The Healing Value of Art

by Barbara Blair

This post is by guest author, Barbara Blair.  This article has been edited and published with the author's permission. You should submit an article and share your views as a guest author by clicking here. 


For several years hospitals and medical facilities have included art in their buildings to help patients in their treatment and healing process, to calm fears, speed recovery, as well reduce stress for staff and visiting family members.
Several studies have been done on the benefits of art in the health care field.  Positive healing art images affect the autonomic nervous system, hormonal balance, brain neurotransmitters, the immune system and the blood flow to all organs in the body.  The most healing images are of expansive nature scenes, calm water, trees and flowers.
Healing artwork also has a valuable place in the home and office.  We are living in a very stressful world.  Many people are experiencing anxiety, sleep disorders, high blood pressure, depression and many other ailments as a result of stress, as it takes a heavy toll on the body and immune system.
Your home can be a powerful tool to create health, happiness and well-being, if it is filled with positive impressions and images.  You could think of art and everything else that you place in your environment as food that you ingest through your senses and that affects you on a cellular level.  Your body functions at maximum wellness surrounded with sympathetic compatible frequencies that create harmony.  It is therefore important to make choices that resonate with you in a positive way.
By placing images in your home and office that allow you to experience a moment of quiet reflection, or a sense of joy or upliftment at any time of the day, it will help you to combat stress and stay more balanced.  Think about what images and colors feel good, make you happy and inspire you.  For many people this involves pictures of nature, as the studies indicate.
What is hanging on your walls?  If you have dreary old pictures that you inherited from your grandmother as “family heirlooms” and feel obligated to hang them on your walls but have never liked them, give yourself permission to take them down.
The painter Henri Matisse said that art should be “something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue.”  Surround yourself with what you love (this applies to everything in your home, not just the artwork) and get rid of what you don’t love.
Then notice how your home or office has transformed into a joyful life-affirming space.

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