Choir Notes

The Healing Power of Art
From Music and the Spoken Word
Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4172

Convincing evidence and lived experience tell us that our emotions are linked to our well-being. And while common sense is not always common practice, it’s clear that improving our attitudes and perspectives can have a positive influence on our overall health.

One of the best ways to lift our emotional and physical outlook is through creating and enjoying works of art. A health professional said, “By engaging in dance, poetry or music, people are likely to initiate processes that help them manage stress, reduce negative mood states and perhaps change behavior that we know impacts cardiovascular risk and recovery.”1 That’s the healing power of art.

Whatever our level of well-being, art can lift and improve it. One young woman who had undergone two heart transplants found it emotionally healing to turn the details of her medical challenges into poems and stories. Her nightmares went away, her stress was relieved, and she had a distraction from pain and depression.2 Another patient found that inspirational music gave him a sense of serenity and strength, a feeling of hope that things will work out.

Art connects with our soul: music can soothe the troubled heart; poetry and good literature can boost our spirits; a beautiful painting or inspiring performance can take us to a calming place that, for a moment, brings some comfort and peace.

Imagine what the world would be like with no creative expression, no music, no poetry or literature, no colorful paintings or beautiful sculptures—how empty and dull life would be. Nobody should have to live in a world like that. Art can affect not only our health but our entire outlook on the world. It not only enriches life—in a sense it is life. The well-known author Henry James observed, “It is art that makes life…, and I know of no substitute whatever for [its] force and beauty."3

1 Joshua Smyth, in Ron Winslow, “In Search of the Science behind the Healing Powers of Art,” Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2009, D3.

2 See “The Healing Powers of Art,” D3.

3 Theory of Fiction (1972), 91.