Drawing Can Change Your Brain In These 7 Ways, According To Science (2024)

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Drawing Can Change Your Brain In These 7 Ways, According To Science

by Kyli Rodriguez-Cayro

Drawing Can Change Your Brain In These 7 Ways, According To Science (1)

Hannah Burton/Bustle

For some people, creating art is a passion, for others it's a hobby, and the rest would prefer to just admire art made by someone else. If you fall into that last category and haven't made art since hand-tracing turkeys in elementary school, you may want to try picking back up this creative hobby. Why? Science has shown drawing can change your brain — often times, for the better.

According to OZY, painter Pablo Picasso once said, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” While visual art may have always been considered fulfilling and good for the soul, research is also discovering it's really good for your brain, and overall sense of wellness. Whether you are painting, drawing, sculpting, designing, collaging, making any kind of visual art — in any medium — packs a positive punch when it comes to your health.

It may be difficult to feel comfortable (and not judge your art!) working with clay or picking up pastels if you aren't an experienced artist. However, you don't have to be a trained or "talented" artist to glean the growing list of health benefits that creating visual art has to offer. From alleviating depression, to improving your attention span, here are 7 ways that making art can positively impact you.

1

Drawing Improves Your Memory

As Artsy reported this past May, a 2016 study led by Yale University researchers "observed a phenomenon they termed the 'drawing effect' — that illustrating a word’s meaning always leads to the highest levels of memory recall." So, if you're ever struggling to commit a big presentation to memory, sketching it out may help you better retain the information.

2

Art Making Reduces Anxiety

If you're feeling stressed, research has indicated that creating art may help you relax and unwind. A 2011 study found that art projects reduced anxiety levels in college students. What's more, Psychology Today reported a study published this year in The Journal of Korean Medical Science discovered that mindful art therapy helped ease anxiety symptoms in people with heart disease.

3

And, It Makes You Happier

Unsurprisingly, creating visual artwork can not only reduce anxiety, but it has been shown to mitigate depression in research. A study published in 2017 discovered that people with moderate or severe depression who participated in art therapy showed major improvement after just 10, hour-long sessions.

According to Psychology Today, a 2017 study conducted by researchers in Hong Kong found "clay art therapy" also seemed to have a positive impact on adults with depression.

4

Creating Art May Help Ease Physical Pain

Who would've thought that making art could have pain relieving properties? Matthew Solan, the Executive Editor of Harvard Men's Health Watch, explained in an article for the Harvard Health Blog that, "Art therapy helps lower the perception of pain by moving your mental focus away from the painful stimulus." He added, "It is not simply a distraction, but rather a way to teach you how to relax and alter your mood, so the pain doesn’t control your emotional state."

Creating art won't completely take physical pain away, but it could be a useful tool when it coming to managing it.

5

It Can Make You More Resilient

Interestingly enough, drawing or making any kind of visual art could make it easier to deal with stressful or upsetting situations. According to a 2014 study published in PLOS One, creating art can improve your overall cognitive functioning, and lead to more "psychological resilience in adulthood."

6

Making Art Improves Concentration

Dr. Michael Posner, Professor Emeritus at the University of Oregon and an adjunct professor at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, explained in a 2009 article for The Dana Foundation that because art improves cognitive functioning, researchers have hypothesized that performing any kind of art can improve your attention and focus.

"We know that the brain has a system of neural pathways dedicated to attention. We know that training these attention networks improves general measures of intelligence," wrote Dr. Posner. "We can be fairly sure that focusing our attention on learning and performing an art — if we practice frequently and are truly engaged —activates these same attention networks."

7

It Can Make You Even More Creative

Studies suggest that the more you make art, the more creative you'll become. Research from 2015, published in the scientific journal NeuroImage, revealed that college students studying drawing and painting actually became better artists. The increase of creativity was due to white matter in the prefrontal cortex reorganizing, which is pretty dang neat.

8

Whether you pick up a paint brush, sketch with some pens, or take a pottery class, making art can help you manage your mood and more. You might also just get a nice decoration out of it, too.

Drawing Can Change Your Brain In These 7 Ways, According To Science (2024)

FAQs

Drawing Can Change Your Brain In These 7 Ways, According To Science? ›

Not only is drawing a form of literacy, it also helps your memory! A study from Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology found that participants that doodled were 29% more likely to remember mundane information. IT MAKES YOU HAPPY: When you draw, you release Serotonin, Endorphins, Dopamine, and Norepinephrine.

How does drawing change the brain? ›

Not only is drawing a form of literacy, it also helps your memory! A study from Journal of Applied Cognitive Psychology found that participants that doodled were 29% more likely to remember mundane information. IT MAKES YOU HAPPY: When you draw, you release Serotonin, Endorphins, Dopamine, and Norepinephrine.

How does art change your brain? ›

It lets you focus deeply

You're so in the moment and fully present that you forget all sense of time and space," she says. And what's happening in your brain when you're in flow state? "It activates several networks including relaxed reflective state, focused attention to task and sense of pleasure," she says.

What is the science behind drawing? ›

We use our brains when we draw, and this not only releases endorphins, but helps build new connections and pathways. When drawing, we actively use both sides of our brain, the right for creativity, and the left for logical thinking. This strengthens both and helps develop the ability to focus and think strategically.

Can drawing increase IQ? ›

Creative hobbies such as drawing or painting might help to increase spatial awareness and creativity. They also promote fresh ways of thinking and problem-solving.

Why is drawing so powerful? ›

When students draw something, they process it in three different ways, in effect learning it three times over. *The takeaway: Encourage students to draw. Doing so is a powerful tool to boost student learning because it improves recall by challenging students to explore an idea in different ways.

Does drawing affect your mental health? ›

They can actually reduce stress. So there is a hormone that is secreted by the body known as cortisol whenever the body is under stress, and there have been plenty of studies to show that cortisol levels can be decreased when we engage in the arts and the positive impacts that it can have on our mental health.

Does drawing release dopamine? ›

When the artist's hand begins a drawing, the mind releases dopamine. That tells the brain to “Pay attention—this will be rewarding in the end”. Motivated to see that reward, the brain focuses on the drawing, and then relaxes when it is complete: reward.

How art can change your mind? ›

All art can broaden knowledge, give enjoyment, and challenge our assumptions; but it can also help soothe, calm, enlighten, and uplift the mind and spirit. Even art that leaves us uncomfortable can still help us to think differently and give us new perspective.

What does drawing teach you? ›

Artistic activities like drawing or sculpting with clay are all known to develop the visual-spatial skills and teach students to interpret, evaluate, criticize and use visual information. Visual arts improve learning capabilities greatly.

What psychology says about drawing? ›

Drawing is a symbolic expression of the inner psyche (the unconscious). The unconscious part of the psyche can appear through symbols (drawing). Drawing is a direct communication from the unconscious, and it cannot be camouflaged as easily as in the case of communication with words.

What are the 5 major purposes of drawing? ›

different situations. ∎ There are five purposes for visual art: Ceremonial, Artistic Expression, Narrative, Functional and Persuasive.

Why is drawing a therapy? ›

It helps individuals to project themselves, to express their experiences, their hopes and expectations, and their childhood traumas. It allows children to communicate and verbalize their fears when they cannot speak or don't know how to put words on their feelings” explains Chantale Eid, MdM psychologist in Lebanon.

Is drawing good for ADHD? ›

Children with ADHD build mental flexibility by problem-solving any obstacles they encounter while making art – like coloring outside a line, or gluing a piece in the wrong spot. Making art creates natural moments to express thoughts and feelings in an environment that is often less threatening than talk therapy.

Are artists brains different? ›

Calling someone “right-brained” is another way of implying they actively use the creative side of their brain compared to the analytical “left” side. A study cited by the BBC suggests artists don't use different parts of their brains, but instead their brains are structurally different.

Is drawing a talent or ability? ›

Drawing is a skill and like with any other skill, you can't expect to get better without practicing it. So many people think that drawing is just something that some people can do and others can't. This simply is not true. Anyone can draw, but you have to want it enough to practice it.

What part of the brain is activated with drawing? ›

These results showed that a fronto-parietal network is specifically involved in drawing and suggested that a crucial role is played by the (left) inferior parietal lobe, consistent with classical literature on constructional apraxia.

Does drawing increase neuroplasticity? ›

Art therapy promotes neuroplasticity – that greater ability to change connections, and thus thoughts, perceptions and behavior – which can help people recover from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), strokes and other insults to the noggin.

Does drawing relax the brain? ›

Relaxes the brain

Drawing, painting and creating allows our brain to work in a different way. We become engrossed in the present moment which has been shown to be a great stress reliever as the brain can relax and work at a slower pace.

Does drawing give you dopamine? ›

So we can see how dopamine-related curiosity can create ongoing engagement with a message. When the artist's hand begins a drawing, the mind releases dopamine.

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