They found that 45 minutes of creating art in a studio setting with an art therapist significant lowered cortisol levels. Shots - Health News Start Fresh: 6 Tips For Emotional Well-Being In 2020 Cortisol is a hormone that helps the body respond to stress. In a 2016 paper in the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association, Kaimal and a group of researchers measured cortisol levels of 39 healthy adults. This research suggests making art may have benefit for people dealing with health conditions that activate the reward pathways in the brain, like addictive behaviors, eating disorders or mood disorders, the researchers wrote.Īlthough the research in the field of art therapy is emerging, there's evidence that making art can lower stress and anxiety. And indeed - the researchers found an increase in blood flow to this part of the brain when the participants were making art. They measured blood flow to the brain's reward center, the medial prefrontal cortex, in 26 participants as they completed three art activities: coloring in a mandala, doodling and drawing freely on a blank sheet of paper.

She and a team of researchers discovered this in a 2017 paper published in the journal The Arts in Psychotherapy.

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