Creating art lowers stress, allows for deep focus, helps us process emotions, and imagine a more hopeful future according to ACRM.org. Their research through rehabilitation medicine has proven how art can enhance brain function by impating brain wave patterns, emotions, and the entire nervous system. Sounds like a great healthy way to relieve stress, right? Art can raise serotonin levels and assist in accessing the advanced processes in the brain, such as intuitive analysis, expressive behavior, and embodied cognition. Viewing art helps many become better at observation and can increase memory retention abilities. All because art affects the brain's plasticity. See an in depth breakdown of information regarding how art affects individuals at different ages.

Art is a creative outlet that contributes positively to the well being of the person. Art is therapy! Neuroplasticity is key for the brain's evolution, structure, and ability to repair of rechannel vital pathways. Art stimulates both brain hemispheres with and without movement because even viewing art provokes the brain to function on a higher level. Art has become an addition to neurological healing after a stroke and traumatic brain injuries. Performing art, music, literature, and visual art builds critical thinking, observation, bias awareness, empathy, and other vital life skills.

Emotionally, art provides a deep activation of brain function, therefore stress can and will be reduced while happiness is released with serotonin into the brain. This healthy response can assist in reduction and depletion of depression, chronic pain, and even reduce the affects of some medical conditions while providing an emotional outlet for creativity to flow. Artists can develop a piece using colors, textures, and other various mediums to represent how the person is feeling on a deeper level. Feeling the emotion and infusing it into art allows for the person to healthily process out emotions while safely healing at the same time. Art allows artists to speak through what they create by connecting with others around them and speaking on issues important to them!

Art as a communicating tool allows for children and adults alike to understand other cultures based on the art provided. While visiting Ecuador in college for two weeks, I saw a wide variety of amazing murals that spoke of the issues and hardships the artists were facing in Quito and other areas of Ecuador where I saw graffiti. It became known to us that many were starving and hurting because they were without food. Someone living on the streets in the United States could easily understand the hurt and pain displayed in the murals around the world. The color usage, depictions, and even the brushstrokes used can display how that person feels to the whole world. Art is not simply a way to deal with emotions within you, it also allows for you to communicate with those around you.