How can art boost mental health?

The creation or even appreciation of art is used to help people explore emotions, develop self-awareness, cope with stress, boost self-esteem, and work on social skills.

Art is an expression of the creator’s soul. The most amazing thing is not only the final outcome, (the preservation of feeling) but the personal process in which a piece started. The road to wellness and sustainable mental health is all about figuring out and addressing problems and finding ways to work through them.

Now, you may be like a lot of people who don’t feel they are “good” at art. You may start a painting and quickly begin to over analyze how you are applying the paint. Your cute bear in the woods begins to look more like a raccoon in a garage. You’re more stressed now than when you started… so how does this work? Remember this, mental health issues are due to imbalances.

Some may be due to gut imbalances, others chemical imbalances. For those lucky enough to struggle with mindset imbalances, know that if art stresses you out your lesson is to not be so hard on yourself. To enjoy the ride rather than the destination. To literally throw two paint loaded brushes in the air and not care where they land, then make out what animal or object they look like and call that your masterpiece.

Before “life” happen, what would little you do with art supplies? Would they be saying unkind things to themselves with every “wrong” stroke. Would they quit because it wasn’t perfect. Would they even know what perfection was?

They say an artist is the child that survived. Art can boost your mental health by getting you more in-tune with yourself again.

shot by Giovanni Doganiero