Lifestyle
Exercise is vital to your health, but so are the arts. Here’s how to reap the benefits
When she has time, Daisy Fancourt likes to sit at the piano and play something by Bach, Francis Poulenc or, if her children are with her, a nursery rhyme.
There’s nothing frivolous about playing or listening to music. It can reduce stress and inflammation, improve heart health, lift moods and slow cognitive decline, according to Fancourt’s book, “Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives,” out in February. Other artistic pursuits, from painting landscapes to taking salsa lessons, have similar benefits.
Shelf Help is a wellness column where we interview researchers, thinkers and writers about their latest books — all with the aim of learning how to live a more complete life.
“I think somehow the arts are still seen as ‘fluffy,’ even though we have such strong evidence about everything they do,” says Fancourt, a professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London, and director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Arts and Health. She calls art the forgotten fifth pillar of health, alongside diet, exercise, nature and sleep.
“With physical activity, we all take it seriously — even if people don’t do it, they know they ought to be doing it. And I think it would be wonderful to get to that same place with the arts.”
Portrait of author Daisy Fancourt.
(Tom Burton)
Despite Fancourt’s skill as a pianist (as a college student, she played for a classical radio station between taking classes at Oxford University and interning at a hospital arts program), she insists that people needn’t be master artists to improve their physical health and mental well-being. A simple visit to a museum or a live theater production can do wonders, as can a humble activity such as knitting.
Scientist that she is, Fancourt presents plenty of evidence for art as a cure to what ails us. But her main concern is helping people “see how they can apply the evidence in their daily lives and make changes that will improve their health.”
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
What are some of the most important ways that the arts can make us healthier?
When we engage in the arts, we activate reward and pleasure networks in the brains, we experience the release of dopamine as a happy hormone, and we also psychologically give our brains what they need to be happy. We give our brains a sense of autonomy, control, mastery and a way of regulating our emotions, all of which are fundamental to our mental health.
Arts engagement affects nearly every region of the brain. And if we engage regularly, it actually affects the size, structure and functioning of those brain regions, which can help with the development of brains in young children. It can help with the preservation of cognition as we get older. It can even help our brain to develop new neural pathways around brain injuries.
Every system in the body is affected by art. So when we breathe through singing, we support our respiratory muscles. When we dance, we reduce our blood pressure and glucose levels. When we look at relaxing paintings, we actually activate our pain analgesic response.
“Art Cure” by Daisy Fancourt book cover.
(Celadon Books)
In the book, you describe screen time as the “ultra-processed food” of the arts. Why isn’t watching content on screens as beneficial as experiencing the arts in person?
When we looked at people going to the cinema versus going to live theater or music gigs, we found there were no benefits to cognition from regularly going to the cinema as they got older, but they had better cognitive preservation if they were going to live performances instead. That’s not to say [engaging in the arts] online is necessarily bad for you — there are plenty of examples where it’s good. But it can dilute benefits you would get from real-life social interactions.
You point out that narratives on TV can have some benefits, but now people are migrating to even shorter videos on TikTok and Instagram. How do you think about the difference between consuming content on, say, Netflix versus scrolling on TikTok?
We know that shortened engagement just doesn’t provide the same kind of meaning that you can get from longer engagement. And it’s not just online. We’re guilty of that even when we go to museums. The average amount of time that people spend looking at artwork in museums is 28 seconds. If you really want to enjoy the arts, you have to give them your attention, whether that’s really looking at a picture properly in a gallery and thinking about your response to it, or whether it’s taking the time — not for a 30-second clip on TikTok — but a 30-minute drama that’s actually going to allow you to get into the details of storylines and characters.
So, I recently tried and failed to read “Ulysses.” People might have lofty ambitions to read a great novel or learn how to play an instrument, but at the end of the day they turn on the TV because they’re exhausted. What are some strategies to engage with the arts in a meaningful way when people have limited time and energy?
Pick the art you want to do, not the art you think you ought to do. So if “Ulysses” is what you want to be reading, then great, but don’t think that some kind of highbrow art is going to be the best for you. It’s not. You need to pick art that you think you’re going to enjoy, that speaks to you, that you have a frame of reference for. So that’s my first point. My second point is to make it equal to your energy level. If you don’t have the energy to read a book, why not turn on a concert on the radio? But don’t be on your phone. Don’t be doing anything else. Don’t multitask. Just sit and enjoy that concert and that experience.
Another thing to consider: How can you make [regularly engaging with the arts] doable? If you would normally go out and meet up with friends in the evening for a drink, well, how about going and meeting up and doing a craft activity instead? So it’s not requiring any more time. If you’d normally read the news on your way to work, swap that for a book. Those simple swaps can make it much more feasible.
TAKEAWAYS
From “Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives”
I was fascinated by the “tragedy paradox” that you mentioned in your book. Can you talk about why art that deals with depressing and scary situations can actually make us feel happier at times?
It makes sense that happy art would make you happy. But actually, reading sad books or listening to sad songs, even watching scary films, people say that makes them feel happier. In our real lives, if we experience a sad or scary thing, then it’s sad or scary. But when we’re experiencing it through art, because it’s art, we know it’s not real, therefore there’s a detachment from it. Our brains get to use that experience almost as a learning process, to think about, “How can I regulate this emotion? How would I respond in the real world?” Also, we find that when we have negative and positive emotions together, we find events much more memorable, including arts events.
[Note: Fancourt writes in the book that sad or scary works of art that trigger negative memories from our past do not help us regulate our emotions.]
How often should we be engaging with the arts to get the full health benefit?
Think about it like you think about food. So we all need to be eating every day. We should all be doing some kinds of arts every day.
(Maggie Chiang / For The Times)
Phil Pritchard of the Hockey Hall of Fame works the 2019 NHL Awards at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on June 19, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
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This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with host Peter Sagal, judge and guest scorekeeper Alzo Slade, Not My Job guest Phil Pritchard and panelists Alonzo Bodden, Adam Burke, and Dulcé Sloan. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.
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The Don Vs The Poppa; World’s Worst Doctor; Should We Eat That?
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Paul W. Downs can’t help it that even on the weekends, his life intersects with “Hacks,” the HBO comedy he co-created and co-showruns with his wife, Lucia Aniello, and their friend Jen Statsky. (He also appears on the show as Jimmy LuSaque Jr., the besieged manager of its two stars, played by Emmy winners Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder.) The fifth and final season of “Hacks” premiered last week, but on Downs’ days off, he often finds himself at its previous filming locations or hanging out with cast members who have become like family.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Downs moved to Los Angeles in 2011, but soon after, he and Aniello were hired to write (and for him to act) on the über-New York show “Broad City,” keeping them away from the West Coast for years. Now the couple live in Los Feliz, which they enjoy with their young son.
“I love Los Feliz because it’s a real neighborhood with restaurants and bars, but also feels close to nature with Griffith Park,” Downs says. “Also it’s very central to my Eastside friends and Westside agents.”
And if he had to live at a local mall, like the character Ava Daniels did in the third season of “Hacks,” which would he choose?
“It would be the Americana, obviously.”
Here’s how he’d spend a perfect day in L.A.
10 a.m.: A late rise and a li’l barista
I’m sleeping in if I can, which I can’t because I have a toddler, but let’s say I can sleep ’til 10. That would be insane.
Then I’m making coffee at home. I’m making it with my 4-year-old because he likes to make my coffee now. He always wanted to help, now he really wants to do it on his own. I’m still there to supervise, but he does do a lot of it.
I do batch brew. I’m doing Verve Coffee that I’m grinding there, and then I’m brewing four cups because I need my coffee. I had a Moccamaster for a long time, but I recently got a Simply Good Coffee. There’s no plastic — it’s all glass and metal.
11 a.m.: Chocolate croissants for everyone
We’re driving to Pasadena and we’re going to [Artisanal Goods by] CAR, which is the place to get the best chocolate croissant, I think, in the world. I don’t just think in L.A., I think they’re better than Paris. I’m going there with my wife and my kid and I’m having another coffee and some pastry. We’re ordering three [chocolate croissants]. We’re not doubling up.
11:45 a.m.: The family business
We’re driving to Fair Oaks in Pasadena. There’s a place called T.L. Gurley. We shot “Hacks” there, actually. Not only in Season 1, but also full circle in Season 5. We’re going to shmay around and look at antiques. My kid is going to want to play a vintage pinball machine. We’re going to find a little piece of art for the house or what have you. It’s not necessarily that I’m on the hunt. It’s to pass the time and to have some fun. If I could do anything and have a leisurely day and take my mind off work, that’s what I’m doing.
People love to interact with my kid when he’s there. We’re really training him to appraise things at a young age. My parents are part-time dealers of antiques. My grandmother bought and sold antiques. It’s kind of a family business.
1:30 pm.: Baguettes and books
We’re driving to Larchmont and we’re getting a sandwich at Larchmont Village Wine, Spirits & Cheese. I’m doing prosciutto-mozzarella-basil on a baguette.
Then we’re going to Chevalier’s Books. What’s sad is that I’m often not looking for leisure material. I’m looking for something that I’m interested in learning more about or writing about, or that they’re turning into a show I want to audition for. But we’re also doing Little Golden Books for my son. He’s obsessed. We’re not huge on screen time, so we really encourage the book-buying.
2:30 p.m.: Cast pool party
We’re having some family fun in the pool and we’re doing that until evening. We invite people over all the time. My sister-in-law is a New Yorker, but she actually wrote last season on “The Rooster” and she’s often writing on shows in L.A., so she’s often here and she’ll have a couple friends come over. I know this sounds like a piece of PR or something, but we’ll really literally have Hannah [Einbinder] and maybe Mark Indelicato from “Hacks” come over to swim. Jen, our co-creator of “Hacks,” will come over.
6:00 p.m.: Family dinner
Sometimes we’ll order Grá to the house, which is a pizza place in Echo Park — excellent sourdough crust pizza. But if we don’t do that, an ideal evening is an early dinner at All Time on Hillhurst in Los Feliz. We’re ordering the ceviche and my son is having all of it and not sharing with anybody at the table.
8:45 p.m.: A thrilling ending to the day
After putting my kid to bed, my wife and I, in an ideal world (full disclosure: we haven’t done this in two years), we’ll watch something together that we’ve been meaning to watch. We have a long list of movies and we either want to revisit or that we haven’t seen that we need to watch.
We don’t watch a lot of comedies. It’s a dream to watch a “Black Bag” or a little espionage thriller. We really like that because it’s so different than the stuff that we’re working on in the day.
Often the things we watch are things that we admire. We like deconstructing it as fans of film and television. We do like talking about the making of it, but it’s less of a critique and more of a listing of the things we appreciated about it.
10:30 p.m.: No work tomorrow
And then it’s lovemaking ’til morning on a perfect Sunday. If it’s a perfect Sunday, there’s also a Monday that’s off.
Jay (not pictured) found himself alone and hopeless in a jail cell when a fellow inmate’s unexpected words of comfort changed his life.
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When Jay was 22 years old, he was a self-described loner. In this story, he is being identified by his nickname to allow himself to speak candidly about the following experience and his mental health. He says the few people he did hang out with at the time had questionable morals.
”I chose my friends poorly, and your friends have a tendency to rub off on you. And so I started making poor decisions,” Jay said.
One evening, when he and his friends were out drinking, someone suggested they should try to break into the chemistry building on his college campus. Most of the group shrugged the suggestion off, deeming it impossible, but Jay was convinced he could pull it off.
“The next night I made a plan of how to do it, and I did it,” Jay remembered. “And I didn’t get caught doing it, [but] I got caught afterwards.”
At around 1 that morning, Jay was placed in the county detention center. Sitting alone in his cell, reality began to sink in.
“I pretty much thought that my life as I knew it was going to be over, and I had decided that the world would be better off without me in it.”
Jay made a plan to end his life. As he prepared himself, he began to cry.
“But just in that moment when I was ready to do it, I heard a voice coming from the top left corner of my cell, from a little vent. And someone called out to me and said, ‘Hey, is this your first time?’”
The man who called out was an inmate in the cell next door.
“I collected myself a little bit, and I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Can I pray for you?’”
Jay had grown up religious, but had stopped going to church years before. In that moment, though, he knew he needed support. He said yes, and listened as the man began to pray.
“I wish I could tell you that I remember the [exact] words that he said to me, but what I remember is that his words landed with me, and instead of wanting my life to be over, suddenly I saw hope,” Jay said.
The interaction happened nearly ten years ago, but it was a pivotal moment in Jay’s life, and one he thinks about all the time.
“[Now], I have a good job. I have a girlfriend who loves me. I have a life. But I have a life because somebody who was in the same situation I was in had the courage to talk to a fellow inmate and be kind.”
Jay says that he wishes he could meet that man again and express his appreciation.
“[I would] shake that guy’s hand, give him a hug, and tell him what his small gesture meant for me, how he changed the course of my life.”
My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.
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