Many of us do not have to look much farther than our family, circle of friends, or co-workers to know someone who has been touched by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or a neurological disorder such as Alzheimer’s disease. And that doesn’t even take into account the acute daily stress, sometimes reaching toxic levels, that we all experience.
In fact, one in four people will be affected by a mental health issue or a psychological disorder at some point in their lives, anxiety and depression being the most common. Neurological conditions are the leading cause of poor health and disability across the globe, with cognition disabilities affecting approximately 14 percent of the U.S. population.
Fortunately, just as our brains and bodies respond negatively to trauma, stress and disease, so do they also respond—in a positive sense—to the arts and aesthetic experiences. Over the last 30 years, advances in technology have allowed scientists to noninvasively get inside our heads, allowing them to prove what artists and lovers of art have known intuitively for millennia: we are wired for art.
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The late evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson placed our desire to create and commemorate our lives through artistic expression as far back as the time when humans were first beginning to harness fire. He believed that what could have begun as restorative gatherings around a nightly fire grew into the creation of stories, songs, dance, myths and cave drawings, bonding us to one another like nothing else. Over the ensuing millennia, those gatherings around the fire have evolved into the incredibly diverse array of cultures that span our globe.
Recent research as well as insights into humankind’s artistic…
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