How Art Can Help With Mental Health

Let’s face it, art and music have long since been the outlet of many famous people who suffered from mental health issues. Looking at the very top of the tree people like Van Gough were clearly suffering but in the more contemporary world musicians like Kurt Cobain and more recently Chester Bennington not only found music an important outlet but also used it is a crutch too. But for one reason or another most normal people are not famous artists or musicians and because they are simply not gifted in that way but art and music can still play a hugely important role in their mental wellbeing.

Art and Music

Before we get to the creative part of how art can help it is important to remember people don’t even need to create art to benefit from it and gain varying levels of support and solace from it. Having art on the walls can hugely help with issues like anxiety. By having a focal point in the room that has emotional context a picture can help centre the person during an attack and help bring things back down to a level where they can carry on. Companies like https://www.artrepublic.com/ offer a huge range of works and they have the staff skilled enough to help anyone find something they love. But music also plays a huge role in dealing with mental health problems for many people. A certain song or a band that people can relate to can help, knowing they are suffering too can really help. But it can be good to listen to music other people use to cope. A mental health organisation called https://www.wearehummingbird.com/ get guests to create playlists on Spotify that they have used to get through tough times in the past and this haring can be very positive.

Drawing, Colouring and more

It is very common these days for people to buy adult colouring books. These books offer highly detailed designs to carefully colour in. The idea for a lot of people is that the level of concentration needed is a great source of calm and a good way to focus on something other than the issues at hand. For others, this level of intense focus can actually make things worse so it is something worth testing. A Psychotherapist called Doreen Meister suggests a number of other techniques which appear to be very helpful. One involves drawing anxiety! This process involves taping a sheet of paper to the table during an attack, taking a pen, or pastel, closing your eyes and then drawing a continuous squiggle on the page. This is done until it feels complete. The person can then go on to colour and develop this line, even write questions around it actually talking to the anxiety. This may seem a long process but by all accounts, it is a very constructive one and can help a lot.

Creating art to deal with a number of issues doesn’t need to be so prescribed, however, simply being creative can make a huge difference. Most people who don’t actively paint or draw feel like they are terrible at it but that really doesn’t matter. The work can remain private and it can be a wonderful outlet. Try paints, try clay, try building a collage. It really doesn’t matter, what matters is the focus, the outlet and the mental stimulation.

Learning a Musical Instrument

As adults, taking up an instrument can feel daunting, as teenagers, it can seem like a good idea but with the pressures of school work and the like it can be hard going. There is, however, a lot of evidence to say it is worth it. Certainly in younger children learning music has been shown to affect the cortices in the brain that are associated with reward and pleasure and also depression and anxiety. BY learning to play these cortices are changed for the good! Even if you feel like you won’t be any good there is no reason not to try it! With things like eBay, you can pick up almost any instrument for considerably less money that it once was. The other wonderful thing about learning to play something these days is that you no longer need to pay for lessons or deal with the social anxiety surrounding that 1 to 1 situation. Thanks to YouTube there are thousands of hours of music lessons that are completely free. By learning to express some of the feelings we get from our favourite songs by playing them ourselves we can create a very positive mental response. It is also good in terms of a focus and a creative outlet like art. Playing music crosses between the benefits of listening to music and creating art and so for many it can be a massive help.

Mental Health is not something that can be pigeonholed and the above discussion is not about finding “cures”. However, being creative has been shown to help a number of different conditions. A lot of people suffer what could be considered less severe issues where medication is not ideal and it is perhaps these people that could benefit most from art and music. But working in conjunction with therapy and medication creativity can be very powerful too.

*This is a collaborative post.