Your brain on art : how the arts transform us

Title:

Author:

Magsamen, Susan, author.

ISBN:

9780593449233

Personal Author:

Magsamen, Susan, author.

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

xvii, 280 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 24 cm

General Note:

Source of cataloging data: WCP

Abstract:

"Have you ever gotten chills while listening to a particularly gorgeous piece of music? Or felt a sense of calm while gazing at a painting of a serene landscape? We have experiences like those every day, but rarely stop to consider what's happening internally to cause them. In Your Brain on Art, founder of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Susan Magsamen and Google designer Ivy Ross explain how, by understanding how we biologically react to aesthetic experiences, we can not only heal as individuals but thrive as communities. Using the new science of neuroaesthetics, which explores our physiological reactions to art, Magsamen and Ross show us how, for instance, gardening can help a person heal from trauma or listening to a major fifth interval can snap the body out of a fight-or-flight response. Beyond enjoyment and abstraction, art can change the way we operate on a daily, practical level. And, in addition to helping each of us heal from stress, anxiety, burnout, and other malaises of modern life, neuroaesthetics can effect major change in society writ large, whether through public art murals in high-crime areas or music and dance therapy for patients experiencing neurodegenerative disorders"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: The language of humanity -- An aesthetic mindset -- The anatomy of the arts -- Cultivation well-being -- Restoring mental health -- Healing the body -- Amplifying learning -- Flourishing -- Creating community -- Conclusion: the art of the future.

Subject Term:

Aesthetics -- Psychological aspects.

Arts -- Psychological aspects.

Added Author:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
Searching... Sugar Grove - Todd Library	Book	BH301 .P45 M34 2023	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A life-altering journey through the science of neuroaesthetics, which offers proof for how our brains and bodies transform when we participate in the arts--and how this knowledge can improve our health, enable us to flourish, and build stronger communities.

"This book blew my mind!"--Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit

A BLOOMBERG BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * Finalist for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Award and the Porchlight Business Book Award

Many of us think of the arts as entertainment--a luxury of some kind. In Your Brain on Art, authors Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross show how activities from painting and dancing to expressive writing, architecture, and more are essential to our lives.

We're on the verge of a cultural shift in which the arts can deliver potent, accessible, and proven solutions for the well-being of everyone. Magsamen and Ross offer compelling research that shows how engaging in an art project for as little as forty-five minutes reduces the stress hormone cortisol, no matter your skill level, and just one art experience per month can extend your life by ten years. They expand our understanding of how playing music builds cognitive skills and enhances learning; the vibrations of a tuning fork create sound waves to counteract stress; virtual reality can provide cutting-edge therapeutic benefit; and interactive exhibits dissolve the boundaries between art and viewers, engaging all of our senses and strengthening memory. Doctors have even been prescribing museum visits to address loneliness, dementia, and many other physical and mental health concerns.

Your Brain on Art is a portal into this new understanding about how the arts and aesthetics can help us transform traditional medicine, build healthier communities, and mend an aching planet.

Featuring conversations with artists such as David Byrne, Renée Fleming, and evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson, Your Brain On Art is an authoritative guide to neuroaesthetics. The book weaves a tapestry of breakthrough research, insights from multidisciplinary pioneers, and compelling stories from people who are using the arts to enhance their lives.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Art will heal what ails you, according to this scattershot treatise on aesthetics and well-being. Johns Hopkins neurologist Magsamen (Family Stories) and Ross, Google's vice president of hardware design, draw on scientific studies to explain how making and appreciating art, music, dance, theater, and writing affect the brain and promote health. Some of the applications the authors highlight intrigue, such as the success of dance classes in helping Parkinson's patients improve movement and singing classes in hastening new mothers' recovery from postpartum depression. Other benefits are more modest and unsurprising: adult coloring books reduce stress and anxiety, and group dancing fosters social bonding. There's disappointingly sparse insight on neuroscience, as well. For instance, when the authors note that "poetry activates brain areas such as the posterior cingulate cortex and medial temporal lobes," which "intensify emotions," the unsurprising takeaway is that poetry elicits an emotional response. Elsewhere, the scientific discussions sometimes edge toward new age mysticism, as when the authors write that the "notes C and G... resonate with the Earth's core frequency and are known to be soothing vibrations." This somewhat obvious brief comes up short. Photos. (Mar.)

Kirkus Review

A useful guide to the science behind why the arts are fundamental to our physical and emotional health. Magsamen, a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Ross, a vice president of design at Google, introduce readers to an emerging scientific field known as neuroaesthetics, using fascinating case studies to demonstrate how the arts have lasting benefits for our mental and physical health. In fact, approaching everyday life with an "aesthetic mindset" can change our very physiology, literally rewiring our brains. Chronic pain, for example, can be managed by dance, while those who "engage in arts and cultural activities have a lower risk of developing chronic pain as they age." The authors also show how new parents recovering from postpartum depression feel better faster by the simple act of humming. Perhaps most shockingly, "people who engage in the arts every few months, such as going to the theatre or to a museum, have a 31 percent lower risk of dying early when compared with those who don't." Alongside the case studies, Magsamen and Ross present many accessible methods to bring the arts into your life, showing readers how to create a habit of participating in the arts just as you would follow a workout schedule. They analyze a variety of artistic mediums that provide benefits for the brain, including poetry, music, painting, and even doodling. "Art and science together are potent medicine," they write, "capable of radically transforming our physical health." From young children to adults with Alzheimer's, the arts can improve and even extend our lives. This fascinating account of the science behind this phenomenon will inspire readers to establish their own concrete plans to incorporate as much art into their lives as possible. Regularly engaging with the arts can make you live longer, and this absorbing book explains how. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

The arts bring joy, improve lives, and heal bodies and minds. In fact, their transformative power is so strong that health-care workers are prescribing museum visits, and researchers are studying the "neuro-arts," note the enthusiastic authors, Magsamen from the International Arts + Mind Lab at the Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics at Johns Hopkins, and Ross, vice president of design for the hardware product area at Google. They convincingly proselytize about the value of the arts and nature, "the most aesthetic of places." Add more natural light and greenery to one's surroundings. A study found that patients who had windows with a view of nature had shorter hospital stays and took fewer pain medications. The arts have always helped people communicate, express feelings and beliefs, innovate, make tools, and solve problems, playing a key role in humanity's vitality. To get the most from the arts, the authors write, be a curious, playful explorer who pays attention to all five senses. And remember, not everyone perceives and responds to the arts in the same way. "One person's cacophony is another person's symphony," write Magsamen and Ross. Hear, hear!

Library Journal Review

Founder of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Magsamen joins with Google designer Ross to explain how we react biologically to a striking painting or ravishing piece of music. And that, in turn, reveals how art can help us heal from trauma. Welcome to the exciting new science of neuroaesthetics.

Excerpts

Chapter 1 The Anatomy of the Arts There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique . --Martha Graham, dancer and choreographer We made a bold assertion in the Introduction. We told you that arts and aesthetic experiences will improve your health and well-being and enhance your ability to learn and flourish. So let's lay the groundwork for why that's true. We're going to start by showing you some foundational science and offering a quick tour through your body to illuminate the ways in which you are wired for the arts. By first showing you what is going on inside of you, you'll better appreciate all that follows in the book, which is how the arts and aesthetics affect your body and mind. You can think of this chapter as your arts anatomy cheat sheet. Knowing how your senses work is key to understanding the transformative nature of the arts and aesthetics in your life. If you took the aesthetic mindset survey prior to this chapter, you have a better idea of how you experience the arts and the extent to which you tune in to your aesthetic surroundings. Let's expand on that with an exercise to connect you to the sensory experiences you are having right now. To begin, get comfortable where you are. Breathe in through your nose. What do you smell? Close your eyes and concentrate on this one sense. Maybe there's a cup of your morning coffee, a glass of red wine, or a candle nearby with a familiar scent. Keep breathing. What do you notice next, beyond those first impressions? If you were trained as a sommelier or a perfumer, you would know those initial smells are the top notes, and you would identify numerous others that exist just below them. Perhaps there's a musty odor from a dusty bookshelf, or the distinctive smell of petrichor through an open window, that incredible earthy scent that comes when a rain drenches a dry landscape. Smell is one of the oldest senses in terms of human evolution. Your nose can detect 1 trillion odors with over 400 types of scent receptors whose cells are renewed every thirty to sixty days. In fact, your sense of smell is so good that you can identify some scents better than a dog can. Microscopic molecules released by substances around you stimulate your scent receptors. They enter your nose and dissolve in mucus within a membrane called the olfactory epithelium, located a few inches up the nasal cavity from the nostrils. From here, neurons, or nerve cells, which are the fundamental components of your brain and nervous system, send axons, which are long nerve fibers, to the main olfactory bulb. Once there, they connect with cells that detect distinct features of the scent. Here's where it gets interesting: the olfactory cortex is located in the temporal lobe of your brain, which broadly affects emotions and memory. This is why smell instantaneously and potently triggers physical and mental responses in you. For instance, the scent of a newborn baby releases the neuropeptide oxytocin, which activates bonding, empathy, and trust, appropriately earning oxytocin the nickname "the love drug." A single sniff of a certain perfume or cologne can bring you back to a long-forgotten relationship. Several chemicals released when grass gets cut stimulate the amygdala and the hippocampus, helping to reduce stress by lowering cortisol. That's all because of the olfactory cortex-temporal lobe connection. Like scent, taste is also a chemical sense: The foods you eat trigger your 10,000-plus taste buds, generating electrical signals that travel from your mouth to an area of the brain called the gustatory cortex. This part of the brain is also believed to process visceral and emotional experiences, which helps to explain how it is that taste is among the most effective sensations for encoding memory. It's why nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon taste like the fall and winter holidays for those living in America and Europe, while the herbaceous and citrusy marigold flower tastes like celebration in India, where the edible blooms are routinely part of wedding ceremonies. It explains why Susan makes her grandmother's chicken-and-dumpling recipe when she wants to feel comforted and why Ivy's go-to is moist chocolate cake inspired by the homemade rich, gooey pudding her grandmother made every Sunday growing up. Keeping your eyes closed, refocus your attention to your ears. The hum of electrical equipment, the whirl of a fan in a laptop, the sound of chattering birds. Traffic. What's happening nearby? What can you hear in the distance? Hearing is a complex system that includes brain processes, sensory systems, and sound waves. Maybe you're listening to music as you read this chapter. Music and sound are the most researched art form in neuroaesthetics, and we'll show you some compelling findings throughout the book. Our ability to hear is intricate and precise. Sound from the outside world moves into the ear canal, causing the eardrum to vibrate. These sound waves travel through the ossicles to the cochlea and cause the fluid in the cochlea to move like ocean waves. There are thousands of small hair cells inside of the cochlea, and when the fluid moves, these cells are activated, sending messages to the auditory nerve, which then sends messages to the brain. The auditory cortex, also located in the temporal lobe, sits behind your ears, where memory and perception also occur. Different tempos, languages, and sound levels affect your emotions, mental activities, and physical reactions. Researchers at Stanford University in California used electroencephalography (EEG) machines to measure brain-wave activity of those listening to music at 60 beats per minute and they saw that alpha waves in the brain synchronized to the beats. The alpha brain wave is associated with relaxation. A slower beat can synchronize the delta brain wave and aid in falling asleep. And the auditory nerve works both ways: It can signal your ear to dampen outside noise and focus on what the brain perceives as an important sound, which explains why it's so easy to accidentally startle someone who is absorbed in reading a book or looking at a piece of art. They literally didn't hear you coming. We tend to think of sound as overt and recognizable things: a favorite song, the timbre of a lover's voice, the honk of a car horn. What you'll learn in this book is that your brain chemically reacts to frequency, vibration, and tone as well, and that these chemical triggers can dramatically alter mood, perception, and even address neurological and emotional ailments. OK, open your eyes. You are now being flooded by light, color, and the objects in your visual field. For those who have visual impairment, it's estimated that over 80 percent can differentiate between light and dark, even if you are not able to recognize colors, faces, or shapes. Our ability to see requires us to process light through a complex system. Your eyes work similarly to a camera. What you see is converted into electrical signals by photoreceptors. The optic nerve then sends these signals to the occipital lobe in the back of the brain and converts them into what you see. It's here that we perceive, recognize, and appreciate objects, and neuroscientists are discovering that it is one part of this lobe--the lateral occipital area--that contributes to how we process and create aesthetic appreciation of art. Let's finish your sensory journey by touching a few things in your surroundings. The nubby fabric of your chair, the smooth surface of a table. Or if you are outside, perhaps the cool bark of a tree or the granular warmth of beach sand. Your fingers, hands, toes, feet, and skin are extraordinarily sensitive, picking up minute cues that trigger physiological and psychological responses. In each of your feet, you have more than 700,000 nerve endings that are constantly taking in physical sensation. Touch receptors in your skin connect to neurons in the spinal cord by way of sensory nerves that reach the thalamus in the middle of the head on top of the brain stem. Information about touch and texture is then transmitted to the somatosensory cortex, located in the parietal lobe. The somatosensory cortex is critical to processing touch. Neurons that process touch in the brain react differently to diverse features communicated by receptors. Consider how many adjectives we use to describe texture--rough, soft, furry, velvety--and what a rich sensory experience touch is. Touch is one of the more powerful cognitive communication vehicles. It was one of our first sensory systems to evolve. We share our feelings and emotions through the simple act of holding a hand or sharing a hug. Touch rapidly changes our neurobiology and mental states of mind by releasing the neurotransmitter oxytocin, which, in addition to being the love hormone as we mentioned earlier, is also attributed to feelings of trust, generosity, compassion, and lowered anxiety. Experiments with human touch have shown how the intention of one person--to express sadness or happiness, care or excitement--can be interpreted and mirrored by another person through sense receptors. We can, quite literally, "speak" to one another through touch, because of the way it registers emotional perception in the brain. Excerpted from Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us by Susan Magsamen, Ivy Ross All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.