I can pinpoint the precise comment that made me want to embark on a career researching the health benefits of the arts. I was fresh out of university, working in the NHS, managing the performing arts programme at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London. A pianist had just finished playing on the dementia ward and a relative of a patient came up to me: “What a lovely entertainment programme you run”.

It was kindly meant – she’d enjoyed the session. The thing was, I already knew myself that the hospital arts programme wasn’t just entertainment. Far from it. In that sing-along session, I’d seen a patient who couldn’t remember the relatives who were visiting her sing along word-perfect to The White Cliffs of Dover and chat away afterwards about her childhood. Earlier that day, I’d seen a child with burns in the accident and emergency department who hadn’t needed any morphine once the theatre group started their performance, a premature baby who was crying inconsolably and refusing food but who calmed and started feeding the moment her mother started singing, and a man who’d had a stroke whose walking suddenly increased in speed and symmetry when we put headphones on him. Yes, the arts programme was enjoyable, and a welcome alternative for many patients to television viewing. But I was seeing firsthand, every day, the tangible, meaningful effects the arts were having on patients’ health. And I wanted to understand how and why these effects were happening – what was going on inside our brains and bodies. So, I left the hospital to find the answers.

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For over a decade since, I’ve worked as a psychobiologist and epidemiologist researching the impact of the arts on our health. And the findings emerging from research studies – mine and others carried out all around the world – are getting more and more exciting. When we pick up a book, listen to a song, dance at a party or engage in a crafts activity, we activate biological processes across the body that support diverse aspects of our health. We that increase levels of hormones such as dopamine that are involved in mood and pleasure. We , leading to reductions over time in our heart rate and blood pressure. We experience reductions in levels of stress hormones in our endocrine system and inflammation in our immune system. We even , reducing those involved in stress response and increasing those involved in beneficial cognitive processes like neurogenesis.

If we can maintain regular engagement in the arts over the course of months and years – participating in the arts or attending cultural performances and events – we can see widespread longer-term physiological changes. We experience increases in the volume of grey matter in regions of the brain involved in memory, auditory processes and motor learning. We in our bodies that are linked to enhanced cognitive functioning, and reduced depression and infection risk. We even appear to stay biologically “younger” for longer – new studies just emerging using , and that all combine different kinds of biological data to tell us if we’re ageing faster or slower than our chronological age are finding that arts engagement predicts younger biological age.

All of these changes can add up to have meaningful effects on our overall health. People who are regularly engaged in the arts not only have higher levels of happiness, life satisfaction, meaning and purpose in their lives, but also have a reduced risk of developing , chronic pain, frailty, even . (And these relationships are not explained by people’s wealth, demographics, past medical history or other aspects of their behaviour and lifestyles.)

These results have collectively been emerging from randomised controlled trials, laboratory experiments and large-scale epidemiological analyses that observe population-level effects of the arts. And they are paralleled by an enormous body of research testing specific arts interventions in healthcare settings for particular patient groups, from singing classes for people who have lost their speech following a , to magic camps to improve hand function for children with , to dance classes for people with Parkinson’s disease. Increasingly, we’re seeing head-to-head trials that suggest the arts may even be more effective than some of the things we already recommend to people. Take pre-operative anxiety – over anti-anxiety medicines like benzodiazepines (not to mention fewer side effects).

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Of course, it’s important to be clear on the limitations. Arts engagement is definitely not a panacea. There are plenty of examples of the arts even doing harm, whether as a result of deliberate weaponisation or from poorly designed projects that haven’t considered issues like safeguarding properly. I debunk a whole host of unhelpful myths in Art Cure, from arts increasing the IQ of babies to killing cancer cells. There are also many areas of this field that are still developing, where we have exciting pilots but are awaiting larger trials. But the time definitely feels right to be lifting the lid on this evidence base and talking about it.

Because if a drug had the same catalogue of benefits as the arts, we’d be telling everyone about it, fighting to get our hands on it, paying premium prices, taking it religiously every day, investing billions into further research and development. So, what a joy that the recommendations I put forward in Art Cure aren’t for a pill or injection, but instead for something as enjoyable as going to a gig, joining a dance class or picking up a book – maybe even my book.

Daisy Fancourt is the author of (Cornerstone Press), the March read for the New Scientist Book Club. Sign up to read along with us here

Russell stood with his hand on the door, wondering whether to go in. It just wasn’t his scene. He was only here because his doctor had told him to come.

It had started with a stroke. He’d been walking home from work when the blood supply to the base of his brain became blocked and the world careened sideways. He’d had to relearn to walk, to talk. There had been months lying in bed staring at the ceiling and panicking about his future. He’d developed back pain so bad he couldn’t sit up. He’d lost his job, his relationship with his partner fell apart, he couldn’t play with his son any more, he put on weight, he couldn’t sleep. When he did sleep, his breathing kept stopping, so he had to wear a mask over his head at night, blowing air into his lungs to keep his airways open. His doctors prescribed dozens of pills, but new problems kept accumulating. He felt himself spiralling down into depression.

When his doctor first wrote the prescription for eight weeks of art classes, Russell thought for a moment it was some sort of joke. How was art supposed to help? But he didn’t feel he had anything to lose any more, so he opened the door.

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The first class wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. He didn’t paint, just watched the others in the class. But somehow just being around the paints, the colours, and the calming atmosphere had an impact, and on his way home he noticed his breathing was slower and deeper and he felt a bit calmer than he had walking in. The next week wasn’t as daunting. He recognised a few of the other people. Again, he didn’t do any art. But that night he couldn’t sleep, so he snuck outside and sat in the shed in the garden, doodling little caricatures of the people in the art group. In the third class, he picked up a paintbrush. Russell’s still not sure how things escalated so rapidly after that, but a few weeks later, he found himself standing in front of the art group to announce an idea he’d had: to paint portraits of them all.

I first met Russell at 6 a.m. in the basement cafeteria of a Premier Inn in Manchester. We were both waiting to go on television for the BBC Breakfast news show to talk about a new proposal to roll “arts on prescription” across the National ��ҹ����1000���� Service. Over cups of instant coffee, I tried to grasp the magnitude of the experience he was telling me about.

At the next check-up, Russell explained, his doctor was pleased with his progress. His mood had improved and his pain levels were lower. Even his blood pressure was better. The art class gave structure to his week, and he found himself looking forward to it. At the following check-up they started to review his medications the doctor didn’t feel he needed as many. His sleep was better too.

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As his portraits neared completion, Russell approached the Museum of Gloucester to ask if they would allow him to host an exhibition of the paintings in their café. He called the exhibition “We’re All Mad Here”. His classmates and his doctor were amongst those who attended. He received his first commission shortly afterwards – a nurse who had come to the exhibition wanted him to paint her children. That was just the beginning.

In the decade since, Russell Haines has exhibited his artwork all around the UK, from Gloucester Cathedral to the Tower of London. His pieces sell for thousands of pounds (if you can get your hands on one fast enough). He’s been leading his own classes back in the community too, and his doctor has been referring more patients to him. He doesn’t take any pills nowadays. He hasn’t even had to visit his doctor in over a year.

I asked him, “How great a change do you think those art classes actually made for you? How big of an impact are we talking?”

He didn’t miss a beat.

“They saved my life.”

This is an extract from Daisy Fancourt’s  (Cornerstone Press), the March read for the New Scientist Book Club. Sign up to read along with us here