Lately, I have been spending more time writing and immersing myself in nature. Often, I find myself wondering what happens in my brain and body when I engage in these activities. For a long time, I searched for a book that could explain the science of joy I experience when handwriting or being surrounded by nature. Your Brain on Art is exactly that book.

Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross unravel the science behind these experiences, proving that the arts are not just for entertainment. They are essential to our well-being. They introduce the building blocks of neuroarts, demonstrating how creative expression can rewire our brains, improve mental and physical health, and bring profound changes to our daily lives.

What I love most about Your Brain on Art is that it does not just explain the science. It makes you feel it first. It reaches the heart before it reaches the brain, ensuring that the insights linger beyond just understanding.

In a world that moves too fast, Your Brain on Art serves as a reminder of what we often overlook: the innate connection between creativity and well-being. Whether you want to enhance your own life or gain a deeper understanding of how the arts transform us, this book is a must-read.

Summary

Neuroaesthetics, How Art Shapes the Brain

Art does more than move us. It changes our brains. Neuroaesthetics, or neuroarts, explores how the arts affect our emotions, thinking, and well-being. This field is reshaping our understanding of creativity and its impact on the mind.

The Aesthetic Mindset – How Awareness and Creativity Enrich Everyday Life

An aesthetic mindset is about noticing and embracing the arts and beauty around you and bringing them into your life with intention. People with this mindset share four key traits: deep curiosity, a love for open-ended exploration, heightened sensory awareness, and a drive to create or appreciate art. It’s a way of being present, fully engaged with your surroundings, and open to inspiration in everyday life.

The Core of Neuroarts – How the Brain Shapes and Responds to Creativity

1. Neuroplasticity
   • The brain’s ability to rewire itself based on experiences. The more intense or meaningful an experience, the stronger the neural connections it forms. This is why emotional moments, like hearing a friend’s voice in a noisy crowd (the Cocktail Party Effect), stand out. Neurotransmitters like dopamine reinforce these connections, strengthening memory and learning. The brain also removes weaker connections through synaptic pruning, making it more efficient.
2. Enriched Environments
   • Sensory-rich surroundings, especially those inspired by nature, stimulate the brain. Colors, patterns, scents, and textures from the natural world help activate neural pathways, boosting creativity and cognitive function.
3. The Aesthetic Triad
   • Three interconnected brain systems shape our response to art:
     • Sensorimotor systems bring in sensory information.
     • The brain’s reward system reinforces behaviors linked to pleasure and survival.
     • Meaning-making networks interpret aesthetic experiences through cultural and personal context.
4. Default Mode Network (DMN)
   • The brain’s internal space for self-reflection, memory, imagination, and daydreaming. Active when the mind is at rest, it helps shape personal identity, future thinking, and artistic expression. The DMN also determines what we find beautiful, meaningful, or worth remembering.

This core framework of neuroarts explains why art has such a deep emotional and cognitive impact, shaping both individual experiences and cultural creativity.

The Science of Stress – How It Works and How Sound Can Help

Stress isn’t just an emotion. It’s a physiological response to challenges, whether physical or psychological. It evolved as a survival mechanism, but when prolonged, it can take a toll on our health.

The Three Stages of Stress:

1. Alarm
   • The body perceives danger, triggering the fight-flight-freeze response. Hormones like cortisol and adrenaline surge, increasing heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar to prepare for action.
2. Adaptation
   • If the stress continues, the body stays on high alert, leading to insomnia, muscle pain, indigestion, and irritability as stress hormones remain elevated.
3. Recovery
   • The body restores balance (homeostasis) when the stressor is removed. When this cycle is disrupted, prolonged stress can lead to burnout, a state of exhaustion, detachment, and cynicism.

How Sound Helps Regulate Stress

Sound is a powerful tool for reducing stress and restoring balance. Unlike other relaxation methods, it works on an unconscious level, helping the body shift out of a heightened stress state effortlessly.

• Vibroacoustic Therapy (VAT) uses low-frequency sound waves to relieve physical and emotional pain, improve circulation, and enhance relaxation.
• Sound frequencies naturally boost the body’s production of nitric oxide, which improves blood flow, relaxes muscles, and promotes overall well-being.

By tapping into the brain’s natural response to sound, we can counteract stress and support long-term resilience.

Understanding Anxiety – How Art and Color Can Help Calm the Mind

Anxiety is an emotional response that triggers the body’s stress reaction. It causes tension, increased blood pressure, and persistent worry. While occasional anxiety is natural, it can become chronic and lead to disorders like Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), where excessive worry affects multiple aspects of life. At its core, anxiety is often driven by fear of uncertainty.

How Arts and Aesthetic Experiences Reduce Anxiety

1. The Power of Color
   • Like sound, color is a form of vibrational energy that influences our mood and physiology.
     • Red increases alertness and can raise skin response.
     • Blue has a cooling, calming effect, slowing breathing and lowering stress.
     • Green and soft blues in workplaces enhance relaxation and creativity.
     • Yellow promotes focus and attention.
     • Cultural context matters. Colors hold different meanings based on upbringing and environment.
2. Color Therapy and Structured Art Practices
   • Coloring for just 20 minutes can reduce anxiety and stress, similar to meditation by creating a focused, calming state.
   • Mandala Coloring is especially effective. Rooted in Carl Jung’s theories, mandalas represent wholeness and help people center their emotions. Studies show coloring mandalas significantly lowers anxiety compared to free drawing, providing structure and balance.

By engaging in color-based art practices, we can shift our emotional state, quiet the mind, and create a sense of order in the midst of life’s uncertainties.

Nature, Nurture, and the Built Environment – How Our Surroundings Shape Well-Being

Nature is the ultimate aesthetic experience, deeply influencing our nervous system and overall health. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system—the body’s “rest and digest” mode—helping to conserve energy, lower stress hormones, and promote relaxation.

The Healing Power of Nature

• Spending 20 minutes in nature (or anywhere that fosters a connection to the Earth) significantly lowers cortisol, the stress hormone.
• Exposure to plants, water, and natural elements reduces adrenaline, blood pressure, and heart rate, promoting a sense of calm.

Nature-Inspired Architecture and Well-Being

Architect Tye Farrow highlights seven “super vitamins” of enriched environments—design elements that enhance health. Many are drawn directly from nature, including:

• Natural light – Improves mood and regulates circadian rhythms.
• Natural materials – Create a sense of warmth and connection to the environment.
• Organic structures – Shapes that mimic nature reduce stress and promote emotional resilience.

We are biologically wired to function better in spaces that reflect nature, whether through actual green spaces or nature-inspired architecture. Designing environments with these elements can improve mental and physical well-being, reducing stress and fostering inner balance.

The Power of Poetry – How Words Shape Our Minds and Emotions

Poetry is words on a page with a neuroscientific experience that blends thought, language, music, and imagery in a way that engages both the emotional and cognitive centers of the brain. It taps into something ancient and rhythmic, resonating deeply with our sense of meaning, memory, and self-reflection.

How Poetry Affects the Brain

• Reading poetry activates the same brain areas as listening to music, lighting up the right hemisphere responsible for rhythm, metaphor, and emotional processing.
• It stimulates reward centers in the brain, creating pleasure similar to art, music, or even a meaningful conversation.
• Engages the default mode network (DMN)—the brain’s center for introspection, memory, and self-reflection—helping us make sense of the world and our place in it.
• Triggers neuroplasticity, allowing the brain to create new narratives and break free from repetitive, anxious thought patterns.

Poetry as a Tool for Emotional Healing

• Helps process difficult emotions in a safe and structured way.
• Reading poetry before bed can induce a “pre-chill” state, easing restlessness and promoting relaxation.
• Writing poetry fosters self-reflection and healing, allowing emotions to move through us instead of being trapped in cycles of worry.
• Through metaphors and analogies, poetry helps us interpret reality in new ways, deepening our understanding of ourselves and others.

As Krista Tippett says, poetry grounds us in both experience and thought, helping us feel whole. The right words, at the right time, can shift our emotions, bring clarity, and offer a profound sense of connection to the world around us.

Trauma, PTSD, and Toxic Stress – Understanding the Differences

While trauma, PTSD, and toxic stress are often used interchangeably, they affect the brain and body in distinct ways.

• Trauma
  • A time-based event that disrupts a person’s sense of safety. Over time, the body naturally returns to homeostasis, allowing recovery and healing.

• PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)
  • When trauma is not resolved, the brain and nervous system remain in high alert, causing flashbacks, intrusive memories, and emotional distress as if the event is still happening. PTSD is a long-term condition that alters brain function, making it difficult to regulate stress.

Toxic Stress vs. Trauma

• Toxic stress results from ongoing exposure to high-stress environments—such as neglect, poverty, or chronic instability. It keeps the autonomic nervous system in a constant state of activation, making it harder for the body to recover.
• Trauma is rooted in memory—a past event that the brain continues to re-experience.

While both feel overwhelming, toxic stress is cumulative, wearing down the body over time, while trauma is event-based but can evolve into PTSD if left unprocessed.

Understanding these distinctions helps in finding the right strategies for healing, whether through therapy, stress-reducing activities, or building supportive environments that foster recovery.

Trauma and the Healing Power of Art

Trauma is an emotional reaction and a protective mechanism the body uses to prevent further harm. It has two key components:

1. Feeling stuck—unable to move past an overwhelming experience.
2. A constant sense of urgency—the body remains on high alert.

How Trauma Affects the Brain

• The limbic system contains an internal alarm that responds to intense sensory input.
• The amygdala, the brain’s fear center, activates stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, triggering the fight-flight-freeze response.
• When stress becomes overwhelming, it disrupts the thalamus, which normally helps process sensory information into memories. This is why trauma survivors often describe their past as chaotic—the brain struggles to create a cohesive narrative.
• Trauma shuts down primary emotions like joy, awe, and wonder, making it harder to feel fully present in life.

How the Arts Help Process Trauma

• Art slows the mind and creates space for play and exploration, helping the brain process experiences safely.
• Creative activities induce a meditative state, reducing stress and promoting self-regulation.
• Engaging in art quiets the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the part of the brain responsible for self-judgment, allowing for a more open and compassionate perspective.
• Being in an aesthetic mindset—fully present and connected to sensory experiences—restores a sense of aliveness, grounding, and connection.

Through artistic expression, trauma survivors can regain a sense of control, process emotions, and rebuild a more integrated sense of self.

The Healing Power of Clay – How Hands-On Creativity Calms the Mind

Working with clay is a creative act as well as a therapeutic experience that engages the brain in powerful ways.

• Repetitive hand movements activate the brain’s natural feel-good chemicals:
  • Serotonin (mood regulation)
  • Dopamine (pleasure and motivation)
  • Oxytocin (bonding and stress relief)
• This rhythmic motion induces a calm, meditative state, helping to reduce stress and enhance focus.
• Because clay requires both hands to work together, it stimulates both hemispheres of the brain, bridging conscious and unconscious thought, a process that can foster deeper self-awareness and emotional healing.

By shaping and molding clay, we engage the senses, reconnect with the present moment, and tap into a natural rhythm that helps regulate emotions and restore inner balance.

Drawing as a Path to Healing – How Art Helps Process Trauma

Drawing is one of the simplest and most effective ways to access and process traumatic experiences. When words fail, drawing can bypass verbal barriers, allowing emotions and memories to surface in a safe, creative way.

How Drawing Affects the Brain

• Ignites brain activity
• Stimulates the left hemisphere, which is responsible for verbal processing, helping people eventually find words for difficult emotions.
• Encourages imagination and new perspectives, allowing the brain to create fresh narratives beyond fear and past experiences.

By engaging both cognitive and creative processes, drawing provides a powerful tool for self-expression, healing, and transformation, helping individuals move through and beyond trauma.

Writing for Healing – How Words Rewire the Brain

Writing is a form of self-expression and a powerful tool for emotional and physical well-being. When we intentionally explore personal and emotional stories, we activate brain regions that help us process and regulate difficult emotions.

How Writing Affects the Brain

• Writing about past trauma changes neural activity, activating the mid-cingulate cortex, a region crucial for processing negative emotions.
• Putting emotions into words helps contextualize and understand difficult experiences at a neurobiological level, reducing emotional distress.

The Benefits of Expressive Writing

Engaging in expressive writing (journaling, memoir, or personal essays) has been shown to:

• Reduce blood pressure and stress hormones
• Lessen physical pain and improve immune function
• Alleviate depression and enhance self-awareness
• Improve relationships and emotional resilience

By mapping our thoughts and emotions through writing, we gain clarity, insight, and a deeper understanding of ourselves, ultimately emerging stronger and more self-aware.

The Power of Movement – How Dance and Drama Rewire the Brain

Movement is deeply connected to brain function, emotional regulation, and overall well-being. Whether through dance, drama therapy, or everyday physical activity, moving our bodies helps us reconnect with ourselves and reshape our experiences.

How Movement Affects the Brain

• The basal ganglia plans body movements, while the cerebellum regulates balance, posture, and coordination.
• Interoceptors, sensory nerves that detect what’s happening inside the body, help us develop body awareness.
• Dance and movement therapies engage these brain regions, improving mood, self-awareness, and social connection.

The Healing Effects of Dance

• Boosts serotonin, improving mood and reducing the risk of depression.
• Enhances neural connections, increasing communication between brain hemispheres and supporting cognitive function.
• Encourages social bonding—teaching body awareness, emotional expression, and cooperation with others.
• Builds confidence and body esteem, helping people feel more connected to themselves.

Dance as Therapy – Rewiring the Brain

For individuals with Parkinson’s disease, dance has been shown to:

• Improve gait, balance, speech, and motor control.
• Increase blood flow in the basal ganglia, helping restore smooth muscle movement.
• Train the brain to relearn automatic movements through rhythm and repetition.

Since music engages the motor cortex, it naturally encourages movement, releasing dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins, neurochemicals that boost mood, reduce stress, and enhance brain function.

Whether for healing, self-expression, or neurological recovery, movement has the power to reshape the brain, improve emotional well-being, and strengthen the mind-body connection.

The Power of Music – How Sound Heals the Brain and Emotions

Music is a powerful tool for emotional regulation and brain health. It reduces stress, anxiety, and depression, placing us in a relaxed, present state because the brain regions responsible for emotion and music processing are closely linked.

How Music Affects Mental Health

• Helps manage lack of motivation and cognitive challenges in conditions like schizophrenia.
• Engaging with rhythm, repetitive lyrics, and chords calms the brain’s neocortex, reducing impulsivity and emotional dysregulation.
• Music therapy enhances social functioning by providing a structured way to process emotions and connect with others.

Music and Dementia – Unlocking Memory Through Sound

Music therapy, particularly Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT), uses shifts in rhythm, pitch, and volume to cue movement and stimulate brain activity. It affects multiple brain regions, including:

• The auditory cortex (processing sound)
• The amygdala and nucleus accumbens (emotional response and reward)
• The hippocampus (memory formation and context)

One of the most fascinating effects of music is its ability to help people with dementia recall lyrics, even when they struggle to remember their own names. This happens because:

• Familiar music is deeply encoded in the hippocampus, where long-term memories are stored.
• The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which is linked to identity and memory recall, becomes activated.
• Music acts as a salient stimulus, reactivating neural pathways and enhancing cognitive function.

Because music engages multiple brain areas simultaneously, it awakens emotions, memories, and even movement, allowing people, especially those with cognitive impairments, to reconnect with their past and regain a sense of self.

The Arts and the Brain – How Creativity Builds Neural Connections and Executive Function

Engaging in the arts shapes brain development, strengthens neural pathways, and enhances cognitive skills. Whether through music, drama, or visual arts, creative experiences create salient, meaningful moments that drive neuroplasticity, improving learning and emotional resilience.

Music and Brain Development

• Musical training in early years changes brain structure and boosts engagement in executive function networks (decision-making, problem-solving, and focus).
• Young musicians show accelerated brain maturity in areas responsible for:
  • Sound processing and speech perception
  • Language development and reading skills
  • Memory, spatial reasoning, and literacy
• Practicing music increases synaptic connections and builds gray matter, particularly in the hippocampus, which is crucial for memory storage and retrieval.
• Stronger corpus callosum connections allow for better communication between the two brain hemispheres, supporting cognitive flexibility and processing speed.

Arts and Executive Function – Building Skills for Life

Executive function is the brain’s ability to manage thoughts, actions, and emotions to achieve goals. It relies on a network of brain regions, including:

• The Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) – Decision-making, impulse control, planning
• Parietal Cortex – Processing information
• Basal Ganglia & Thalamus – Coordination of movement and thought
• Cerebellum – Balance, fine-tuning actions

Three core skills define executive function:

1. Working memory – Holding and manipulating information in real time
2. Cognitive flexibility – Adapting to new situations and thinking creatively
3. Inhibitory control – Resisting distractions and impulsive reactions

Drama and Perspective-Taking

• Drama and theater activate mirror neurons, which help us understand the emotions and actions of others, building empathy and social awareness.
• Engaging in role-playing fosters perspective-taking, enhancing emotional intelligence and strengthening executive function skills.

By activating these neural networks, the arts lay the foundation for a resilient, adaptable, and creative mind, preparing young learners for lifelong growth, emotional well-being, and academic success.

Higher Learning – How Attention, Memory, and Emotion Shape the Brain

Effective learning is about how attention, memory, and emotion work together to create lasting knowledge. This trifecta of cognitive processing consists of:

1. Attention – The ability to focus on specific information in our environment.
2. Learning – The acquisition of new knowledge.
3. Memory – The storage and recall of that knowledge over time.

What Makes a Memory Stick?

The hippocampus converts new information into long-term memory, but what strengthens that process is emotion and novelty. The more emotionally engaging or unexpected an experience is, the stronger the memory becomes. This happens because the hippocampus interacts with:

• The thalamus (processing sensory input)
• The prefrontal cortex (PFC) (decision-making and organization)
• The amygdala (emotional response and intensity)

Music and Memory

• Music enhances memory formation and recall, activating brain regions linked to reasoning, speech, and emotion.
• Enriched learning experiences that incorporate music trigger brain plasticity, making it easier to retain and retrieve information.

Humor and Learning

• Humor subverts expectations, engaging the brain’s reward circuitry and elevating dopamine, a neurotransmitter linked to motivation and learning.
• When a joke lands, the frontal lobe (which processes meaning) and the cerebral cortex (which processes language) light up, triggering laughter.
• Laughter releases dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins, the same feel-good chemicals associated with exercise, food, and social bonding.
• Dopamine is crucial for learning, as it enhances motivation and strengthens long-term memory storage.

By integrating emotion, novelty, music, and humor into learning experiences, we activate multiple brain networks, making education more engaging, memorable, and effective.

The Six Foundations of Flourishing – How the Arts and Mindset Shape Well-Being

Flourishing isn’t just about happiness—it’s about living with curiosity, creativity, and meaning. These six foundational attributes fuel personal growth, emotional resilience, and cognitive flexibility, all of which can be nurtured through the arts and an aesthetic mindset.

1. Curiosity and Wonder – The Drive to Explore

Curiosity helps us navigate an unpredictable world, making it a key driver of learning and decision-making.

• The hippocampus fuels curiosity, and when we satisfy it, dopamine floods the brain, bringing a sense of pleasure and satisfaction.
• The arts cultivate curiosity by encouraging exploration, embracing ambiguity, and sparking self-discovery.
• Attention fuels curiosity, controlled by the frontal and parietal lobes. When we focus on a thought or perception, brain activity increases, deepening engagement.
• Wonder expands curiosity by adding an element of surprise and joy. It is often triggered by beauty, art, or nature and is linked to a state of heightened consciousness and emotion.
• Spending time in natural settings or engaging in aesthetic experiences induces relaxation, increases endorphins, and supports clearer thinking.

2. Awe – The Mind-Expanding Emotion

Awe is a powerful, transformative experience, often inspired by nature, art, or profound moments.

• During awe, the Default Mode Network (DMN), which is tied to self-focus, downregulates, allowing us to stop overanalyzing and fully immerse in the moment.
• Neurotransmitters flood the brain, leading to a “peak experience” or transcendence, creating a deep sense of connection and euphoria.
• Awe shifts focus from self-centeredness to a community mindset, making people more generous, empathetic, and hopeful while boosting curiosity and creativity.
• Experiencing awe reduces the need for self-regulation, increases tolerance for uncertainty, and enhances risk-taking—key qualities for innovation and growth.

3. Enriched Environments – Fuel for Neuroplasticity

A vibrant, multi-sensory, immersive environment stimulates the brain, triggering neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire and adapt.

• The arts play a key role in creating enriched environments, offering sensory-rich experiences that enhance cognitive and emotional development.

4. Creativity – The Gateway to Innovation and Flow

Creativity isn’t just about making art. It’s also about thinking in new ways, imagining possibilities, and problem-solving.

• It involves leaving behind the known and familiar to explore the unknown.
• Creative thinking connects information in meaningful ways, making it essential for innovation.
• Creativity activates the medial prefrontal cortex, leading to the “flow state”, which is a deep, immersive state where time seems to disappear, and peak performance is achieved.
• The Default Mode Network (DMN) and Executive Function work together during creativity. One generating spontaneous ideas and the other evaluating them.
• Mind wandering, controlled by the DMN, enhances creativity by allowing the brain to disconnect from external inputs and focus on internal imagination.

5. Rituals – The Power of Personal Narrative

The stories we tell ourselves shape our identity and mindset.

• Flourishing involves imagining our best potential self and shifting toward positive personal narratives.
• Rituals, especially those tied to the arts, help process emotions, create meaning, and reinforce self-identity.

6. Novelty – The Brain Thrives on Surprise

The brain craves novelty, and new experiences trigger dopamine release, enhancing engagement and memory formation.

• Novelty activates the hippocampus, particularly the substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area (VTA), which plays a key role in learning and motivation.
• Surprise is processed in the nucleus accumbens, reinforcing curiosity and deepening the desire to explore and discover.

By integrating curiosity, awe, creativity, enriched environments, rituals, and novelty into daily life—through art, nature, and exploration—we create a thriving, resilient, and deeply fulfilling existence.

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Author: Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross

Publication date: 21 March 2023

Number of pages: 304 pages

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