Daisy Fancourt: Epidemiologist on how creativity rewrites your biology and extends your lifespan

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25:14And now, back to the show.

25:21Daisy Fancourt:Not that we need yet more evidence to keep our kids off screens. And I think Aaron and I both probably many times during the day and week struggle to keep our kids off screens as much as we like. But I'm curious because in the case of our kids, they're not always watching things that are necessarily detrimental. There are probably arts-related experiences that they're having. But is there a difference between experiencing the arts over a screen medium and participating or listening? And I'm sure there's some probably, as you were saying, some biological, physiological differences there. But maybe you could talk.

25:53Daisy Fancourt:Just give us a little more ammo, I think, to keep the kids off the screens is what we're looking for. When we actually look at things like the outcomes for young people, like reduced risk of developing behavioral problems or getting involved in antisocial or criminal behaviors, it's specifically participatory arts that have been linked in to those outcomes. Partly because one of the core skills that participatory arts train is self-control. Like there's that diligence that you're doing when you're participating, where you're having to learn a craft, you're having to be patient, make mistakes, learn from it.

26:22and that self-control is one of the key mediators between why participatory arts actually change behavioral outcomes and another key one is around self-esteem so participatory arts gives people a chance to build mastery and a sense of pride in what they're doing which means that they can feel that they're being judged for what they're doing rather than for example their looks or other characteristics so that those are some of the important mechanisms of participatory when we directly look and compare screen-based to non-screen-based engagement there are actually a few studies that have done this now i actually led one of these where we looked at people getting involved in like virtual choirs where you'd sing from your bedroom but through your computer versus being involved in live choirs and we basically found that everything was a bit more muted when people were doing it online like their emotional responses were just a bit more muted and particularly their feeling of whether they were socially present with the other people in the class that was a lot weaker and I think it's important to acknowledge that because essentially what we seem to see is a dilution effect of arts experiences when they're online or screen-based and that's why actually in the book I call them rather rudely the ultra processed food of the arts world screen-based arts experiences it's not to say that they're rubbish and they don't have benefits because there are still benefits from that and I talk as well about benefits that can be gained from certain television watching.

27:43But I think we have to acknowledge that it doesn't have those same ingredients that you get from the non-screen based. So wherever possible, it's much more valuable if people, especially young people, can make it real life engagements. Your research suggests that environment is a key component of whether or not arts therapies actually work. Intuitively, I know that living in a creative space, it affects me. And I knew it when I was a kid. Like if I am in what feels like a creative space, I feel differently. I feel better. I feel less depressed. Eli teaches at Stanford and the D school has put tons of research and time and energy into designing spaces that communicate sort of quietly that this is a place where creativity can happen.

28:30Can you talk to us about what your research shows about environment for healing, for being more creative, how that affects us, and how we might sort of optimize our living environments for maximum benefit. Environment is really important. One of the reasons that it has benefits for our mental health, for our stress reduction, for cognitive benefits, is because when we're in environments that have got that element of aesthetic, beautiful design to them, it has an attention restoration effect. I'm sure we've all felt that feeling that you go into a really cluttered environment and you just feel a bit stressed out by it versus going into a really calm, beautifully aesthetically designed space and suddenly feeling like you're thinking a lot more clearly, like you're not being distracted by things.

29:16Interestingly, there's a lot of focus in the UK at the moment about classroom environments for young people and about trying to be much more minimalist to try and focus on simplicity and beauty of design rather than clutter in those spaces. And there was already research about the relationship between environmental design and experience of autism symptoms amongst young people. I mean, other things that I think are really important here, one is actually really trying to make spaces as creative as possible in order to, from a behavioural kind of nudge perspective, help us to engage in arts and creative practices.

29:48So I talk in the book about simple things people can do in their own home, like hanging pictures on walls in areas where they're likely to feel stressed, that if you're working from home, making sure you actually do have art around you because that's one of the ways you can be helping to reduce stress response if you're engaged in craft or instruments have them visible there because that's much more likely behaviorally to trigger you into actually engaging with them and I also talk in the book about the value of taking particularly children as well as adults to artistic spaces where you're really immersed I talk about the difference sometimes between engaging in the arts in kind of busy like cafe spaces where you might have a lot of distraction around you and you can't really get into the zone versus being able to go to spaces like places of worship or museums or arts venues like galleries where it's designed to help you concentrate on the experience because if we can really get involved in that artistic experience and really get into the zone on it we're much more likely to experience flow which is that state where we have a synchronization between the attentional and reward centers in our brain and we get that feeling that you know an hour has passed and it only felt like five minutes and when we experience that we're much more likely to also experience feelings of inspiration and creativity I actually noticed on the weekend I took my kids to one of these immersive art galleries where the artwork is kind of projected all around you onto the floors onto the walls and I found it fascinating watching my kids because they were completely immersed in it.

31:21They were absolutely like eyes open. But then my elder started doing interpretive dance to the artwork. I have never seen her do interpretive dance in her entire life. But it was like the clearly like the design of that space and how immersive it was meant that it was not only capturing her attention, but really triggering that imagination and creativity. And in smaller ways in our workplace, in our homes, we can be designing those spaces to try and have those same effects.

31:46Daisy Fancourt:You just mentioned flow. We had an author on recently, Bill Burnett, who I used to teach with, who wrote this book, How to Live a Meaningful Life. And flow, it turns out, is a big part of living a meaningful life, which is something I hadn't really considered before. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the neurological or psychological aspects about being in a flow state. Flow states are really valuable to us. They're typically achieved when we're doing something where there was enough of a challenge to kind of capture our attention but not so much of a challenge that we feel that we're not equal to the task.

32:20So it's about finding that balance, the balance that means you're most likely to get that flow state. One of the reasons that flow is particularly important for us is that when we are engaged and having that experience of flow, we're really much more likely to have a deeper physiological response to what we're experiencing. So sometimes people talk about feeling tingly, like goosebumps, that kind of thing. These are known as peak experiences. and when they occur during a flow state it's typically actually when we've just had an at first boost of dopamine so that happy hormone in response to what we're doing and then we're just moving into that second boost so it's often at the crossover point of those two dopamine boosts sometimes people just get this as a kind of physiological response but sometimes it's also accompanied by psychological feelings of like rapture or awe or that sort of feeling of epiphany They're known as aha moments within neuroscience literature.

33:12And not only something where, you know, you're more likely to have that flash of inspiration that might help your work or whatever, but they're also the moments when you might have that profound sense of meaning in your life. And you were talking about what makes a meaningful life. And actually, arts engagement is particularly good at helping people to experience a sense of meaning and also purpose in their lives, which are core psychological needs that it can be quite hard to fulfill in other areas of our lives. But the problem is most of us don't really give enough attention when we're doing things.

33:40There was this great study looking at museums where they said, how long do people actually look at the artwork for? Basically, it was about 28 seconds, which is just enough to kind of form an initial aesthetic response. It's not actually enough to get into the flow, to have a much deeper cognitive and psychological response to what we're seeing. So I think we all need to basically give a bit more time to activities if we really want to get into that state. There are a lot of designers, you know, they're doing things creatively at work. We talked about how the circumstances may not be ideal. And a lot of designers experience burnout to some degree.

34:17And it's partly the circumstance of the role, but it's also just the nature of companies these days kind of asking a lot of employees. What does your research say about arts engagement and recovery from burnout? So burnout is most likely to happen when people feel like they have got high stress, low control. And actually, it's that same high stress, low control that's linked in with increased risk of cardiovascular events like heart attacks. So it's a pretty important thing for people to take seriously. What's quite interesting is lots of people say that they have that high stress, low control through their job, but actually it's possible to have compensation effect through how people spend their leisure time.

34:59so this is another area where actually studies have shown that arts engagement is very effective at helping people to build their sense of control of mastery at learning new artistic skills of autonomy being able to make creative decisions about the art that they're involved with and actually by boosting that sense of control in other areas of life it can actually have psychological benefits that can spill over even into the domains of life where people are feeling more out of control. So I think that's one important thing is considering how people can use leisure to try and compensate for feelings of low control in their lives and also how workplaces can try to support people's engagements in arts and creativity to support those same outcomes.

35:41Daisy Fancourt:You talk about some pretty compelling research in the book around arts engagement and increased longevity. And I wonder if there's a way to tease out whether it's the art itself is having a solo practice enough? Or is there also a social kind of communal element to that where there's also a lot of research around how loneliness can impact health and longevity? Is it hard to tease those things out or is there pretty clear evidence on either way? It is hard, but actually it has been done. So I mean, a lot of these longevity studies, the challenge is you're working with observational data. You're not randomizing people into arts or no arts and then following them up for their entire lives.

36:17So there is always the risk about, well, have I missed factors that could actually explain this relationship. But that's the same whether we're looking at art and longevity or any other exposure, whether it's diet or sleep or physical activity and longevity as well. What has been done within these studies, which now number well over a dozen showing this relationship, is that the scientists have not only looked at ensuring that the relationship is not down to things like wealth or demographics or whatever, but they've also looked at some of those other behaviours. So for example in one of the mortality studies which I did we looked at people's social behaviors and their engagement in other community groups or volunteering or clubs or societies that were non-arts based and we found that they did explain a bit of the association so in other words arts engagement was acting as a bit of a vehicle to people getting some of those social or physical benefits but we found that actually the association again was independent it was persisted independent of those factors.

37:15So I think we can safely say that they are a contributing factor to why we see that relationship, but they are not the whole factor. In the book, you've got a daily dose section at the end of the chapters, thinking about people who are, you know, I'd say most everybody listening to the show thinks of themselves as creative to some degree. But there are a lot of people who just think I'm not creative, which makes me sad to think that that's an identity that people take on when I think fundamentally every human being has the capacity for creativity. But is there sort of like a micro dose of creative action that can happen daily that someone could get into that makes this a regular practice instead of a thing I did on the weekend two months ago and I'll do it again in another month?

38:04So I completely agree with you. everyone is creative. And I talk about this scientifically, that arts engagement has been a human behavior. Well, singing's been with us for over 200 ,000 years and other arts practices for at least 40, 50, 60 ,000, some evidence saying even longer. We know that babies are responding to music even in the womb, even within a few hours of being born, they can tell when you've played a song incorrectly that they've heard before in the womb. So we all do have that inherent creative capacity. I say in the book that we are a planet of 8 billion artists. But there is this challenge around people's engagement rates.

38:38Currently, if you ask Americans, only one in 20 will say they did any arts activity yesterday. And for reference, 57 % will say they ate vegetables and 40 % will say they exercised. And I really don't believe the arts are any less enjoyable than those things.

38:51Daisy Fancourt:They're probably not telling the truth either about those things, you know, if you ask. So that's why at the end of each chapter, I do have these sections about, well, like you've read the chapter, you've got the interesting science, but what can you actually do to apply it in your own lives? And a big focus for me is what are the simple things? Because everyone says they're busy. Everyone says they don't have time. So it's about really clear takeaways that people can have. Things like if you're going to a gallery, don't try and see the whole gallery. Literally focus on a small amount of the gallery where you can spend more than 28 seconds looking at each artwork so that you can maximize the physiological benefits that you get from it.

39:26If you're listening to music, I talk about exactly what tempo of music is going to be best at changing your motor response, depending on whether you're trying to do high intensity exercise or you're trying to do rehabilitation for a neurological disorder. I talk about which styles of art are going to be most effective for pain relief and how you can use the different art forms most effectively to activate analgesic pathways in the brain. So it's sort of very, very specific science-led recommendations but I also in the final chapter have this section where I talk about behavioral science more and I give this checklist of questions about why you might not be engaging in the arts and then propose like what the behavioral change interventions for you could be because for some people it might be believing that they're not artistic they're not creative in which case it's much more about reframing that way of thinking and starting to try activities not focusing or worrying about not having the skills but thinking about activities that you can enjoy and participate in right from the beginning so it might not be picking up the oboe but it might be instead doing some crafts or something where you can immediately see that you actually can do it but then there are other people where it actually might be much more practical around like a lack of funding for example in which case I talk through lots of free and simple ways of being able to get engaged or for people who are too busy, thinking about swaps, like stop scrolling the news on the way to work and read a book in that time instead.

40:50If you're meeting up with friends, don't go for dinner or drinks, go to a gig or go to an exhibition so that you're weaving creative opportunities into your lives. And I encourage people to think about it a bit like they think about their food. So we all know about like have your five a day of fruit and veg or whatever that equivalent is. We'll figure out what's my equivalent for art. Is it about having 15 minutes every day that I will do something creative and trying to think about variety of ingredients like we do with our diets, like trying not just to focus on one arts activity, like always reading or listening to music, but trying to mix it up because different arts activities bring different kinds of health benefits.

41:29This makes me think of a lot of the habit-shaping philosophies of like James Clear, BJ Fogg, reducing friction. I like what you said about keeping your instruments out. I always have my instruments out because when I see them, they make me happy and they make me want to play more. And I do this with my kids. I call it setting traps. So they have instruments hung on their walls. There's a chess set on the coffee table that they might sit down and play. There are records available. We play a record every morning at breakfast. These are all sort of traps that they could fall into. Because if I try to tell them, hey, you should do this, they're going to resist.

42:12But if I set the trap and then they choose, they might go for it. I'm curious what you do with your kids to try to get their daily dose of the arts. Similar things actually to you. So things like I put on the radio with music at breakfast every day. I've hung instruments on the walls. We have dedicated story time each day. we really regularly go to exhibitions or even to go and see buskers in the town where we live which is a really simple free thing to be able to do but really good exposure I've set us some rules so things like we never buy any greetings or birthday cards anymore we always have to make them and it's just it's a very very simple thing but it means that then you know you've got that prompt like it's someone's birthday okay I've got to make them a card so that's been a really lovely one to do with them and also lots of things like junk modeling and picking up nature your objects and using that as the inspiration.

43:01So something that doesn't cost anything, but just gives you that initial impetus to respond to the environment they're seeing around them.

43:08Daisy Fancourt:I love the birthday card trick. I mean, birthday cards have gotten so expensive these days, you can actually save a lot of money by having your kids do them for you. Do, love that. So you talk about the seatbelt moment. We talked about that earlier. And seatbelts are this preventative measure. So what are some reasons we should view these participatory arts as a preventative measure versus a cure? Really, we can see it as a spectrum. So on one hand, there's the arts engagement that we would just do not even thinking about our health, but just for the everyday enjoyment of it in our homes, in schools, in libraries or whatever.

43:41But that's the one that often has these inherent well-being or preventative health benefits. Then you can kind of move along that spectrum to kind of more public health pathways. So in the UK and the US, we both have schemes where doctors can refer people to the arts that they can recognize people who might be coming with depressive symptoms or loneliness or issues like pain and be able to say well have you thought about joining these classes because these are evidence-based classes that can support that and often those classes are still community-based arts classes but it's about that public health referral pathway into them for people who might not have realized those health benefits and then moving further along that spectrum you've got those much more clinically orientated programs whether that's creative arts therapies that are led by trained accredited arts therapists with specific clinical outcomes in mind or programs like dance for parkinson's classes for example that are then using the arts again trying to target a particular health outcome and i think it's really important to recognize that whole spectrum because it's what we see for exercise too right we can do exercise for the fun of it we might enjoy going walking or swimming or we can be referred by our doctor to really focus on our health, or we can have bespoke rehabilitation physio programs in clinical settings for particular clinical outcomes.

44:56And we need to value and have space for all of those. What are you reading, watching, listening to that has you looking at the world with fresh eyes? I'm a member of a local book club, which I love because it just really exposes me to completely new things. Something that has caught me completely off guard is this month we decided to try fantasy novels for the first time. And I have been absolutely hooked, which I never would have expected because I've not read anything like this before. But that's been a really lovely escapism and quite a welcome change from a series of very heavy books that we've been doing before Christmas.

45:30Daisy Fancourt:Which fantasy novels? We've just read Fourth Wing, which I have very much enjoyed. I realize I'm very much behind the curve. These have been out for a while and have already got enormous popularity. And in terms of listening, well, I'm a Taylor Swift fan, so obviously been enjoying the latest album of that, particularly because my eldest daughter is trying to learn the guitar and is convinced that she's going to be the future Taylor Swift. And I haven't got the heart to tell her the sad reality. It's probably not going to happen. It might. You never know. The next big artist can arise anywhere.

45:56Daisy Fancourt:That's awesome. I've been enjoying fantasy books myself too. I mean, it's something that I've maybe enjoyed longer term, but I said sometimes revisiting old classics is fun. I went back and rereading The Lord of the Rings. And as you come back as an older reader to something that I read in my childhood, you pick up on things that you may have missed as a kid too, which is fun. I think that's a really lovely feature of the arts. And actually, we know that neurologically, when you return to an art form you've done before, you actually cognitively process it differently. But even if you know what's coming, even if you know all the twists and turns coming in the plot, you actually still experience all of the same dopamine releases and excitement at all of those different journeys, because your brain still knows that these are twists and turns that should be catching you out and might have caught you out in the past.

46:37Daisy Fancourt:Well, Daisy, it's been great having you on the show. Your book is up for a really cool award. Tell us a little bit about that and also where folks can find the book. Yeah, I'm delighted to say it's been long listed for the International Women's Prize for Nonfiction, which is really exciting. And you can get it from anywhere, from shops or online. It's called Art Cure, the Science of How the Arts Save Lives. Fantastic. Daisy Fankhart, thank you for being on Design Better. Thank you.

47:06This episode was produced by Eli Woolery and me, Erin Walter. with engineering and production support from Brian Paik of Pacific Audio. If you found this episode useful, we hope that you'll leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to finer shows. Or simply drop a link to the show in your team's Slack channel, designbetterpodcast.com. It'll really help others discover the show. Until next time.

47:41Thank you.