Participant 1: Hm, what is going on? This is so weird!
Participant 2: It was so fun!
Julian: Art, the expression or application
of human creative skill and imagination. That is how it is defined in the dictionary of
my Macbook. You probably heard the term art therapy thrown around before but today we're
honing on a new type of art therapy designed exclusively to focus in on positive emotions,
personal control, and a sense of meaning. Now you can get the down low on it here, but
full disclosure, watching us test it out ourselves is gonna be more entertaining. Plus, I have
my own art therapist! Pamela: Hey how are you doing?
Julian: I'm good, I'm good, how are you? Pamela: I'm good
Julian: Great! Welcome. Pamela is a registered and board certified art therapist with the
American Art Therapy Association. So, can flexing your artistic muscles really make
you happier? Let's find out! Once again we brought in a selection of subjects.
Now first we gave them a test to measure their current level of happiness.
Participant 3: I nailed it! Julian: You're not done yet, no there's more.
Next we asked them to write a list of things in their life that made them feel happier
or supported. Then we had them assign a color to themselves
and each of the things on their list. P3: I'm just gonna write ladies.
Pamela: [laughs] That works. Julian: I don't think there's any misinterpreting
that. It felt like the right time to rope them into
doing something creative, so we traced a life-sized outline of their body, and told them to fill
it in with the different colors depending on where it resonated for them. We told them
to put a circle in the center that represented themselves. Now they hadn't realized it, but
we put them in a reflective state of mind and in order to complete the exercise, they
had to really focus on how each person or thing contributed to their life.
Pamela: So, what was that like for you? Participant 4: Oh I loved it! I love art and
I love to paint, I used to paint when I was a little girl with my grandma.
Pamela: Oh you did? P4: I just think about my grandma
a lot. She taught me how to paint. Pamela: I noticed the first thing you put
in there was the purple to represent, is that mom?
Participant 5: My mom, yeah, she's like on the shoulder kinda area I guess? My mom actually,
I remember when she used to rub my shoulders whenever I would be sick as a kid.
Pamela: Out of all of these things, what are you most passionate about?
Participant 6: Um, well of course my family. I have seven children and they're spread all
over. There are three in California and I rarely get to see them, so I have to say that
my family is my passion. Pamela: Orange, what is orange?
P3: Orange is ladies. Pamela: The ladies.
P3: Yeah, I've always had an interesting relationship with women over the course of my life. When
I was young, I was always the class clown and it was always difficult for me to connect
with women because they wanted a serious man in their life but I was always trying to make
them laugh. So they were always unattainable presence in my life. Like I was never able
to have a girlfriend when I was a kid so, I feel like that has always been a hurdle
that needs to be dealt with. Pamela: Right.
P3: So when you look at me you just see wow that man is very emotional and very passionate
about a plethora of different things. P2: I see a paint representation of my personality.
Pamela: The first thing you put on here was your dad.
P3: My dad has always been the one that's been there my whole life. I'm a daddy's girl
for sure. Pamela: How is he there for you?
P3: My gosh, I have to be careful what I say around him. Like, when I say "I broke my pencil
today" I'll have 24 packs of pencils on my doorstep the next day. Every time I'm on the
phone with my dad present day, he's like, "well just in case I'm not around tomorrow"
you know, stuff like that. Pamela: Is that hard sometimes for you, when
he makes a joke out of something so big. P3: Yes, but it's just like that.
P1: The one right in the middle, um, is my mom. What is going on? This is so weird! [laughs]
Yeah, cause I think just looking at this, you know she really is like my core. She's
like the foundation upon which everything else is kind of been built upon, so she's
been the example through that kind of guides me to even be able to assess where everything
lies so my mom, yeah. Julian: So, what did we find out. Well, we
saw an average increase in happiness 8.1% with the highest just being 36.7%. What does
this mean? Well, Picasso once said, "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life"
and I am starting to think that dude was on to something. When you engage yourself artistically
and use your imagination, you can help regulate your blood pressure and your heart rate. Now
I know what you're thinking. I'm not an artist. Well don't worry, you don't need to know a
thing about art to do this. I'm not an artist myself and I did the experiment. You can check
it out in a special bonus episode we have next. So why don't you try this out for yourself.
Film it and upload it to us as a video response. Check this out, I even made a PDF of a body
that you can use just for your experiment. Just the kind of guy I am! I'm Julian, and
this has been The Science of Happiness.
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