What if music, color, scent, and art could actually change your brain? Science now shows they do.Join Susan Magsamen, Executive Director of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins, as she explores how art and beauty impact our brains and well-being. From the transformative power of music to the subtle magic of sensory environments, she reveals how simple aesthetic moments can boost your health and joy.
Chapter 1: What are the healing powers of the arts?
As my guest today says, many of us tend to think of the arts as either entertainment or as an escape, a luxury of some kind. But it turns out that the arts are so much more. We now have scientific proof that the arts, in its countless forms, heals our bodies and enhances our wellbeing. The arts can be used to fundamentally change and enhance people's day-to-day life.
Chapter 2: How does the science of art enhance well-being?
What is this new science of art and aesthetics and how does it amplify our well-being? Hi, everyone. I'm Lynn Thoman, and this is Three Takeaways. On Three Takeaways, I talk with some of the world's best thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, newsmakers and scientists. Each episode ends with three key takeaways to help us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better.
Today, I'm excited to be with Susan Magsumon, Executive Director of the International Arts and Mind Lab Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She's a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is also the co-author of the New York Times bestselling book, Your Brain on Art, How the Arts Transform Us.
I'm looking forward to learning how the arts and an aesthetic mindset transforms us and amplifies our health and well-being. Welcome, Susan, and thanks so much for joining Three Takeaways today. Thank you so much for having me, Lauren. It is my pleasure. I loved your book. Susan, can you please read aloud from the beginning of your book?
I'd be happy to. You know the transformative power of art. You've gotten lost in music, in a painting, in a movie or a play, and you felt something shift within you. You've read a book so compelling that you press it into the hands of a friend. You heard a song so moving. You listen to it over and over, memorizing every word. The arts bring joy, inspiration, well-being.
Such a wonderful quote. What happens when scientists scan the brains of healthy or well people as they experience art or music? What do they see?
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Chapter 3: What is the transformative power of music?
I will say with music, if you're a beholder of music, we see tremendous brain activity in all different lobes of the brain. And we also see a synchronicity between listeners that are listening together. So one of the things about music in particular is that we see that there is this ability to be able to be in union with each other.
And we see that at concerts where people are kind of moving together. But there is an amazing opportunity for social cohesion when you're thinking about being together and experiencing music with each other. And we also see this idea around awe and possibility emerge when you're listening to something that is activating neurotransmitters that are hopeful.
Not all music, not all arts make us feel good. And so this is why I say context matters. If you're in a prison and music is being played nonstop to keep you awake or to agitate you, that dissonance is also going to be something that is affecting your neurophysiology. And so I think we have to really think about the power of these different kinds of arts and to what purpose and to what impact.
It's so interesting to me, the idea that people, that their bodies, that their heartbeats can synchronize or mirror each other's if they're feeling close to somebody or close to music. That to me is fascinating. The environments around us are so critical. Can you explain the concepts of an enriched and an impoverished environment?
Chapter 4: How do environments affect brain health?
In the 60s, there was a researcher named Marian Diamond who did the first experiments around enriched environments. What she did was create three conditions. The first was an enriched environment that had novelty and surprise and things changed. They were places for curiosity. The middle was kind of a status quo environment.
The third was an impoverished environment where there was very little to rest on or to gain attention. And these three environments were created for rats. So she put the rats in these different conditions for just two weeks. And after that period of time, the rats were sacrificed. And what she saw was that in the enriched environments, the brains of the rats grew.
Chapter 5: What does an enriched environment look like?
They actually got larger, which is extraordinary. The synapses were stronger, but the mass, the physical mass of the brain got bigger. In the status quo environments, nothing really changed in the rats. But sadly, in the impoverished environments, the brains got smaller and there were less connections.
And so this work in those days was shared and initially it was shared with other scientists with disbelief, like no one believed that the brain could change. This was the the first experiment on neuroplasticity. People thought that you're kind of born with a certain amount of connections and they maybe grow when you're young, but then they stop.
Chapter 6: What is an aesthetic mindset and why is it important?
And what we saw was that environments change the brain. They change it in profound ways. And now those experiments are being done non-invasively and in human subjects. And we're seeing, in fact, that that's true, that enriched environments matter.
And so how those environments are created and how you have agency over your environments are really important, whether it's light or smell or temperature, novelty, as I mentioned, really thinking about what are those spaces for you? What do you need those spaces to do? I think sound is one that's also incredibly important. And how does that sound really change your neurophysiology?
And how can you moderate that and begin to create those environments that really support what you need, regardless of where you are?
Chapter 7: How can we cultivate curiosity and exploration in our lives?
What is the ultimate enriched environment if there is such a thing? Or can you give some examples, please?
Chapter 8: What are the four ingredients of an aesthetic mindset?
I think the ultimate enriched environment is unique to each of us. That's why it's really important to know your physiology and to be able to feel that somatic sensory systems in us.
Can you explain what an aesthetic mindset is?
People often say, what do I need to do to have this use of the arts? Should I paint? Should I draw? Should I dance? And what we really thought a lot about was what are the ingredients that you need? in order to move in the world, thinking about this idea of aesthetics and the arts.
The first one is curiosity, and that's really having an open mind, looking around the corner, really lifting your head up from your phone, being curious about the world. The second is playful exploration, and that is around not having to have an answer. not having to have a conclusion, not having to have finished making something, but just to explore.
And it turns out that that's very hard for us in a world that looks for production and looks for outcomes. And then the third is this idea around sensory exploration. So feeling, looking, smelling, touching, just being more engaged in those sensory experiences that felt, sensed. And the last is being intentional about making and beholding.
So this idea about being a maker and a beholder in an intentional way. So it's those four things that make up the aesthetic mindset.
What you're talking about is essentially a way of being. Can you give examples throughout the day of how someone with an aesthetic mindset, what they might see or do starting from the morning to the evening?
An aesthetic mindset with those kind of ingredients, with those sensibilities, it's really an adventure. It's really a journey. And it doesn't mean that you're always gonna be happy because journeys have darkness and they have worry and they have curiosity and they have joy and they have all of the emotions. There's some researchers now that say we have over 30,000 different feelings and emotions.
So it's gonna be different for each of us, but waking up to the sunlight, taking a shower where you're humming in the shower and you're activating your vagus nerves, but you're also activating the over 4 million touch receptors on your skin.
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