Art has several health benefits, can improve your well-being: Study
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- New research shows art can improve your well-being. No matter if it's modern or classical, this new research, the first of its kind, says art has several health benefits and they last after you leave a museum.
"It's a beautiful space. The collection is amazing the way it's arranged is perfect," Amanda Phillips, a visitor from Nashville said.
Phillips, like most visitors to the Barnes Museum, is wowed.
It's among the largest and most important collections of impressionist art in the world.
Beyond being a Philadelphia treasure, new research says art anywhere has health benefits.
"It was groundbreaking for the museum community," Liza Herzog, the Director of Evaluation and Impact at the Barnes Foundation said.
Herzog says the new study, a questionnaire, examined intellectual, social, physical and personal well-being.
"We knew the immediate effect of seeing and being in a space like the Barnes made people feel good," Herzog said. "The degree of well-being, the duration, stuck with visitors for two to three days or longer post-visit."
Herzog says it's the first study to show lasting benefits from art visits.
"We see an increase in self-esteem, self-confidence after a series of visits," Herzog said.
"It makes your brain think it gives you a feeling, makes you react to something," Phillips said.
The Barnes is among 11 museums nationwide participating in the research that covered 2,000 visitors.
"It completely turns me on. There's no other way of saying it for me," James Stewart from Detroit said.
Stewart feels a multitude of health benefits in visiting art museums.
"I like the history of it... I love to see the progression in art, the thinking, the freeness," Stewart said.
Research also shows art can spark a broad range of emotions and intellectual ideas.
And now this new study says those feelings can last.
"You feel happier, more content, more serene, more confident in your ability to discern what you're seeing," Herzog said.
The study that was presented at the American Alliance of Museums' covered a variety of collections big and small, all over the country.
