Art is any hobby that involves a creative outlet. This includes fine art such as painting, drawing and sculpting or other types of art such as music, dancing or writing!
There are many benefits that come with integrating artistic practices into your life, the positive links between art and mental health have been studied and proven for years.
Creativity
In the long list of mental health benefits that come with art, creative expression comes near the top. Creativity is often overlooked when looking for a fun activity to do in your spare time.
Being able to use your creativity to create art means you’re using artistic expression. This is because artistic expression is particularly helpful in understanding your feelings and emotions.
Whether it’s the subject matter or the colours you use in a painting or drawing. The words of a song or moves of a dance routine. All of these things can indicate your feelings or deeper emotions. This in turn can then help you understand the feelings and take necessary steps to help or avoid them.
It’s also just great at getting a good bit of art out of you!
Stress relief
One of the benefits of expressing yourself using creative outlets is it helps you cope with stress. Especially when it comes from general stress or other mental health issues like depression and anxiety disorders.
Getting stuck in and lost in a piece of work allows you to temporarily put your stresses and fears to the back of your mind. So just being in the moment all your concentration is taken up by the task. Because of this there’s no space for worrisome thoughts.
Although just working on your own art projects is beneficial on its own. Art therapy is also a tried and tested form of therapy. This involves having a mental health professional inspect and interpret your work. From this they interpret emotions you’re feeling and then finding the best solution for you.
Cognitive abilities
Being creative through art stimulates parts of the brain that are responsible for cognition. Particularly when it comes to learning, problem-solving, focus, and memory. Even art has obstacles and challenge. So when you’re given the opportunity to think, you look for ways to overcome and solve them.
This helps develop problem-solving over time, and through what you’ve learnt, you will be able to find creative solutions for ordinary problems in your day-to-day life.
A Sense of Purpose and Achievement
Art can have a great effect on a person’s self-esteem. It gives a sense of accomplishment and productivity that some may find difficult in other scenarios. For example, if you don’t have interests in other activities like sports.
Though some people may not feel that validation is important or necessary. Others being proud or impressed by the work you create also brings a feeling of achievement and happiness.
Social connections
Art has the ability to connect people who have the same interests. Taking part in art events, clubs or workshops is a great opportunity to make new friends and find like-minded people.
Once you’ve made connections with people who have similar interests, friendships can occur, helping you be more outgoing and attend more social gatherings which may help boost mental health.
Lastly…It’s Fun!
Simply put, art is fun. It’s a wholesome hobby tat anyone can do to pass the time in a productive way. It can be easy to get absorbed into what you’re creating, and this can help relieve boredom and the negative effects of it.
Having a good time and enjoying yourself is good for your mental health. Simply due to the fact it can lift your mood. It gives you a positive outlook on how you’re spending your time as it can give you a sense of satisfaction that you did something positive and productive with your day.
