making art is better than therapy

The Science is In: Making Art is Better Than Therapy

On a Wednesday evening in the middle of the city’s chaos, a man named Ravi sat at our studio table, brush in hand, painting a swirling sky. He’d just come from work—another day of endless meetings, traffic jams, and screens. Half an hour in, he looked up and said, “I think I just took my first real breath today.”

It wasn’t therapy. There was no couch, no notebook, no clinical diagnosis. But the science now says what Ravi felt in that moment is real—making art changes the brain in ways that rival (and sometimes surpass) traditional talk therapy.

Why Art Works on Your Brain

Researchers at Drexel University found that just 45 minutes of creative activity significantly reduces stress hormones, even for people with no art experience.
The secret is in how art engages the brain:

• It interrupts the stress cycle. When you draw, paint, or sculpt, your brain shifts from the “threat” mode of the amygdala to the calm, problem-solving state of the prefrontal cortex.

• It creates a “flow state.” This is that delicious feeling where time disappears, and your mind is fully absorbed—similar to meditation, but often easier to enter for beginners.

• It builds emotional resilience. Unlike passive relaxation, art is active—you’re shaping something with your hands, which builds a sense of control and accomplishment.
  
  

Therapy Works on Words. Art Works on Feeling.

Talk therapy is powerful, but it depends on your ability to articulate what’s wrong. Art doesn’t require you to find the right words. Take Mei Ling, a young marketing manager who joined our Saturday workshop after a burnout episode. “I didn’t want to talk about my feelings anymore,” she told me. “I’d explained them to death. I just wanted them to move.”

Through abstract painting, she began expressing what she couldn’t verbalise—anger, confusion, relief—layer by layer. Over weeks, her colleagues noticed she was more centred and confident. She hadn’t “talked it out” in a therapist’s office. She’d painted it out.

The Science Says It’s Not About Skill

One of the most liberating findings in art therapy research is this: the benefits of making art are unrelated to your artistic talent.  In other words—you don’t have to be “good” at it to get the gains.

A 2016 study in the Journal of the American Art Therapy Association tested beginners and seasoned artists alike. Both groups experienced the same drops in cortisol levels, the stress hormone linked to anxiety, weight gain, and immune issues.

Why City People Need This More Than Ever

City life has a way of compressing us—physically in traffic, mentally in deadlines, emotionally in social masks.
Therapy can help unpack it, but art gives you something more immediate: a space to release pressure before it crushes you.

Think of it as an emotional gym. Just as you wouldn’t only exercise after a medical diagnosis, you shouldn’t only tend to your mental health when you’re in crisis. 

Art is preventative care for the soul.

Better Than Therapy?

“Better” doesn’t mean “replace.” For some, therapy is essential. But for many, art can be more accessible, less intimidating, and—most importantly—more joyful.

It’s also social without being performative. In our studio, strangers sit side-by-side, quietly painting, then leave laughing like old friends. That human connection—built without small talk or awkward icebreakers—is medicine too.