The Arts as Medicine

In this column, I often talk about the early days of Northwest Prime Time, and today's post is no exception. Around the same time that we launched the newspaper for seniors, I began watching CBS' Sunday Morning program. I love the leisurely pace with its emphasis on features and human-interest stories rather than on hard news. Quirkiness abounds. Sunday Morning offers profiles of interesting people -- both the famous and the everyday. Long segments that engage you and make you think are interspersed with an almanac offering quick pops of fascinating facts on a variety of topics. To me, the program provides a pleasant way to begin a Sunday morning. 

I soon learned that Sunday Morning's approach was fashioned after The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and I thought, well, if it's good enough for The New York Times and for CBS Sunday Morning, it must be good enough for Northwest Prime Time. Add in an emphasis on people over age 50, events and informational resources for seniors, and that pretty much describes Northwest Prime Time's approach. Back in the days of our print publication, we even finished each edition with a calm dip into nature, just like Sunday Morning's final scenes, their "Moment in Nature."  We reserved our final page of editorial for contributing writer Roger Urbaniak's GREAT OUTDOORS column.

Over the years, I have found many great story leads from watching the program on Sunday mornings. 

This past Sunday, I enjoyed a segment reported by Dr. Jon LaPook, Chief Medical Correspondent for CBS News. It was all about how researchers are finding that the arts positively impact your physical health and can even help to create healthier communities. The findings are especially important during these times when loneliness and feeling disconnected from others is so rampant in our society. Loneliness is being recognized as a major health risk that is as deadly as smoking.

The connection between arts and your health is a real thing, so much so that the World Health Organization has 3,000 studies demonstrating the connection. But the arts are proving to be more than simply an antidote to loneliness; studies show that participating in or watching the arts with others can help protect against cognitive decline, heart disease, anxiety and depression. Scientists are exploring the cellular mechanisms and brain circuits that can help to explain the phenomena. We've all felt it: the ability of music to engage us, to make us smile, close our eyes, immerse us in memories. It's the emotional connection to the arts that seems to do the trick... the connection improves our health.

Doctors can prescribe more than medication; they also recommend healthy lifestyle habits such as eating well, getting enough exercise, or even advising you to spend time in nature. Now, it seems, doctors may add the arts to their list of prescriptions. The research is telling us that the arts, culture and community can be medicine. Lifestyle recommendations for your health is called social prescribing. 

Lear DeBessonet is one of Broadway's most sought-after directors. She also created a national event promoting the arts for everybody. "I think that participating in the arts does so much for us physiologically, cognitively, socially, spiritually. And, uniquely, it does all those things all at the same time," she told Dr. LaPook. 

The doctor also interviewed Jill Sonke, who is the founding director of the Center for Arts and Medicine at the University of Florida. She describes arts programs in hospitals, and how patients discover unexpected joy when participating in the programs during such difficult times. That joy, says Sonke, can be transformational. And, she tells us, 75% of medical schools around the country are now including the arts in medical education.

The movement to connect the arts with health is gaining momentum. Paloma Izquierdo-Hernandez runs Urban Health Plan, which serves 90,000 people at 26 health care centers. She says that under our current model, healthcare costs are immense, and outcomes are not great. "We have to be open to new and innovative new things." Therapists at the clinics are recommending to their patients a variety of activities, such as cooking classes, writing and reading classes. Or watching arts programs in person. "You should do all the things you can do, to engage," says Nataki Garret, who is Arts for Everybody's co-artistic director. It's what gives you pause from your everyday activities, worries, thoughts, what makes you slow down, connect with others, get engaged in someone else's story. Sit in the park and listen to music for free, she advises us, sing with your friends and family. "It's all about having that connection." 

It's that connection, it seems, rather than being skillful or artistic, that counts when it comes to the arts and your health. 

In February, I reported on another Sunday Morning segment featuring Jane Fonda and Ashton Applewhite, the anti-ageism activist. "You are being robbed of 7 and 1/2 years of your life," Jane Fonda proclaimed on the program. "The health benefits of being in art class -- specifically -- it turns out, are fascinating," said Ashton Applewhite. Scientific research that shows one of the best longevity activities is spending time with others creating art of some type, ANY type... from flower arranging, to painting, to quilting, to singing, to drum circles, to crafts and everything in between. Even if your skills aren't great, the real benefit comes in finding a creative activity you can enjoy with a community of people you can stick with. 

While I grew up loving to draw, it was always a solitary activity. I had never taken a painting class until last Fall when my high school friend, Lisa Yanak, started teaching watercolor classes at a local community center. When I first started, I felt like a kindergartner in finger-painting class. I had about that much skill. I soon learned that my enjoyment of the class is not about the artistic result, though I am striving to improve. It's about the relaxation I experience while drawing and painting, and it's about the social connections. 

And as Jill Sonke advised us in the Sunday Morning segment: "Go ahead, sing badly, dance badly. Do it freely."

Some final thoughts on the arts come from a few true artists:

⦁    “Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.” – Salvador Dalí

⦁    “The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.” – Auguste Rodin

⦁    "We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” – Bob Ross

Bob Ross