Beat Sadness and Promote Health with Music and the Arts

December 16th, 2009 Leave a comment Go to comments

If you love music or art — or simply enjoy going to the theatre or to concerts — it is probable that you feel healthier and are less depressed than folks who don’t , a survey of just about 50,000 people from all socio-economic backgrounds from a county in mid-Norway shows.

The discoveries are drawn from the latest round of studies conducted for the Norwegian college of Science and Technology’s ( NTNU ) Nord-Trndelag Health Study, or HUNT, which used questionnaires, interviews, clinical examinations and the collection of urine and blood samples to assemble detailed health profiles of 48,289 players.

“There is a positive relationship between cultural collaboration and self-perceived health for both girls and men, “says Professor Jostein Holmen, a HUNT analyst who presented the discoveries, which haven’t yet been published, at a Norwegian health conference in Stjrdal in late November. “For men, there is also a positive relationship between cultural participation and depression, in that there is less depression among men who take part in cultural activities, although this is incorrect for women.”

But what surprised the medical analyst was that these discoveries stayed true whatever the individual’s socio-economic status — whether van driver or bank president, participating in some shape in the humanities, theatre or music, as player or partaker, had a positive effect on that individual’s sense of health and well-being.

The new observations were controlled for socioeconomic status, lingering illness, social capital, smoking and alcohol. However , Holmen also claimed that the same sense of well-being in folk who take part in cultural activities that appeared to protect them from depression didn’t have the same constructive effect on agitation.

Holmen warned the association between health and cultural activities isn’t strong enough to enable him to say that culture really makes people healthy. Nevertheless, the analyst claims the findings ought to challenge congressmen to think differently about health. Steinar Krokstad, HUNT’s director and an associate teacher at NTNU, agreed.

“We in the health services don’t always have control over the handiest preventive tools given the range of today’s sicknesses. We need to increasingly focus on opportunities rather than on risk,” Krokstad recounted.

Bottom line is if you would like to feel better perhaps consider something like beginner acoustic guitar lessons.. Or drum lessons or damn even the violin.

( Source : Music and the Arts Fight Depression, Promote Health )
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