< Previous8CHILDARTSINGSing your favorite song loud and clear. How do you feel?DRAW Draw a picture of a feeling. What did you draw?DANCE Play your favorite music and dance around. Do you feel less stressed?Try this:HEART – SAVE THE CHILDRENThrough HEART, the healing process begins when a child shares his or her memories and feelings. Sometimes, it can be hard to talk about difficult feelings or worries. Stress lives in the brain and can actually act as a wall between the part of the brain that holds our worries and fears and the part that helps us to talk about them. Creating a piece of art, like a drawing or a sculpture, can help to break down that wall and express those worries. In the HEART program, children can use art to express their worries and fears with a trusted adult or peer in a safe space. As a result, they feel more connected to the people around them. This is because of the unique ways that arts activities change the brain for language development and emotional learning. HEART takes place in community centers, pre-schools, primary schools and after-school programs. As children become healthier and more engaged with their peers, adults and family members, they are better able to enjoy the full set of HEART activities like using drama to teach history; sculpture and physical modeling to teach geography; music to reinforce concepts of math; and book making and storytelling to support literacy.Arts-based activities can help young people succeed in their school subjects and their relationships with friends and adults, too. When compared to similar young people who do not participate in the HEART program, HEART participants make greater gains in literacy, math, social-emotional development and motor skills. In short, they do better in their school subjects and are less likely to have behavior issues that limit their relationships and potential. This is because of the unique ways that arts activities change the brain for language development and emotional learning.In the last five years, the global HEART program has given more than 150,000 young people the opportunity to heal, learn, explore and thrive through arts-based activities. During times of chaos and uncertainty, something as simple as a safe, friendly space to draw can be life-changing for young people living with chronic stress.Sometimes it can be hard to watch the news. When scenes of war and uncertainty from around the world make you feel sad and helpless, take heart: there is always something you can do. Eglantyne Jebb founded Save the Children in 1919 after her experiences with the devastating effects of World War I on the basic health and wellness of children and families in war zones. The organization is dedicated to giving children a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protect them from harm.Save the Children’s HEART program (Healing and Education through the Arts) uses an arts-based approach to provide support for children ages 4 to 18 that are living with daily uncertainty or worry because of lack of a safe place to live, enough food to eat or doctors to help them when they are sick or disabled. These conditions are most likely to occur in countries or regions where there is war, conflict and poverty. Currently, HEART is offered in the nations of Jordan, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Bosnia Herzegovina, Ukraine, Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Haiti, El Salvador, Mexico, China, Armenia, Albania and Georgia. HEALTH9THE ARTS + MINDScience of the artsSome causes of toxic stress: poverty, violence, illness, natural disasters, abandonment and conflict.The amygdala (center of the brain for emotions) in young kids is changed by stress. Touch, mold, create – playing with clay stimulates neural sensory inputs.Save The ChildrenChronic stress when we are young can have negative effects on health as adults. Artistic expression reduces levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.Read about itBeautiful Oops Barney SaltzbergChill and Spill Art Journal Art with a Heart (Seattle, WA)10CHILDARTHEALTHJohn Krakauer, M.A., M.D., directs the Brain, Learning, Animation and Movement Lab at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Krakauer’s research explores the use of immersive video games in stroke recovery. How does your work fit into the field of neuroaesthetics?JK: A stroke is a brain injury, and right after an injury, the brain is what we call “plastic.” That means it is able to change and adapt as a result of that experience. So, it’s important to get patients moving quickly and meaningfully after a stroke to take advantage of that “plasticity.” We believe that beautiful and rewarding experiences can motivate people to move, and therefore help people to recover faster. People enjoy certain kinds of movements more than others. That’s why people like to play sports and dance, because they enjoy the movement itself. It’s like when you put your hand out of the car window to feel the air. You enjoy that movement of the air over your arm.How are you using reward and motivation in your work at BLAM? JK: People are more motivated to move when they get enjoyment out of the movement, and many of our physical therapy and rehabilitation exercises and settings today just aren’t motivating or rewarding. We’re combining what we know about learning and brain plasticity with what we know about what people love to watch for fun, like Pixar movies for example, to promote faster recovery for stroke patients. Our research is based on the notion that swimming, oceans, the color blue and dolphins would all be appealing to most people in an immersive game world. Someone might want a killer whale or dragon instead of a dolphin, but the underlying concept is similar. We’re currently conducting what’s known as a trial, or a first study. Patients who have recently had a stroke, and therefore have limited movement in their arms, get to “become” a dolphin in three weeks of training in our immersive video world. We have an exoskeleton, a kind of simulator, and the patients put their arms in it and use it to power the dolphin in the virtual world. It helps them move their arms much more than they normally would to encourage exploration when their brain is plastic. We have about 21 patients enrolled at this point. Hopefully we’ll have about 30 patients by the end of the year.How are you dreaming big about neuroaesthetics?JK: Imagine there was science behind the art you see in schools and offices, or the music and design of a hospital room. In those environments, you’d do better work. You’d have better outcomes. That’s what neuroaesthetics is all about.“We’re combining what we know about learning and brain plasticity with what we know about what people love to watch for fun, like Pixar movies for example, to promote faster recovery for stroke patients.”John KrakauerBLAM – BRAIN, LEARNING, ANIMATION + MOVEMENTBLAMfMRI brain scans show reductions in pain-related brain activity with patients who use virtual reality.Playing an animated video game can improve the ability to take on more tasks by increasing attention and focus in the game.Virtual reality therapy has been shown to evoke changes in the limbic and visceral brain circuitry.Some brain-machine interfaces (BMI) can help increase cortical and spinal cord plasticity for disabled patients.When your brain receives an audio-visual stimulus, the sensory information travels to the thalamus (the relay station) that forwards the information for processing.The MindShift Guide to Games and Learning Jordan ShapiroVirtual World Design and Creation for Teens Charles Ryan HardnettRead about itScience of the artsTry thisPlay your favorite animated movie and dance to the move with the characters. How does this feel?BLAM12CHILDARTHEALTHCREATIVE FORCESCreative Forces13THE ARTS + MINDJULY – SEPT 2017Try thisDoodle while listening to music.Create a mask of yourself.Draw a self-portrait and describe what you created to a friend.Read about itDrawing is Thinking Milton GlazerSecret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book Johanna Basford For many military service members coming home from overseas deploy- ments, the joyful reunions we see on the news are just the first step in a very difficult journey of trying to adjust to life at home after experien- cing the traumas of war. Although they may look healthy on the outside, many service members come home with invisible wounds.“Very often there are very small tears in a brain that you can’t even see unless you have a magnified brain scan,” said Bill O’Brien, senior adviser for innovation at the National Endowment for the Arts. “It makes it hard for them to remember things. They are fearful or angry for no reason, and it really impacts the family.”Creative Forces: NEA Military Healing Arts Network is a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs that includes a creative arts therapist as part of a team approach to helping heal service members and veterans who are confronting the wounds of war. Service members, most of who have been on multiple deployments overseas, take their daily dose of art therapy (writing, mask making, music) right alongside other therapies like acupuncture and K-9 therapy. The program is also offered to family members who are learning to deal with the effects of the injuries on themselves and their loved ones. A popular TED Talk with Melissa Walker, art therapist at the National Intrepid Center of Excellence, one of the Creative Forces clinical sites, paints a vivid picture of the mask-making process and how it unlocks traumatic experiences. Walker says mask making has been a particularly powerful therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder, helping service members turn their private night-mares and painful memories into something that can be shared and, hopefully, released. One service member shares how he was finally able to let go of trauma that he had kept bottled up inside for 23 years. Creative Forces is also turning to technology to reach and appeal to a broader audience, working with the University of Florida on a new “telehealth” program that can bring art and music therapy into homes through the power of technology. Building on an initial in-person meeting, the telehealth program will use specially designed tablet computers for virtual therapy sessions designed to feel just like being in the room together. Creative Forces knows integrating technology is critical to its success in other ways, too. “How a person pursues art in the 21st Century is changing,” O’Brien says. “Many service members are interested in producing their own music, for example.” Digital technology used for photography, videos and music recording provides Creative Forces a scalable way to bring the healing powers of the arts and creative expression to all service members, veterans and families who need it.The brain becomes intensely engaged when creating art.Visual arts can lower amygdala activity resulting in stress reduction.Art activities can help soothe your alert system and enable the prefrontal cortex to focus on thinking and planning.The arts help the brain focus and avoid distractions.Doodle away – it activates the prefrontal lobe and helps short- term memory.Science of the artsWhen most of us get sick, we go to the doctor and get medicine. But what if pills and syrups couldn’t make you better? Your doctor might prescribe something totally unexpected: art. 14CHILDARTJOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITALHEALTHMost images of hospitals are of sterile white hallways and fluorescent lights. But when Johns Hopkins Hospital set out to add 1.6 million square feet of new state-of-the-art facilities across a five-acre site, they put art and aesthetics at the forefront of healing. The Hospital’s Facilities staff worked with Perkins+Will, architects, landscape designers, engineers and artists to design a set of buildings that combine patient experience and medical care, taking into account the healing benefits of aesthetics, such as color, open spaces, green spaces and a lot of natural light. The two new facilities, the Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children’s Center and the Sheikh Zayed Tower, can be seen from miles away. To create a welcoming exterior, artist Spencer Finch took inspiration from French Impressionist artist Claude Monet’s famed painting of waterlilies and his own observations of light and color at Giverny, creating a new alphabet of 26 shades of colored glass (greens for the Zayed Tower and blues for Children’s Center) to project the serenity of nature onto the East Baltimore skyline. Finch drew from Monet’s brushstrokes to create his own pattern that is fused onto the building’s curtain wall, reflecting light and mimicking the rippling effect of water. Inside, both buildings are filled with art and intentional design features meant to enhance the patient and visitor experience. Just beyond the Children’s Center entrance is a gigantic rhino sculpture with a baby rhino standing on its back. Floating above the main entry stair of the lobby is a school of puffer fish. A purple winged cow, heading towards a ring of the 28 phases of the moon, flies above the visitor’s information desk at the main entry. Such whimsy and fun can make a hospital stay or visit feel more like a trip to the museum. To further stimulate the imagination and curiosity of pediatric patients, more than 140 of the works of art created for the Bloomberg Children’s Center are inspired by children’s books, including seven dioramas found throughout the hospital. These displays include artist Jennifer Strunge’s whacky cloth creatures, all reading or being read to. The dioramas serve a dual purpose, providing location clues to navigate the hospital and encouraging patients, their families and the rest of the hospital community to find and explore the other works of art in the building that were inspired by the books on display.More than 50 artists shared their personal perspectives on nature and the garden for the art in the Zayed Tower. Some focused on the delicate details of petals and rocks, and others took a broader view of landscape. Outdoors, the gardens serve as places to meet, rest and relax. Many of the plantings, including varieties of lavender, rosemary, barberry, rose and magnolia, were chosen for their ancient associations with healing. The landscape architect, OLIN, developed the design so that patients, families and visitors looking down from the building could enjoy the patterns and colors of the courtyard gardens. The meditation garden, intended as a place of calm and quiet, is graced with gentle water features, sculptural trees and patterned stonework.By combining art and architecture with medicine, Johns Hopkins Hospital is taking care of patients—mind, body and spirt. Portions of this article were excerpted with permission from the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Art + Architecture book.The Story of Buildings: From the Pyramids to the Sydney Opera House and Beyond Patrick Dillon and Stephen BiestyHealing Architecture Christine Nickl-Weller and Hans NicklRead about itVisit three of your favorite places. Observe how they make you feel. Where did you feel the most calm?Which one felt the most stressful?How did the colors in the space make you feel?Try thisMeditation areas in buildings help keep you calm by activating the lateral prefrontal cortex in the brain supporting rational thought.Patterns in brain activity vary when viewing different types of interior spaces.Cortisol levels drop in low light. Natural light helps decrease stress.Viewing the outdoors is linked to improved mental and physical health in terms of heart rate and stress levels. When spaces are designed to increase physical activity, the environment can actually increase brain neurons and improve brain function.Science of the arts Eduard Hueber(c) 2012, James Steinkamp , Steinkamp Photography Eduard Hueberthe arts keep us healthy“The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” Steve JobsCo-founder of AppleTali YalonetzkiNext >