Dr Gene Cohen MD, PhD, Director Center on Aging, Health & Humanities, George Washington University Medical Center. Photography: Joshua Soros.
Art is like chocolate for the brain
20 January 2000
"Opera – it's better than sex", wrote Jeanette Winterson in the Guardian, back in 2003, well before people talked about ‘arts and health' as a mainstream prescription for wellbeing.
Essentially, Winterson argued that to live more complete lives, we have a responsibility to nurture the right side of our brains. "Are we just too left-brain for our own good? I suspect the answer is yes", she says. "A life of work, shopping and telly is not a life; it is a poor existence... Our lives run entirely on the surface, and the breakdowns and neuroses that are so common are symptoms of our private despair. Public despair is mounting, and it is no use blaming youth, drugs, drink, tabloids, godlessness, etc. We have no inner life; and without an inner life, without creativity and imagination and a sense of values beyond money and fame, we cannot be happy and well."
Many others support the view that creative expression is ‘food for body and soul'. World authority on creative ageing, Dr Gene Cohen MD, PhD, Director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at The George Washington University Medical Center, says "Art is like chocolate for the brain."
Dr Cohen, who also holds the positions of Professor of Health Care Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at GWU, has spent many years studying the brain and its capacity to adapt and change. "Use it or lose it" is a mantra that is in sync with Dr Cohen's research findings. In his seminal book The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life, Dr Cohen says that "our brain function and creative potential don't diminish as other body systems do". His recent four year study of the impact of creativity on health and wellbeing in older Americans provides compelling evidence that engaging with the arts can lower stress and anxiety, improve mental health and self-esteem and reduce reliance on medication, with less falls and hospital stays.
In fact, there is a significant and growing body of scientific research that underpins arts and health and, with the burgeoning cost of healthcare and the increase in life expectancy (Australia has the fourth highest in the world), utilisation of the arts in healthcare makes increasingly good sense.
It's timely then that Arts and Health Australia, an arts and health network and advocacy organisation, with strong overseas connections, is planning a major international conference in November 2009. Keynote speakers include Dr Cohen who will present the findings from his Creative and Aging Study and the business case for arts and health and author and researcher, Mike White who is at the forefront of community arts and health in the UK. Further details will be announced in early February along with information relating to abstract submissions.
The arts and health conference will be staged in a new arts and conference centre called the Glasshouse in Port Macquarie on the mid north coast of NSW from 10 to 13 November 2009. Several specialized pre-conference workshops are also being planned.
Conference convenor, Margret Meagher, from Arts and Health Australia, said that the event had already attracted strong interest from overseas delegates and in excess of 100 enquiries from across Australia have already been lodged. Conference registrations open mid February. "The theatre in the Glasshouse only seats 600 people so we have decided to allocate seating on a first come first served basis. Dr Cohen is an exceptional speaker and we are privileged that he has accepted our invitation to come to Australia for the conference. Apart from one day in Sydney for media calls, Dr Cohen will spend the remaining 4 days in Australia at the conference in Port Macquarie."
More Information
International Arts and Health Conference
Contact: Margret Meagher
Email:
Telephone: 0416 641 482
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Editor's note: The full transcript of the Jeanette Winterson article can be found on the Guardian website.
Website: http://www.artsandhealth.org/
