Browse Category: The Mind

How the Arts Can Change Your Brain

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Art is part of the human experience. For all of recorded history, people have engaged in making and valuing art, from cave drawings to body and face ornamentation to sculpture to dance to portraiture to music. There is something magical about creating, and also about witnessing, art. Mental health practitioners and other healers recognize that there are many ways for people to get help, connect with others, cope, and heal. The arts provide many tools for mental health and wellness. They often provide paths to understanding and expressing emotions and experiences that may be harder to reach through healing modalities like talk therapy. Creating or seeing art can also be fun, exciting, and profound, enriching our lives and putting us in touch with experiences that make us feel good; positive experiences can combat depression and anxiety and make our lives feel more meaningful. Many people also feel a healing spiritual connection through the arts: Just think of the feeling of awe and ecstasy that can come from hearing soaring classical music, being inside a breathtaking building, or viewing a painting that captures a religious or spiritual experience.

Another benefit of engaging in the arts is that many artistic practices promote neuroplasticity (the growth and/or rewiring of the brain’s neuronal pathways, which gives us the ability to adapt to new habits, develop new skills, and absorb new information). Scientists used to believe that the brain stopped growing and creating new pathways early in life; however, more recent research has shown that brain growth and rewiring take place throughout the lifespan (although as we get older, this growth occurs at a slower pace).

Some studies have shown that drawing and painting can improve various brain functions, such as memory. Research also shows that people who learn to play a musical instrument (and especially those who become proficient at it) develop stronger connections among the various regions of the brain (Wan & Schlaug, 2010) and new and stronger neural pathways. Teaching patients to make music can aid in the treatment of developmental and neurological disorders, as well as the cognitive decline that comes with normal aging.

The fact that engaging in the arts can stimulate brain growth also means that anyone can learn to be creative–you don’t have to be “born with it.” A psychologist at Dartmouth College, Alexander Schlegel, and his fellow researchers published a study showing that taking an introductory class in painting or drawing literally alters students’ brains, allowing them not only to learn the technicalities of the art form but also to think more creatively.

Art forms like dance also have a positive and healing impact on the brain. Many studies have proven that dance can make a difference in people who have undergone trauma, those with Parkinson’s disease and other brain disorders, and the elderly. How so? First off, dance is a stimulating activity that connects mind and the movement of the body, as well as other senses such as vision, hearing, and touch. Many forms of dance also reduce isolation–connection with other people is healing.

If you’d like some ideas about how to explore your creative side and learn a little about expressive art therapy, check out the following websites.

American Art Therapy Association

American Dance Therapy Association

American Music Therapy Association

Inc. article about being more creative with inspiration from Leonardo Da Vinci

Real Simple article about building creativity

 

Can People Change? A Look at “Home” by Marilynne Robinson (and a Quick Look at Ted Kaczynski)

This past summer, I read a book that touched me deeply: Home by Marilynne Robinson. I was surprised how emotional I felt reading it and especially finishing it. I completed the book on a flight home from a summer vacation, and I literally cried for a half an hour. It’s a little hard to explain why this story hit me so hard, since I can’t say I strongly related to any of the main characters. For those who haven’t read the book (and I highly recommend it!), it’s the story of a family in a small Iowa town in the 1950s that is shaken by several events. First, the patriarch of the family, a retired minister, is failing in his health. Because of this and a broken relationship, his youngest daughter, Glory, returns home to help care for him. Soon after, the “prodigal son” of the family, Jack, a son who, despite his checkered past and estrangement from the family, is the most beloved by the father, also returns home and stays with his sister and father. The tale of his life gradually unfolds as his sister (the narrator of the story) observes his attempts to come to terms with himself, his past, and his shaky relationships with his family and close family friends (including another minister, his father’s best friend). Jack also attempts to see if his past would preclude him from returning home to live a new life and whether his home has evolved into a place that would be safe for him and his loved ones. While Jack does receive grace and sometimes forgiveness from others, he remains a profoundly lonely and estranged man stuck between a past that he is unsure he can overcome and a present that may not allow Jack to live the sort of life he feels is right. Themes of family duty, religion, spirituality, race relations, and morality permeate the stories, with forgiveness and people’s ability to change and transform being central.

Home is a retelling of some of the same story told in Robinson’s Gilead (another amazing novel) from a different perspective. One of the reasons both novels, and especially Home, are so poignant to me is Robinson’s mastery of writing. I’ve read few authors who have such a quiet and subtle power. I think that the themes Robinson tackles are the other reason these stories struck a chord: At midlife, the idea of change is more fraught than it was in my younger days. There are seemingly fewer doors open because of the choices I have made; habits I have formed; and the limits of time, money, and energy. Yet, as a therapist, the possibility that people can change is central to my work and my ability to hold hope for my clients and for myself as I live through my own ups and downs. While the doubts and regrets of my life are not the same as those of the prodigal son, Jack, in Home and by most standards are not as troubling, they still cross (and at times haunt) my mind. I found Jack’s question in Home “Do you think some people are intentionally and irretrievably consigned to perdition?” rather heartbreaking. It brought to mind all the times I’ve struggled with things about myself that I wish were different and times I’ve tried to help and counsel others who were up against some very difficult circumstances, including their own entrenched patterns that make it hard for them to move forward. Without spoiling the end of Home for those of you who might read it, I’ll just say that for me, it was unclear at the end of the book to what degree individuals and their world were able to change, and some of the characters certainly suffered for the uncertainties of their own transformation, the transformation of others, and that of society.

Surprisingly, some of the same feelings stirred in me by Home and Gilead (which I just read in December) came up when I was recently watching Manhunt: Unabomber, an eight-episode series on the FBI’s search for the Unabomber. Manhunt is entertaining and fairly well done, but it’s no masterpiece of writing or (with the exception of Paul Bettany, who played Kaczynski) acting. Still, I felt a stab of emotion when the series took the point of view of Ted Kaczynski in his tortured struggle to live both in and apart from a world he saw as destroying people’s basic freedom and humanity. Tragically, Kaczynski chose to act on these struggles by killing innocent people. However, in the TV show when Kaczynski plaintively speculated about whether he could stop killing if he wanted to but ultimately could not, it triggered some of the same emotion I felt pondering the souls of the characters in Gilead and Home. Granted, it was hard to feel much empathy for Kaczynski given the terror and destruction he caused, but the writers of the series slyly made it easy for the viewer to identify at least to some degree with Kaczynski’s alienation and used this theme to critique our confusing and dehumanizing world.

So, where does all this pondering and emotion leave me today? It leaves me with a great deal of admiration for Marilynne Robinson’s talent and gratitude that I have the chance to be touched by these and other stories. It also leaves me continuing to ponder the ideas of morality and change. Really, these are themes that will take a lifetime to explore. Some days, I feel OK with where I’m at in my pondering. Other days, not so much. In the end, it’s the journey and the questions that make us human.