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We explore how making art can ground us in the present and be a space of healing, connection, and joy.
Summary: We explore how creative expression can support emotional resilience and physical healing in the face of life’s hardest moments and how simple acts of art-making— whether painting, drawing, or doodling—can offer grounding, release, and joy.
This episode is made possible through the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation.
Guests:
SHABNAM PIRYAEI is an award-winning writer, filmmaker, and teacher.Learn more about Shabnam here: https://shabnampiryaei.com/
Follow Shabnam on Instagram here: @shabnampiryaei
DR. GIRIJA KAIMAL is a leading researcher in art therapy who has studied how creative expression supports people.
Learn more about Dr. Kaimal here: https://girijakaimal.com/
Related The Science of Happiness episodes:
Why Grownups Should Be Playful Too: https://tinyurl.com/4r85dc7m
Why Going Offline Might Save Us: https://tinyurl.com/e7rhsakj
How Awe Helps You Navigate Life’s Challenges: https://tinyurl.com/2466rnm4
Related Happiness Breaks:
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Making Space For You: https://tinyurl.com/yk6nfnfv
A Self-Compassion Meditation For Burnout: https://tinyurl.com/485y3b4y
Tell us about your experience creating art. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or follow on Instagram @HappinessPod.
Help us share The Science of Happiness! Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap
Transcription:
SHUKA KALANTARI: This episode is made possible through the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation.
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: My father has dementia, and I'm his only caretaker, and there's something about that always being in the background. My father has no living family apart from essentially me and my son. He's at a place where we need to be visiting him everyday or every other day. Otherwise it's unsustainable, you know, and so that's the level of caretaking that's happening. The way that we kind of nourish him and keep him buoyant is by visiting him. And my son does that with me. This is sort of the lifeline for him right now. It's almost like his purpose is seeing my son, seeing his grandson. What nourishes him the most is just having loving interactions with us. You know, he was a poet and really encouraged me to be creative and create all the time. And so art and literature and music has been in my life since I was born, and so a couple days ago, my son and I packed some paper and some pencils, and we went to my dad's apartment that I've gotten for him. He lives by himself, and I was thinking about, what's the art that we could do together that would be the most collaborative, you know, thinking about art making as a way of being, as a way that you move through the world, rather than it's sort of like a start and end time practice.
DACHER KELTNER: Welcome to The Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner. There is a growing body of science showing that creating art can be deeply healing, calming our nerves, lifting our mood and helping us process tough emotions. So this mental health awareness month, we're kicking off a series about how art can support our bodies and minds. Today, we're joined by Shabnam Piryaei, an award winning writer, filmmaker and teacher, who recently turned to visual art as a form of self care, things like painting, drawing or coloring. More about art as medicine. After these messages from our sponsors.
This is Dacher, welcome back to The Science of Happiness. With me is Shabnam Piryaei, a poet and teacher who turned to creating art with her hands as a way to reconnect to herself and to recharge.
Shabnam, thanks for being in studio today on The Science of Happiness.
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: I'm happy to be here.
DACHER KELTNER: For our show, you chose to explore visual art, painting and drawing and the like, as a way to bolster your own mental health, and not to earn a dime or to be part of your career. We know when you paint and draw, it lowers stress hormones. It helps kind of the prefrontal cortex get more active, and that's where language and interpretation and story making is. As you headed into this practice of art, how would you describe the qualities of your mental states that it produced?
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: I think it came at a good time, because I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed. My father has dementia, and I'm his only caretaker. I'm also a mother, I'm also a professor, I'm also a writer. And so those things all work in harmony. And then there's this other aspect, where even if I'm not with my father, it's just always there. And I think there's something about the incessantness of that need or that concern.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. Hats off to you. And I know how it goes. I have 87 year old parents, and a good part of my day is always sort of checking in on them and thinking about how things are going. You know, in the stress literature, studies of cortisol and the premature aging of the cells, the group that they always study as caregivers of elderly parents.
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: It's so easy to get depleted.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. So what'd you do?
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: I did some watercolor, and I think that was the thing that was the most. It felt like the furthest from what I was doing something about that was really freeing. So it's partly that I'm almost a little terrible at it.
DACHER KELTNER: You're not alone.
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: I was like, wow, it's harder than I think. I hadn't done watercolor in so long. And there's actually something about using water in art that makes you lose so much control, and that can be really freeing.
DACHER KELTNER: How so?
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: Really trying to control the outcome of what it looks like. You know, even if the audience is myself, sometimes I can get caught up. So what I would do is I was like, telling myself, you know, I'm just gonna play. And I would start playing, and then I would be like, oh, I can identify something. Well, let me turn it into this thing that I'm identifying. And because of something about the aspect of that particular medium, it just wouldn't let me. It kept pulling me back into a space of it was almost guiding me to release control constantly, constantly. And so that felt really good.
DACHER KELTNER: What did you paint?
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: I'd made a splotch, and then I outlined it, and it looked like a person, and then the person had wings, and then there were tiny people underneath them. And I think partly there was an aspect of storytelling that was happening too. I mean, if you were to look at it and now it doesn't look like anything, but I love it. And then I think the other one, it just was sort of a galactic landscape.
DACHER KELTNER: Say more about losing control? You know, in the psychological literature, control is one of these hallowed things, like you got to have agency and purpose and control. And it's true. On balance, it's good to have a sense of control, and you're almost advocating that there were just these delights of losing control. So what was going on there? Do you think
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: Something that is really prominent in my life journey is understanding how to trust and to surrender, and I think that I've gotten better at it. There's something about having faith, and there's a point at which you just have to stop and allow it. And I think that's part of the losing control or surrendering, you know.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah. And I love how you discovered this as dipping those paints in the water and putting it onto a piece of paper. It goes where it wants to go. So Shabnam, you also spent time making art with others. Tell us about that.
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: Yeah. My favorite thing was doing it with my son. He doesn't do watercolors either, you know, and so it was cool, because for both of us, it was something that we haven't done.
When everybody makes yellow or red, that sounds cool. That's what happens. So first goes red.
I think he was really excited just to be able to have this really free, calm exchange, where the two of us are having this encounter, where we're getting to create together, and none of the other things are there in that moment. And part of that was really beautiful.
I like your drawing. Thank you. I like your painting. Thank you.
We sat across from each other and we had canvases. And it's funny, because even when I'm doing it with my son, I feel this sort of compulsion to start controlling or asking him to define things, you know, like he was painting on the canvas, and then he sort of made this little puddle of water, and he was just making art with the colors that he was putting in.
I just, like, take random colors and then mix them and then use it and see how I can fit it in.
You know, in my mind, I was like, well, this isn't on the canvas, you know, this isn't the art you should be doing. And I'm thinking all these things, and I'm looking at him, and he's having a blast, and it's beautiful, and it's a process of art. And so I think it was a lot of just being able to watch how joyfully he was being free. Was a reminder of the ways that I'm still, you know, I'm still really having to untangle so many of the ways that I'm thinking of my body of work or these kinds of things, and so much of the world is going to be telling him that, you know, really trying not to be also putting God on him in a house.
DACHER KELTNER: I love your use of the word joy when you're free from the world's presses. And we know that art has all these benefits for kids, and it's being cut out of schools. It helps kids express hard feelings, they feel more agentic and have better self esteem, less stressed out. Tell us like what you saw in your son, what kind of feelings did you see? What did it look like to you?
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: It was a lot of play. You know, it's funny, because I can give it these labels, like it was joy, and it was experimenting, and it was play, but it was really just his way of being. The whole thing was, like, this one sphere of a process for him, and he was just in it. He just was being himself. And so there's something about, I mean, this isn't new, but you know, thinking about art making as a way of being, as a way that you move through the world, as a way that you engage with yourself and everything around you, rather than sort of like a start and end time practice, you know, not part of it was really beautiful.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah, such a valuable lesson. I can't wait to hear about what you did with your dad and art. And there's a lot of fascinating work by Bruce Miller at UC San Francisco and others, just about how important art is for the elderly brain and the elderly psyche and also people with dementia, they can tap into forms of creativity. Often, they may lose language, but they'll sing songs. What did you do with your dad with art? And what was it like?
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: I was thinking about, what's the art that we could do together that would be the most collaborative. Every time I see my dad, I'm constantly trying to think of things for us to do that aren't repeating the same patterns, because he's sort of limited in his mobility, and we don't just want to sit there watching TV and eating pizza. And so I want to say, just a couple days ago, I went to visit my father, and I went with my son, and the three of us each had a little piece of paper, and it's a piece of paper split into thirds, and we take turns, so each person is on the first third. On the top third is like drawing the head of a figure, and then we pass it, and the person doesn't look at what that is, and then you sort of do the middle figure right? So that once all three have been completed, each of these drawings has been made by all three of us, but we don't know what it's going to look like at the end.
DACHER KELTNER: Really fun.
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: And so there's a comedy aspect too, right? So that's part of it. Once we completed that drawing, we did, sort of like a drum roll, reveal. So we laid out each of the papers face side down, and then we flipped them over, one by one. Looked at all the different parts and noticed, you know, who were who did which part, you know? And I have to, like, point out to my dad, oh, you did this part on this. Or, you know, I did this part on this. You know, it was, like, hilarious. So we were all laughing and, you know, and just being able to tap into this aspect of joy, but a joy that is being able to laugh at yourself, being able to connect with such a simple, visceral connection of, like, laughing at how someone drew a head too small for the body, you know, that is resonating across, you know, it from an eight year old to 73 year Old. And then at the end, actually, I put all three of them on his refrigerator, which is adorable because he doesn't really have much in his apartment, so I'm kind of hoping that'll continue to nourish him a little bit.
DACHER KELTNER: Fill it with art. I love your thinking about the power of connecting and collaborating with art. I'm curious what doing this artwork with your dad and Taymoor was like for you and what it brought you?
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: I think that we can use a lot of levity, all three of us. When we're in that space, including my son, you know, he's doing such a good job of like shining, but I know that he's aware and he's observing, and he's watching sort of the decline, and he's sort of internalizing it, and he tries so hard to keep things light and joyful. You know, when we have these organic ways to do that, like making art together, it just feels so good for all three of us. You know, I'm human, so sometimes I'm like, Dad, why didn't you eat? You know, I'm getting frustrated. I'm being like a parent. And I think having that moment when we're making the art together, or we're laughing at how ridiculous something looks that we made, you know, I think that it allows for everybody to just be connected without any kind of hierarchy or any kind of baggage. So again, it goes back to that freedom I know and believe and always tell my students and everyone around me that everybody is a creator and everybody is an artist. To be an artist doesn't mean some gallery or, you know, it's about really expressing what is inside of you in a way that is unfettered by anyone else's rules, and that's it.
DACHER KELTNER: Wow. Shabnam, thank you so much for the work that you do in the world, and for telling us your story of art for The Science of Happiness, and I suspect it's going to inspire a lot of people out there to be doing some watercolors and doing some art with their kids. And so thank you. Thanks for being here.
SHABNAM PIRYAEI: Thank you so much for having me.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Hey everyone. Shuka here, many experts see creating art as a deep evolutionary instinct, a way to make sense of our world and connect with others.
DR. GIRIJA KAIMAL: At the end of the day, our imaginative brains think in stories past, present, future, and we have this need to share that with others. No other species does this.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Up next my conversation with Dr. Girija Kaimal about her research showing how simple everyday art making can be a source of healing.
Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. I'm Shuka Kalantari, and with me is Dr. Girija Kaimal, a leading voice in the science of art therapy. She shares what her research tells us about why creative expression matters for everyone at every age. Dr. Kaimal, thank you so much for joining us on The Science of Happiness.
DR. GIRIJA KAIMAL: Thank you for having me.
SHUKA KALANTARI: You've published over 100 peer review articles about art and wellness. You've written multiple books on the subject with research that's really grounded in the belief that creative expression is a basic human need. Why do you think that we've evolved to thrive through creativity?
DR. GIRIJA KAIMAL: We might be in the digital age, our bodies are still in the forest, very sensitive to touch, taste, sound, sight, art has existed since we have existed as human beings, as Homo sapiens. There's evidence of it in the wall paintings, cave paintings that you see from 10s of 1000s of years ago, from all over the world. Our brains are processing information in order to make choices that will ensure that you will survive the next moment, the next day, the next year. So really, the mission of the brain is imagining scenarios to keep you alive. As our brains evolve and we have this imaginative capacity, simultaneous to that, we are not an isolating species. We are safest when we have a tribe of people who are like us and will protect us and give us that sense of connection so things that we are worried about, things that are a problem, and on the flip side of it, celebrating the things that we are really happy about. And what do you know the cave paintings usually have, they have images of hunts, they have images of war, or they have images of people, children. At the end of the day, our imaginative brains think in stories. Past, present, future, and we have this need to share that with others, because we are wired to be in a tribe and wired to be in a community, and no other species does this. It's only us, animals and birds, they'll sing. They'll create nests, but usually those are really around communication or reproduction. We create art which is perfectly useless in a way, but it sort of meets that existential need of here I am. I am self aware. This is what I went through. And here is my story. Would you like to hear it? So therefore we are naturally creative. It's a natural instinct. So when someone says, you know, they're not creative, I'm like, just by being human, you are inherently creative, because your mind is always imagining a future.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Within us is a desire and a need to create. What happens when creativity gets pushed aside or bottled up? What are we losing when we quiet that part of ourselves?
DR. GIRIJA KAIMAL: One of the studies that I'm most proud of is the study that we did looking at two different tasks. We had people do a creative, reflective task and do a sort of repetitive, boring task. And what we found in this study was that the brain actually uses less effort and resources when it's being creative than when it's doing a rote task. So it's actually a bigger effort to kind of suppress your creative and natural instincts than it is to actually be creative. So I think people who don't engage in creative expression tend to be struggling with more negative emotions. Tend to be struggling with more frustrations and lowered fulfillment and not feeling like they are sort of fully engaged and living their fullest lives.
SHUKA KALANTARI: I want to explore some of the research that you've done at Drexel University, looking at how art can affect our stress hormones, things like cortisol, regardless of our artistic abilities. Can you tell us about your research where you are looking at the actual physiological effects of creating art?
DR. GIRIJA KAIMAL: I looked at stress levels as measured with cortisol in the saliva. And cortisol is a fairly stable hormone that you can track in saliva, and we found a drop in cortisol levels in a series of studies. Then I was like, okay, stress is one thing, but art is also a lot of joy. There's a lot of fun and pleasure in it. Can we track that? And what we found was that when you engage in any kind of drawing, no matter what you draw, a doodle, drawing or coloring, it activates a robot pathway in the brain.
SHUKA KALANTARI: You've done extensive work with children. You've written a whole guidebook about how to use art therapy to support children, and I would just love for you to unpack some of the work that you've done and what your research has shown about how creating art can help children.
DR. GIRIJA KAIMAL: Childhood and youth are very sensitive years of development for the human brain. When children go through adverse childhood experiences, and these can be things like exposure to violence, abuse, extreme poverty, law enforcement, death in the family, all these things compounded sets a child up for long term outcomes that are quite debilitating. And one of the things the arts does, especially if you offer children a space to express themselves and not worry about making pretty pictures or beautiful music or perfect dances, when you offer children that form of expression. In the presence of a caring and responsive adult, you are mitigating risk for that child. Unfortunately, in our modern education system, we really have tended to focus a lot on skill in the arts. You know, are you a good artist? Are you a good musician? And if not, like, step aside for the ones who have the real skills. But that's not how we evolved in communities and tribes when we lived 1000s of years ago, everybody danced, everybody sang, everybody made things with their hands. It was a part of life. And so the separation into like artistry and skill is fairly recent, and in my mind, unfortunate, because you're taking away a form of communication and managing moods and self regulation for a child. So if you have a child in your life, allow them to communicate with you in their natural, creative way, and don't shame them for not being terrifically skilled. That is like a gift you would give to the kid in your life. Especially as adults, we get so caught up in the business of life, right? Earning a living, taking care of the home, taking care of the family, we lose that one instinct which helps us feel safe, which is being able to play and relax. We don't do enough of that. And one of the sort of beautiful dimensions of art, it can really be whatever you need it to be. It can be a meditative space. It can be a playful space. It can be an expressive space. It can be a therapeutic space, depending on your needs, because there is no pragmatic use of the arts other than well being. There really isn't. It's an exercise in making something new, practicing your imagination and truly when we play, we automatically relax, and when we are relaxed, we are more able to play. I really believe a big part of having a regret free and fulfilling life is to allow your natural self expression to find the light of day.
SHUKA KALANTARI: So far, we've been exploring the visual arts, but what happens in our brains when we write or read poetry.
YRSA DALEY WARD: There's something that poetry does. I just think it helps you to metabolize the world differently and sometimes in a more beautiful way. And who doesn't need that? We all need that.
SHUKA KALANTARI: We're continuing our exploration of art as medicine. Next time on The Science of Happiness. I hope we've inspired you to go out there and create art of your own. A big thanks to our associate producers Emily Brower and Dasha Zerboni. Our producer is Truc Nguyen. Sound design from Jennie Cataldo of Accompany Studios. Our host is Dacher Keltner. I'm Shuka Kalantari, the executive producer of The Science of Happiness. Have a wonderful day.
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