“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”

— Aristotle

Art, beauty, and nature are not mere luxuries, but essential ingredients of a flourishing life. This ancient intuition is being supported by investigations in the new and burgeoning field of neuroaesthetics, which has uncovered how experiences of beauty physically alter our brain, body, and behaviors. These findings are not only valuable in helping us better understand ourselves, but also in sharpening our investments in education, government programs, and business innovation. As individuals, the message is increasingly clear that experiences of natural and artistic beauty enhance human health in measurable ways.

We spoke with a wealth of experts, including Gretchen Rubin, a bestselling writer, podcaster, and author of Life in Five Senses; Professor Simone Schnall – Director of the Body, Mind and Behaviour Laboratory at University of Cambridge; Susan Magsamen – Executive Director of the International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab) at Johns Hopkins and co-author of Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us; and Janna Levin, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Columbia University and author of the Black Hole Survival Guide. They share the research, joy, and results of how aesthetic experiences can improve our lives.

Evolved Human: Art, Beauty, Culture, Community

“Aesthetic experiences, including the arts, are as important as food, shelter, sleep, good nutrition, and exercise. That’s what the research is really starting to bear out. It’s an evolutionary imperative,” says Magsamen, who cites the work of Harvard evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, who believed that aesthetic experiences are key to the evolution of our species. 

Aesthetic experiences are often linked to awe and described as a perceptual experience focused on the beauty of an object. They are typically pursued and enjoyed for their own sake.

Even campfires unlock benefits beyond s’mores and ghost stories. “When we were able to harness fire and bring it to the circle – we began to share knowledge, values, and ethics through these aesthetic experiences – dance, storytelling, drawing, the sense of community around a space. Even the fact that it’s a circle, that there’s no hard edge,” says Magsamen. “These spaces that create unity laid a visceral and highly emotive foundation for shared understanding, communication, collaboration, creativity, a curious nature, and understanding the other. I always say: Art creates culture. Culture creates community. And community creates humanity.”

– E.M. Forster

From the fantastical to everyday wonder

Sure, should someone be fortunate enough to experience it, it’s easy to submit to the sublime of an invigorating and inspiring walk in the towering redwoods on a crisp day; the phantasmagoric, shimmering dancing waves of colors of the Aurora Borealis; the mesmerizing swirl of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night; the gilded rapture of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss; the immersive, powerful, and majestic sounds of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, or the first big blue marble photo of planet Earth taken from outer space. With these kinds of experiences, everyday concerns fade into the background. You feel smaller, less preoccupied with your own problems, and more connected with other people and the world itself. You get a taste of transcendence. 

When researching her book, Gretchen Rubin visited New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art on a daily basis. “There are things there from thousands and thousands of years ago and things that were created last year. What I loved about the Met is that it gave me a sense of perspective and the richness of human nature, humankind,” says Rubin. “It gave me this sense of the vastness of the human experience that was truly transcendent.”

But she also found great satisfaction in everyday opportunities for aesthetic delights: the sweet, gooey happiness of a perfectly warm, melt-in-your-mouth, chocolate-chip cookie that reminds you of childhood; the feel of your favorite fuzzy sweaty or silk robe against your skin; the heady, scent of a rose. A sunset. A sunrise. A beautiful blue sky. The touch of your beloved that gives you chills and makes you lose track of time and space. 

To create or participate in your own aesthetic experiences, you don’t need to possess the genius of Maya Angelou, Leonardo Da Vinci, or Miles Davis to reap the benefits. Doodling, writing cringy poetry, playing in a neighborhood string band, gardening, juggling, quilting, dancing in the driveway, and singing (even badly!) in the shower all tap into the same force. “It’s not about how good you are. It’s about insight and the process of transformation,” says Magsamen.

“We’ve rarefied the arts and aesthetic experiences…It’s how those things physiologically change your chemistry and how that informs you and your communities and how it changes and shifts society…whether it’s being on Broadway or singing songs in the car with your kids – that changes you. It shifts your mood instantly.”

— Buddha

Your brain on aesthetic experiences 

Indeed, “Just 20 minutes in nature can lower cortisol, help us reach homeostasis, and clear our heads. Our blood pressure goes down, our pulse rates go down…there are huge physiological and psychological shifts that happen when we’re in nature, and that’s extraordinary,” says Magsamen. 

For example, walking through forests (“forest bathing”) can reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and anger; strengthen the immune system; improve cardiovascular and metabolic health; and boost overall well-being. The presence of “greener” surroundings in urban areas are linked to lower levels of fear, fewer incivilities, and less aggressive and violent behavior.

Magsamen adds that just 20 minutes of art daily can also improve your mood and lower cortisol and stress levels. Moreover, “Dance has been shown to help those with Parkinson’s with gait, cognition, mood, even sleep. Music and singing can help those with dementia.” 

Magsamen continues, “There is great potential in designing spaces for health and well-being to create aesthetic spaces with outcomes in mind,” referencing the biophilic movement. “Not just, oh, this restaurant should be pretty because I like green, but what is the intention of the space? And then how do you design for that? The field is really exploding.” 

She recommends the Sound Health Network and NeuroArts Blueprint, where local communities, researchers, arts practitioners, healthcare professionals, public health policymakers, and schools come together to address intractable problems in their communities worldwide with the arts and aesthetic experiences. “Even just breaking bread, eating together with your adversaries allows you to be more willing, see someone else’s perspective.” says Magsamen, “There is great hope in this work.”

— William Blake

Everyone senses, even in the same moment, differently

Human experience is complex. Culture, history, genetics, child development, and other individual differences inform aesthetic appreciation and values. Stimuli that elicit effects in some people may not do so for others. 

Schnall’s TEDx talk “How your bodily state affects your perception” explains how your moods, what you’ve eaten, and even who you’re with can affect your perception. For example, if you’re faced with climbing a steep hill, standing beside someone who loves and supports you, the hill doesn’t seem as steep. 

 “The most surprising thing about the embodied experience is how you could be standing right next to somebody and be having a very different experience from them. You and I can walk into a room; your eyes could be watering because it smells so much. And I smell nothing because I can’t smell my home the way a visitor smells it. It really made me so much more compassionate and understanding of differences,” says Rubin.

“If people say, I don’t like this, or I do like this, or this is great, or this is terrible. I used to just be like, oh, I don’t know why you’re being so fussy, or I don’t know what you’re talking about. But now, I’m like, yeah, you could be experiencing something very different from what I’m experiencing. Your taste buds could be different. Your [retina] rods and cones could be different…If you’re offered a microphone at a gathering, even if you don’t think you need it – use it. Someone in the group could be hard of hearing. Try to create an environment where everyone can participate fully.”

Carpe Diem: Hear, touch, smell, taste, see

Rubin offers a short quiz that tells you your most neglected sense. It’s an opportunity to learn where you’re not fully “harnessing” one of your senses. 

Consciously engaging with our five primary senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch (experts say there are others) – can joyfully awaken mindfulness and living in the present moment, “This is one of the superpowers of the senses,” says Rubin. 

Rubin shares tips on how to boost creativity and productivity using the senses. Other suggestions and insights include:

Hear

Create an “Audio Apothecary” of favorite songs that give you a hit of dopamine. 

Touch 

Touch is one of Rubin’s husband’s most valued senses, so she now gives him plenty of handholding.

Smell

She recommends the Smell Identification Test™ for personalized olfactory data.  

Taste

Taste a cuisine you’ve never sampled.

See

Rubin’s relationship with beauty products and fashion evolved. “I have a lot more respect for it because I realized that a lot of things like nail polish, makeup, choosing your clothes, these are really artistic expressions in everyday life, and people enjoy them because it’s fun to play with paints and put things on surfaces – whether that’s your face, a painting, or it changes the way your hands look,” says Rubin. “These are ways to bring fun, beauty, choice, a sense of selection, and putting things together. I used to be kind of dismissive of that, and now I see this much more as a really positive thing…It’s a way to express our creativity.”

— Edwin Hubble

Unity of science and aesthetics

Janna Levin, a black hole expert, is steeped in the wonders of the universe and has successfully bridged art and science her entire life. 

“The divide doesn’t exist…And so, it was almost painful to be slotted into these strict silos. It doesn’t make sense for me,” says Levin, adding that she believes babies are natural artists and scientists – measuring, trying to figure out things, drawing, and creating. “I think that this division is imposed on us very early…I think that’s awkward and artificial.”

“There was this announcement just today that is magical. They’re detecting a kind of cacophonous background noise from collisions of black holes all around the universe. It’s almost like they’ve recorded the sound of a crowd, this crowd of black hole collisions happening around us. And I mean, how can you not stop and be amazed by that? Here I am on this little rock. I’m looking out at the water right now. It’s all so earthly. And then I think, wow, this is happening all around us all the time,” says Levin about listening to the soundtrack of the universe.

“What they’re doing with this cacophonous sound of the crowd is literally recording the ringing drum of space-time itself. It’s totally insane. So, the black holes are mallets on the drums, and it’s like all drums everywhere, all over the place, coming from all directions. It’s like a drum circle, and it’s making this kind of background noise. It’s all noisy all over the place.”

And just like that, we are back to the campfire circle, music, drums – the unity of aesthetic experiences.

We are more than what we produce

Between 2005 and 2020, the number of undergraduates studying the humanities reportedly dropped a whopping 30 percent. “I think the shift away from the humanities is catastrophic,” says Magsamen.

“We value productivity, and then we quantify and qualify the productivity…we’ve been optimizing for productivity since the industrial revolution,” says Magsamen adding that this correlates with rising mental health issues, lack of creativity, lack of collaboration, less executive function skills, higher ADHD, tremendous anxiety, and tremendous stress. “You start to see some of the impacts on our youth, loneliness and isolation.” 

Aesthetic experiences help facilitate “self-understanding and communicating deep insights that can only be shared through music, art, dance…that aren’t rational but are emotive. We devalue that. And if you weren’t great at it or it didn’t have commercial value, we were shamed into believing we shouldn’t do it,” says Magsamen, adding that her students enjoy engineering and painting, neuroscience and violin, poetry and physics. “In the United States, the cachet and the commerce were science, technology, math, and engineering. So, the arts were nice to have, but not important and not really what will provide us with this global competitive advantage.

“Instead of valuing what we call the arts, we started to not only devalue them, but eliminate them, gut them from our schools, not provide for them in architecture or design or create spaces that amplify human potential, human healing, and human flourishing. Whether that’s in healthcare, in communities, in public spaces…And yet, I think that the science of neuroaesthetics and how that knowledge can be translated into specific practices that advance our health and well-being is hopeful,” says Magsamen.

“We pay for what we value…And the humanities, they humanize us. This research [on aesthetic experiences] should give credence to the humanities.”

We are Human. Not robots.

“We are uniquely wired for aesthetic experiences and bringing the world in through our sensory systems. And those sensory systems are exquisite mechanisms,” says Magsamen, referencing humans’ hundred billion neurons, “and these highly salient experiences help us remember better, help us feel emotions, help us expand our executive function and build structural and neurobiological changes in our brains and bodies.”

“This is who we are. It’s what we were born to do,” says Magsamen. “We’re not machines. We’re not AI. We reclaim our humanity through our senses.”