Is it really news that the arts are good for you? On one level, the findings of a new study about the health benefits of engaging with music, dance and other artistic endeavors confirm what many of us feel instinctively that we already know. Creativity enhances life. That is why people admire and cherish it, in others and — if they have the confidence — in themselves.
However, the results of one of the first attempts by researchers to quantify this benefit are fascinating all the same. The study, from a group of scientists at University College London, working with blood samples and survey data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, showed that people who participated regularly in the arts aged more slowly than those who did not.
The benefits were found both among people who attended concerts or exhibitions and among those who sang in choirs or painted pictures themselves. Those who undertook an arts activity at least weekly were, on average, a year younger biologically than those who did so rarely. The effects were more pronounced in middle-aged and older adults and in those who were involved in more than one type of activity.
The tools used, known as “epigenetic clocks,” are relatively new and have some controversy attached to them. Questions about correlation versus causation can be asked about the aging-related changes to DNA and other molecules that they measure and about the relationship between these biological markers and behavior. It might not be that going to galleries makes you age more slowly, but rather that people who are aging more slowly for other reasons go to galleries more often.
The researchers’ call for the arts to be included in public health strategies is a bold one. Leisure facilities such as libraries and museums are widely viewed as contributing to the collective well-being of communities. However, when health policy refers to lifestyle, it usually means more straightforwardly physical habits: diet, exercise, alcohol and smoking.
Does this study point toward a more holistic view of health and wellbeing, in which relationships and creativity are understood as basic human needs along with food and housing? Already, the rise of social prescribing has gone some way toward widening the range of activities that are officially viewed as conferring therapeutic benefits. Loneliness, in particular, has become a focus for policymakers as the adverse outcomes associated with it have become clearer. Unsurprisingly, social interaction is one of the ingredients of a busy cultural life that could slow down aging, according to this study. Others are cognitive and sensory stimulation and stress reduction.
To arts enthusiasts, this could seem like stating the obvious. Of course, going out with friends to see a show puts a song in their hearts. Do they need to know that doing such things regularly could affect them at a molecular level too, conferring similar benefits to exercise?
Perhaps not. The arts are not and have never been reducible to their impact on health. Since the earliest cave paintings, they have manifested the human capacity for imagination and connection and have been a vital facet of communal and spiritual life. However, there is radical potential in the discovery that the widely recognized psychological rewards of creativity could be mirrored in our cells.
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on Friday used their legislative majority to push their version of a special defense budget bill to fund the purchase of US military equipment, with the combined spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.78 billion). The bill, which fell short of the Executive Yuan’s NT$1.25 trillion request, was passed by a 59-0 margin with 48 abstentions in the 113-seat legislature. KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who reportedly met with TPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) for a private meeting before holding a joint post-vote news conference, was said to have mobilized her
The inter-Korean relationship, long defined by national division, offers the clearest mirror within East Asia for cross-strait relations. Yet even there, reunification language is breaking down. The South Korean government disclosed on Wednesday last week that North Korea’s constitutional revision in March had deleted references to reunification and added a territorial clause defining its border with South Korea. South Korea is also seriously debating whether national reunification with North Korea is still necessary. On April 27, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung marked the eighth anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration, the 2018 inter-Korean agreement in which the two Koreas pledged to
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is often accused of getting close to, and even conspiring with, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). There are certainly good reasons behind these accusations, yet the confounding truth is that it makes neither historical nor logical sense for it to do so. Whether one believes that the Chinese civil war fought between the KMT and CCP in the previous century has ended or has yet to be resolved, the KMT’s retreat to Taiwan in 1949 resulted in the CCP governing China and the KMT taking root in Taiwan. For years, the KMT refused to even
RSS