrate Arts into Daily Life
Actively engage with the arts for at least 10-20 minutes daily, treating it like “five a day” for your well-being. This consistent engagement accumulates benefits for blood pressure, heart rate, and overall health.
2. Diversify Art Forms
Engage with a variety of art forms (e.g., reading, dancing, making music, crafts, attending live events) to gain a broader range of benefits, including physical, cognitive, and emotional stimulation.
3. Prioritize Active Arts Engagement
While passive consumption (e.g., background music, watching TV) offers some benefits, actively participating in arts (e.g., playing an instrument, dancing, creating art) provides enhanced cognitive and physiological advantages.
4. Transform Your Commute Creatively
Use your commute time for active arts engagement, such as reading a book or listening to music attentively, instead of passively scrolling on your phone, to bookend your day with calming and enriching experiences.
5. Use Arts for Stress Reduction
Regularly listen to music or engage in other art forms for half an hour to an hour to calm yourself, as this can lead to significant reductions in blood pressure and heart rate, comparable to or even superior to some medications.
6. Incorporate Dance for Brain Health
Consider taking up dancing, as it provides a “whole brain workout” by combining physical activity, social interaction, coordination, and musical engagement, which helps build cognitive reserve and reduces the risk of dementia.
7. Leverage Arts for Emotional Regulation
Engage with art forms that evoke a range of emotions, even negative ones, as this helps your brain practice emotional regulation and develop resilience without real-world consequences, enhancing your predictive coding abilities.
8. Prepare ‘Chicken Soup’ Arts for Illness
Identify comforting books, relaxing music, or simple crafts you enjoy to turn to when feeling ill, as engaging with these arts can improve mood and help reduce inflammation, aiding recovery.
9. Use Music for Dementia Care
Play familiar music, especially from a person’s youth, during potentially distressing times like bathing or mealtimes for individuals with dementia, as it can reduce emotional agitation and activate preserved musical memory.
10. Consider Arts on Prescription
If struggling with mental health, discuss arts on prescription with your doctor, as it can be as effective as psychological therapies or medication for mild to moderate depression and anxiety, often with fewer side effects.
11. Challenge ‘Not Artistic’ Belief
Recognize that everyone is born with creative potential; if you feel unartistic, try different art forms as an adult, as many find unexpected enjoyment and health benefits once they give it a try.
7 Key Quotes
Not only do the arts relax us in terms of stress response, but they also affect levels of inflammation in our immune system. And over time, we see that people who are more regularly engaged in the arts have lower inflammatory profiles.
Professor Daisy Fancourt
adding music into our lifestyle or our medication for hypertension leads to extra reductions of about nine to ten points in systolic blood pressure, which is an amazing change.
Professor Daisy Fancourt
I think it can sound a little bit science fiction-y, but actually we're starting to understand a lot more about the biological processes that explain this. And one of the things that I think is most exciting, which is the really cutting edge research literally coming out right now, is seeing that arts engagement relates to biological processes of ageing. So it's actually helping to slow some of these processes.
Professor Daisy Fancourt
We are literally born artistic. Babies are responding in utero to music when they hear it... So everybody has the innate creative potential here, but it comes down to opportunities and access.
Professor Daisy Fancourt
if you force people to listen to music that they hate, they actually don't get the benefits, for example, for mood, for dopamine. So there's no point forcing yourself to do something that you're not actually finding pleasurable.
Professor Daisy Fancourt
if there was a pill that could do all those things, we would be hearing about it. But thanks to your book now, we're learning about the benefits of the arts and what the arts can do for all these areas.
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
I made a swap last year, which has been one of the biggest beneficial behaviours I could have done, which is that we hear a lot about active commutes to work. I can't active commute. I live too far away. So I've gone for creative commute.
Professor Daisy Fancourt
2 Protocols
Arts on Prescription for Mental Illness (Greece)
Professor Daisy Fancourt- Adults with diagnosed severe mental illnesses are referred to the program.
- Participants choose from 12 weeks of arts on prescription activities (e.g., book clubs, theatre, galleries, art classes).
- Engage in chosen arts activities weekly for 12 weeks.
Creative Commute
Professor Daisy Fancourt- On the way to work, read a book.
- On the way home from work, listen to music to calm down.