By Laura M. Holson

There is a story Susan Magsamen likes to tell that illustrates how creativity resides within all of us. Magsamen is executive director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, a research initiative that studies how the brain and body respond to art and aesthetics. Not long ago, she was interviewed by a man who seemed to have little awareness of his artistic nature. “I’m not good at it, so I don’t do it,” he told her. 

Magsamen often hears this in her line of work. But as a neurology professor who studies neuroaesthetics, a field that assesses art’s impact on well-being, health and society, she knows that creative expression is vital to a happier, longer life. A World Health Organization report published in 2019 looked at more than 900 publications and found that singing, dancing and photography can help prevent the onset of mental illness and age-related physical decline. Studies show that listening to music can alleviate anxiety and pain in cancer patients and may help foster resilience among people who suffer from trauma. One found that people who regularly went to museums, concerts or similar activities were likely to live longer.

Still, skeptics abound. Magsamen asked the man if he liked to cook. “Yeah, I love food,” he replied. He loved walking in nature, too, and listening to music. And he became almost giddy when she asked him to jump up and down and move his arms and legs. That’s dancing, she told him. “You’re doing art all the time.”

Neuroscientists say the brain remains capable of adapting well into old age. Some artists have been known to create iconic work as they approach the end of their lives, dubbed a “swan song effect.” Giuseppe Verdi and Claude Monet did their most acclaimed work in the last decade of life. David Bowie’s Blackstar album, released days before his death in 2016, won five Grammy Awards. 

So why does interest in creative expression ebb for many young people, only to reawaken for some in later life? People can realize the benefits of creative activity without writing a grand opera or painting gossamer water lilies. The challenge is to maintain the artistic impulse that fueled us as children throughout life.

Creative Expression as Medicine

Child’s play is good for the brain. Children make connections through storytelling and exploration, activities Magsamen says are essential to “create strong neural pathways for brain development.” Singing, for example, activates the vagus nerve, a key component of the parasympathetic nervous system that carries signals between the brain, heart, lungs and digestive system. Dancing strengthens cardiovascular and neuromuscular systems. Magsamen, like many researchers who study creativity and health, notes that creative expression is necessary, not a peripheral act. “It’s a pillar, like sleep or good nutrition or exercise,” says Magsamen, co-author of Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us.

But somewhere around third grade, children become aware of how they are perceived in social settings. If their creativity is not nurtured, Magsamen says, adolescent exploration is suppressed and children can exhibit a desire to conform. Confidence drops and that inhibits playful curiosity. Further, Magsamen says creative interests can take a backseat during transitional times in people’s lives such as starting college or a career, marriage, parenthood or caring for aging parents. A Drexel University study found that 45 minutes spent creating with collage materials, clay or markers dramatically lowered cortisol — the stress hormone—in 75 percent of adult participants. “You end up putting aside those things that have given you pleasure because they’re now seen as a ‘nice to have,’ not a ‘have to have,’” she says. 

Elevating Mood and Countering Loneliness

Art as medicine has shown particular promise for people with neurological disorders. A 2021 research review published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease Reports showed that dementia patients had a better quality of life when engaged in art therapy. Shabnam Piryaei’s father was diagnosed with dementia last year at the age of 72. Piryaei, a poet and associate professor at San Francisco State University, was initially overwhelmed by duty and fatigue, unprepared for the hours spent managing her father’s care. He lived alone and struggled with bouts of forgetfulness and melancholy. Piryaei worried he was depressed. 

One day last spring, she brought paper and pencils to his home and explained they would draw part of a figure on paper, pass it to the next person and, when finished, examine their combined work. The activity, shared with her son, was a reprieve from the heaviness of other days. So much so, Piryaei incorporated creative play in other visits — tossing cards in a hat, crumpling paper balls for tabletop bowling. As these activities became more regular, she noticed her father became more engaged. “He’s way more present,” she says. Moreover, it gave them an opportunity to discuss his dementia with grace, Piryaei says, to “look at the thing that’s maybe scary, with a kind of levity, for now at least.”

Renée Fleming, one of the most celebrated opera singers of her generation, spearheaded a collaboration with the National Institutes of Health in 2017, to explore how music impacts physical and mental health. As part of her advocacy, she held talks around the country, including at Stanford, with scientists, artists and policymakers, and recently edited a collection of essays, Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness. 

 Creative expression can also help forge stronger social connections and prevent loneliness, which is known to increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes and depression. Research shows that young people between the ages of 18 and 28 are more likely to experience social disconnectedness and loneliness than older adults. To address the issue, Jeremy Nobel, founder of the Foundation for Art & Healing and author of Project Unlonely: Healing Our Crisis of Disconnection, created Campus UnLonely, a series of student workshops offered at more than 70 colleges and universities. 

One workshop participant, Jackson Gieger, 24, spent his freshman year taking online classes after the coronavirus pandemic thwarted his move to Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. When he arrived on campus as a sophomore in 2021, it was hard to break into already established cliques. So in 2023, he became a facilitator for “Campus Colors & Connection” workshops. Students pick colors that describe their feelings — nervous, excited, scared — then make a sketch using bright crayons. Conversations are steered to discussing sketches, colors and the feelings they represent, making it easier for students to acknowledge emotions they might otherwise be reluctant to discuss. “Helping them feel like they belong is a key component,” Gieger says of the exercise.

The Midlife Renaissance 

For some people, creativity emerges in midlife as an antidote for what is lacking. “The arts are the most potent form of personalized medicine because you know exactly what you need,” Magsamen says. “For me, it might be collaging. For you, it might be journaling. We know what we’re drawn to.”

For Sue Fleishman, it was romance writing. Although Fleishman had excelled as a communications executive at some of Hollywood’s most prestigious studios, in 2023, at 63, she began to reevaluate her life. Fleishman’s chosen industry worshiped fame and youth, and she felt overlooked. “I’m somewhat of a control freak and I chose a profession where I had absolutely no control,” she says. The cognitive dissonance left her frustrated. What she wanted most was the freedom to rewrite her story. 

Fleishman enrolled in a romance writing seminar and, in 2024, published her first novel about a public relations powerhouse who falls in love with a charismatic true crime writer she meets at a yoga retreat in Italy. At first, writing (under a pen name) was a lark as she mined her Hollywood career for guffaws. But as she continued to write, her mood shifted. She was less stressed. Her frustration gave way to joy. Writing became a path to healing. “It’s even deeper than therapy because you’re working something out, but you’re able to do it through characters,” Fleishman says. “You get to make the outcome the way you want it to be.” She adds, “That’s very therapeutic and freeing.”

Others reclaim creativity by returning to the fertile ground they mined as children. Nina Katz gave up creative pastimes when she went to Boston University to study nursing, while her twin sister became an artist . After a number of life changes — a career switch, two cross-country moves and a radical haircut — Katz longed to paint again. “It was something inside of me that I just felt I had to get back to,” she says. 

Katz was then 35. She took painting classes at the San Francisco Art Institute while working in human resources in Silicon Valley. Over time, her interest developed into expertise. Painting boosted her confidence and resilience. Now 70, Katz paints full time and her work is featured in a San Francisco gallery.

“Some people tell me when they’re painting, ‘Oh. I’m afraid to do this,’” Katz says. “And I go, ‘Afraid of what? Who are you afraid of? What’s going to happen if you take a brush that’s three inches wide and make a stroke?’” 

You can wipe it away and start over, she says, with the confidence that comes from years of creative play and self-license.

As these creators have learned, it is never too late to embrace your inner artist. As well as making life more interesting, it’s good for your health. 

For more on creativity in different areas of life and work, check out “How to Start Your Creative Engine” from the Stanford Report.