What Art Does For Your Brain

**Shankar Vedantam** (0:00)
This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantam. The Old Testament tells the story of King Saul, a ruler who was frequently gripped by waves of anguish and despair. When Saul was afflicted by such torments, his advisors didn't always call for a physician or a priest. Instead, they summoned a young shepherd named David, known for his skill at playing the lyre.
As the music began to play, King Saul's mind would settle and his mood would lift.
For centuries, stories like this have been treated as legend, poetic, symbolic, even mystical. But do they point to something real? Today, a growing body of scientific research suggests that music, painting, dance, and storytelling do far more than entertain us. They calm our nervous systems, reshape our emotions, and even influence our physical health. This week on Hidden Brain, and in a companion story on Hidden Brain Plus, why the arts are no luxury, but rather a vital form of medicine for the mind.
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**Shankar Vedantam** (2:47)
Think about the last time a piece of music stopped you in your tracks, or a novel kept you up late into the night, or a painting made you feel something you couldn't quite put into words.
Why do these experiences feel so powerful? For a long time, scientists didn't have a clear answer. The arts seem too subjective, too personal, to study in any systematic way. But that's starting to change. At University College London, Psychobiologist Daisy Fancourt has found that these moments are not just meaningful, they're measurable, and they can play a crucial role in our emotional and psychological well-being. Daisy Fancourt, welcome to Hidden Brain.

**Daisy Fancourt** (3:28)
It's lovely to be with you.

**Shankar Vedantam** (3:31)
Daisy, as a young woman, you were very involved in music, singing and playing the piano. What did you notice about the emotional and psychological effects that music and the arts had on you and your friends?

**Daisy Fancourt** (3:44)
I feel really lucky because I was born into a family of professional musicians, so the arts were just so much a part of my day-to-day upbringing. I don't think I really reflected on what a privilege that is, to have that kind of exposure at such a young age. I mean, I remember so clearly that if ever I felt stressed or worried about anything as a teenager, I used to go and play the piano just sort of instinctively, and I knew that was something that would help me. And I certainly have noticed that a lot of the relationships, the friendships that I built early on, they came through playing music with friends, being in orchestras or bands or being involved in musical theatre. So I think it was a lot more fundamental and foundational to me than I necessarily appreciated at that young age.

**Shankar Vedantam** (4:35)
I understand Daisy, that while you were in college, you began working in a pediatric hospital. Tell me about this work, where it was and what you did.

**Daisy Fancourt** (4:45)
It was an incredible program that was open to students at Oxford University, where I was studying, and alongside your studies, you could train to go and deliver arts programs in hospitals. And it was something I just jumped at immediately because I was still fascinated by science and medicine and keen to find a way to blend the two. So we received training and then worked in pediatric hospital wards doing singing workshops with the children. And I was just completely blown away by the impact that I saw the singing having. I kind of expected it to be a nice bit of entertainment. But actually, I was seeing directly that singing with children who were really anxious and crying and distressed would stop them crying and would actually completely calm them down.