Art Keeps You Young

Something that’s always been a hot topic for us is: the positive effects of art on the mind and body. How engaging with art reduces stress, allows you to reach a flow state, and connects you with your inner expressive self, guiding self-actualization. As of this month, we have even more concrete evidence of these effects: a study published May 11th by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Gerontological Society of America links participation in the arts to a lower biological age.

To understand what this means, we have to dig in a little bit to the phrase “biological age." Age is just a number, as the saying goes. Something called “epigenetic aging" is used in this study - measuring various markers in your cells which tend to indicate how quickly a person is aging. Aging occurs when our cells gradually lose the ability to function, and there are lots of factors like diet, physical activity, and stress that can have an impact on the speed at which we age. 

As it turns out, engaging in art-related activities correlates to a lower biological age - our artsy folks who participated weekly had a lower biological age of 1.02 years, while those who participated monthly saw a lower biological age of 0.8 years. So, the more the better (and if you're a bit skeptical about this like I was - the study adjusted for the socioeconomic background of the participants.)

Now you may be wondering, what counts as “participating in an art-related activity?” According to researcher Daisy Fancourt, there are a variety of ways you can engage, and the more diverse, the better. 

“Each type of arts activity—reading, making music, going to cultural performances, visiting heritage sites etc—has different effects on us cognitively, emotionally and physiologically. So engaging in a diverse range of activities—just like having lots of different plants in our diets—is most beneficial for our health.”

-Daisy Fancourt in an interview with The Art Newspaper

So, anyways, if you'd like to come slow your biological clock with rejuvenating arts activities, look no further. ;) Check our workshops calendar for adults for our current upcoming workshops and drop-in art sessions.