When studying blue zones (regions of the world with abnormally higher life expectancy and overall health), researchers look for commonalities between the zones to ascertain which practices have the highest impact on improving our health. These commonalities range from social connections, to whole food nutrition, to daily exercise/movement, to connection with God, and as this article from bluezones.com shows….engaging in the arts. As it turns out, the arts aren’t just a hobby or pastime. They can be a key to adding years to your life, and life to your years. 

Engaging with the Arts Can Help You Live a Longer, Happier Life

A growing mountain of research is showing that engaging with the arts isn’t just a pleasant pastime—it can significantly impact one’s quality of life by improving cognitive ability, mental health, and physical well-being. In fact, engaging with the arts can change the neural pathways in our brains. A new field of study called neuroaesthetics focuses specifically on exploring how the brain responds to art, beauty, and other aesthetic stimuli.

The American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine reports that both creating and seeing art can raise serotonin levels, increase blood flow to the part of the brain associated with pleasure, foster new ways of thinking, and instill a more positive outlook on the future.

Improving health through artistic pursuits isn’t an entirely new concept. Arts therapy, now a distinct field, has been leveraged for therapeutic purposes since the 1940s, when it was first used in settings like tuberculosis sanitoriums. But in truth, people have turned to art to enhance their lives for even longer than that.

Humans have been incorporating art into their lives and communities for tens of thousands of years. The first signs of artwork date back to the Upper Paleolithic period, approximately 40,000 to 10,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of artistic expression includes decorative patterns on ochre blocks, cave paintings depicting animals and humans, and carved objects like figurines.

Arts in the original blue zones

Proof that practicing art can positively influence well-being and longevity can be seen in the world’s original blue zones (primarily in Sardinia, Italy, and Ikaria, Greece), regions with the longest-lived, healthiest populations. Engaging with the arts in the blue zones—whether it be playing musical instruments or making traditional crafts—helps to give residents a purpose throughout their lives.

Traditional arts in Sardinia, the first original blue zones region, encompass a variety of mediums such as handweaving, ceramics, woodworking, metalworking, and jewelry making. These skills have been passed down through generations and are deeply intertwined in the island’s history and culture. Singing, storytelling, and artwork are all a part of the region’s community rituals. Sardinian arts also contribute to the population’s slower, more mindful approach to daily living.

In Ikaria, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, traditional arts include painting, wood carving, and sculpture. Older Ikarians may spend hours of their days making textiles or baking, and residents of all ages embrace music and dance. Many community members participate in festivals where creative expression is shared across generations.

In both Sardinia and Ikaria, many adults continue working with their hands well into old age. Participating in creative activities helps to provide them with a strong sense of purpose—a core Blue Zones Power 9® principle—contributing to up to seven years of increased life expectancy.

What research is showing us

There is now a wealth of research on how engaging with the arts can positively impact well-being. For example, a recent groundbreaking study in the UK has shown that participating in arts activities results in a suite of measurable and significant benefits for individuals and society. These include reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety, helping to protect against cognitive decline and reduce the risk of dementia, improving social connection, boosting productivity, and enhancing quality of life. The study also revealed that arts engagement can result in improvements in physical functioning, especially in older adults, following arts activities that require movement, such as dance.

In partnership with the Social Biobehavioral Group at the University of College London, researchers at the EpiArts Lab—a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) lab at the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine—are currently measuring the impact of arts and culture in the U.S. by analyzing population health outcomes. Researchers at EpiArts Lab are finding evidence that arts engagement provides positive benefits for people of all ages. For example, youth who become involved in arts and cultural activities are less prone to engage in antisocial and criminal behavior. Participating in community art groups is also linked to better life satisfaction and purpose in life.

For the aging population, engaging with the arts impacts both mental and physical health. Older adults who participate in creative hobbies are 20% less likely to become depressed than those without creative hobbies. Those engaging in social, cultural, and community engagement activities—including arts, crafts, volunteering, or joining a social group—also required less inpatient care and experienced shorter hospital stays.

The Sound Health study by the National Institutes of Health and the Kennedy Center is another research project that has been focusing specifically on how music impacts health and well-being. Music is known to trigger a release of dopamine in the brain, and researchers are taking a deeper dive into the connection between music and well-being. They are studying various genres of music, from classical to rock, and observing how both rhythm and tempo affect the mind. Thus far, the Sound Health study has shown that music can be a therapeutic tool for anxiety, depression, and PTSD, as well as for neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, traumatic brain injury, and stroke. Music also helps with pain management and can reduce both physiological and psychological measures of stress.

The USC Aging Minds Project is also currently studying the effects of music participation on cognitive skills, hearing abilities, and social well-being in older adults. Its findings thus far reveal that music yields the greatest positive impact for those who engage with it in a community or group setting, like playing music in a local orchestra or singing in a church choir. And reaping the benefits of arts engagement doesn’t necessarily require any special equipment, according to Dr. Assal Habibi, a cognitive neuroscientist, researcher with the Aging Minds Project, and Associate Research Professor of Psychology at the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California. One can experience the same benefits from doing something as simple as singing along to music in the car or harmonizing on a song with a group of friends.

Singing is an easy way to reap health benefits

In one line of research now in its fourth year, the Aging Minds Project is comparing a group of older adults who participate in a community choir with a comparison group. In the first round of the study, this comparison group simply listened to music at home on their own. Then, in the next round, they practiced listening to music together. Most recently, study participants attended a music appreciation class.

“We’ve seen more improvement in the choir group,” Habibi explained. “There is something about learning to coordinate your auditory and motor system. You’re hearing something, and you have to be managing the output, but also in a group when you sing, you have to know when to step in, when to pull back, when it’s somebody else’s turn, when to raise your voice – all these smaller social adjustments. I believe it has benefits in terms of our social coordination and group belongingness.”

The research is also showing that singing together in a group improves auditory perception—in simplest terms, it helps older adults to better hear a conversation while in a busy restaurant or a crowded room.

“There has been really strong evidence showing that individuals who have long-term music training are better with speech and noise perception than those who don’t have music training. They’re just generally better at directing their auditory system and attention to the relevant stimulus in their environment,” Habibi explained. “So our hypothesis has been: If we teach older adults (who have had no experience with music before) 20 weeks of music in a setting of a community choir, we can enhance their speech and noise perception from a mechanical perspective to see if they’re better at hearing and auditory perception, and whether they’d be more willing to communicate with others, having more social life, decrease of social isolation, and a more enriched life.”

The study recruits older adults aged 65 and up with no prior music training, then tests their cognitive abilities, memory, attention, and their engagement with their community and family members before and after the 20-week study period.

“We’ve not only seen improvements in speech, noise perception, which was our hypothesis—whether their auditory perception gets better—but we have now seen a reduction in anxiety and depression, and more sense of connectedness and belonging to community,” Dr. Habibi said. “It was really interesting to see how much the group bonded and had a sense of purpose.”

Singing is something that anyone can do, regardless of age, and it is less intimidating than trying to learn a musical instrument. But it helps if the songs that one sings are meaningful to them. For the Aging Minds Project study, everyone who participated in the choir got to have input on which songs the group learned and sang.

Try a new creative pursuit

For adults who want the cognitive benefits of engaging with music, Habibi recommends joining a local choir or singing group. While listening to music or singing by yourself has some benefits, you can reap the most benefits by singing in a group setting.

Of course, there are many other ways to engage with the arts as well, from learning a new craft like crochet to taking a pottery making class or just visiting an art museum or gallery.