Your Brain on Art
How the Arts Transform Us
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A life-altering, science-backed exploration of the healing power of art, which has now been proven to help lower stress, supercharge learning and creativity, extend your lifespan, and combat loneliness.
“This book blew my mind!”—Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit
A BLOOMBERG BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • Finalist for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award and the Porchlight Business Book Award
What is art? Many of us think of the arts as entertainment—a luxury of some kind. In Your Brain on Art, authors Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross show how activities from painting and dancing to expressive writing, architecture, and more are essential to our lives.
We’re on the verge of a cultural shift in which the arts can deliver potent, accessible, and proven solutions for the well-being of everyone. Magsamen and Ross offer compelling research that shows how engaging in an art project for as little as forty-five minutes reduces the stress hormone cortisol, no matter your skill level, and just one art experience per month can extend your life by ten years. They expand our understanding of how playing music builds cognitive skills and enhances learning; the vibrations of a tuning fork create sound waves to counteract stress; virtual reality can provide cutting-edge therapeutic benefit; and interactive exhibits dissolve the boundaries between art and viewers, engaging all of our senses and strengthening memory. Doctors have even been prescribing museum visits to address loneliness, dementia, and many other physical and mental health concerns.
Your Brain on Art is a portal into this new understanding about how the arts and aesthetics can help us transform traditional medicine, build healthier communities, and mend an aching planet.
Featuring conversations with artists such as David Byrne, Renée Fleming, and evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson, Your Brain on Art is an authoritative guide to neuroaesthetics. The book weaves a tapestry of breakthrough research, insights from multidisciplinary pioneers, and compelling stories from people who are using the arts to enhance their lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Art will heal what ails you, according to this scattershot treatise on aesthetics and well-being. Johns Hopkins neurologist Magsamen (Family Stories) and Ross, Google's vice president of hardware design, draw on scientific studies to explain how making and appreciating art, music, dance, theater, and writing affect the brain and promote health. Some of the applications the authors highlight intrigue, such as the success of dance classes in helping Parkinson's patients improve movement and singing classes in hastening new mothers' recovery from postpartum depression. Other benefits are more modest and unsurprising: adult coloring books reduce stress and anxiety, and group dancing fosters social bonding. There's disappointingly sparse insight on neuroscience, as well. For instance, when the authors note that "poetry activates brain areas such as the posterior cingulate cortex and medial temporal lobes," which "intensify emotions," the unsurprising takeaway is that poetry elicits an emotional response. Elsewhere, the scientific discussions sometimes edge toward new age mysticism, as when the authors write that the "notes C and G... resonate with the Earth's core frequency and are known to be soothing vibrations." This somewhat obvious brief comes up short. Photos.
