When Dr. Frank Clark was in medical school studying to be a
psychiatrist, he decided to write his first poem.
“All that chatter that is in my head, everything that I’ve
been feeling, I can now just put it on paper and my pen can do the talking,” he
said, recalling his thoughts at the time.
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Back then, he was struggling with depression and had been
relying on a number of things to keep it at bay, including running, therapy,
medication, and his faith.
“I had to find something else to fill the void,” he said. It
turned out that poetry was the missing piece in his “wellness puzzle.”
“I saw an improvement in my mood,” said Clark, who now sees
patients in Greer, South Carolina. “It gave me another outlet.”
The notion that art can improve mental well-being is
something many people intuitively understand but can lose sight of — especially
if we have become disconnected from the dancing, creative writing, drawing, and
singing we used to enjoy as children.
But there’s a “really robust body of evidence” that suggests
that creating art, as well as activities such as attending a concert or
visiting a museum, can benefit mental health, said Jill Sonke, research
director of the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine.
Here are a few simple ways to elevate your mood with the
arts.
Try the three-drawing technique
Dr. James Gordon, a psychiatrist and founder of the Center
for Mind-Body Medicine, pioneered the “three-drawing technique.” It is featured
in the new book “Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us.”
“In my experience, art like this goes beyond words in
helping us to understand what’s going on with ourselves and to understand what
we should do with it,” Gordon says in the book.
You don’t need to be good at drawing — stick figures are OK.
Start by quickly drawing yourself; don’t overthink it. The second drawing
should show you with your biggest problem. The third drawing should show you
after your problem has been solved.
This exercise is meant to encourage self-discovery and help
give people agency in their healing. It can be done with or without a
therapist, said Susan Magsamen, an assistant professor of neurology at the
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a co-author of the book.
Color something intricate
If you are one of the many people who have turned to adult
coloring books, it may not come as a surprise that research suggests this
activity can help ease anxiety.
Coloring within the lines — of an intricate pattern, for
example — appears to be especially effective. A study that evaluated college
students, and another that assessed older adults, found that spending 20
minutes coloring a mandala (a complex geometric design) was more helpful at
reducing anxiety than free-form coloring for the same length of time.
Susan Albers, a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland
Clinic and the author of “50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food,” described
coloring as a “mini mental vacation.” When we focus on the texture of the paper
and choose the colors that please us, it becomes easier to tune out
distractions and stay in the moment, she said.
“It’s a great form of meditation for people who hate
meditation,” she added.
Enjoy more music
Listening to music, playing an instrument or singing can all
be beneficial, research shows.
A 2022 study, for example, surveyed more than 650 people in
four age groups and asked them to rank the artistic activities that helped them
“feel better” during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns.
The youngest participants, ages 18-24, overwhelmingly rated
musical activities as most effective. Across all age groups, “singing” was
ranked among the top activities.
Other studies have found that singing reduces levels of
cortisol, a hormone that the body releases when it is under stress. As one
example, mothers who had recently given birth and regularly sang to their
babies had less anxiety.
Magsamen noted that music can be effective at reducing
stress because things like rhythm and repetitive lyrics and chords engage
multiple regions of the brain.
“I sing in the shower,” Magsamen said. “I sing at the top of
my lungs to the radio.”
Write a poem
Clark has continued to write poetry since graduating from medical
school and offered some tips for those interested in trying.
First, banish any thoughts that you aren’t creative enough.
“I think a lot of times we are our own worst critic,” he said. “I believe
anybody can write poetry.”
Start with a simple haiku, Clark suggested. Haikus consist
of just three lines — the first and last lines have five syllables and the
middle has seven.
Consider involving your friends, too — a suggestion from a
2020 paper in the Journal of Medical Humanities that explored poetry’s “healing
power.”
As the authors wrote, “Simply by reading a poem once a week,
sharing a poem with a friend or spending five to 10 minutes to free write about
a favorite memory, a current idea, a worry or hope can all be effective first
steps in experiencing the benefits of poetry.”
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