Do You Believe in the Healing Power of The Arts?

Do you believe in the healing power of the arts? Painting, Music and Writing?

Well... Research does so!

According to F. Diane Barth's article, Keeping a Journal Can be Good For Your Emotional Health, keeping a journal can benefit both your mental and physical health. Not only by writing down important moments in your life, but mentioning insignificant moments that occur daily. She supports that by mentioning those moments it can help you reflect in the long term. Joyce Hocker in her article Writing for Healing, also supports that when dealing with grief and trauma, writing down your experiences can help you reflect and understand the feelings and emotions you are experiencing at that time. It is a way of distancing yourself and watching it as a third person.

Art Therapy and Painting can also benefit mental health. According to Melissa Walker's Ted Talk Art Can Heal PTSD's invisible wounds, when soldiers with Post Dramatic Stress Disorder where asked to paint masks of the images that were haunting them, they found it easier to let them go. It was a difficult process to come in terms with, however, once they were able to draw the faces that were haunting them, they were able to face them and eventually heal.

Music Therapy can also benefit both physical and mental health. According to Kathleen M. Howland's Tedx Talk How Music Can Heal Our Brain and Heart, music is connected to our neuron system and can benefit diseases such as Parkinson's disease through brain based treatments. However, the benefit of music is also visible through children that find an escape through it. To them music can be a form of expressing traumas or situations that are not yet ready to communicate to another.

While not being able to find the words to communicate their emotions, art provides an escape that doesn't need words to be said but rather written down and felt.

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