5 ways immersion in art can boost your work-life happiness
- Visual art can be recast as a toolkit to soothe the mind and spirit.
- Engaging with art — not only as a viewer but also as a creator — deepens our ability to evolve in a visual world.
- Moved by the positive effects of art on our work-life balance, we can actively support cities and organizations that encourage creativity.
Our search for work-life balance reflects a very real desire: to feel less consumed by obligations, less stressed, and more fulfilled. In my book, The Visual Detox, I explore how the images we’re exposed to shape our inner balance, for better or worse — and I demonstrate how art can gently tip the scales back toward harmony.
Think of visual art as a toolkit to soothe the mind and spirit. Every day, we are inundated with imagery urging us to work harder, buy more … and never stop. Art offers the exact opposite. It slows and calms us down, sharpens our critical thinking, nurtures happiness, and helps us resist the endless cycle of consumption. In contrast to the ever-present commercial visuals found on our streets and screens, in train stations and airports, engaging with art gives us a break. A focus on visual art offers a pause for reflection, peace, and connection.
In my 2019 study, written in collaboration with cultural data analyst Vishal Kumar, we found that 84% of participants believed regular public art initiatives would improve their well-being. Over the past ten years I have delivered over 300 public art projects with my team at MTArt Agency, providing “visual balance” for our everyday environments.
Art is not just decoration. It is an everyday necessity. Engaging with art — not only as a viewer but also as a creator — offers more than pleasure. It deepens your ability to evolve in a visual world. Despite the overwhelming images around you, the visual arts can be your pathway to stress relief, sharper decision-making, deeper empathy, greater productivity, and a healthier relationship with your world.
#1 Stress relief and mental wellness
Research on the health and well-being effects of consuming visual arts — reported in a December 2024 article by The Guardian — highlighted what many art therapists already knew: Interacting with visual art has a beneficial impact on physical and mental health. A study of 3,333 people aged 18 to 28 found that those taking part in organized artistic activities “felt happier, and that their lives had more meaning and value as a result.”
As a first step, I would advise you to interact with art in museums, galleries, and public spaces. I also believe that creating your own art — and you can define “art” as you wish — can also positively tip the scales in your search for work-life happiness.
#2 More confident decision-making
In 2011, researchers at the University of London identified a particular area of the brain that is activated in subjects who looked at beautiful paintings — and found that “the strength of activation … was proportional to the strength of the declared intensity of the experience of beauty.” Two years later, a social science experiment revealed that students who visit art exhibits demonstrate higher critical thinking, empathy, and social tolerance skills than those who don’t.
The power of seeing and the ability to decode what we see is “visual literacy.” The messages received, the visual itself, and our interaction with it are three aspects of “seeing” that intersect to represent the unique meaning we draw from visual art. Visual literacy involves the act of reading imagery that sharpens your critical thinking, focus, and precision. In this sense, art has a beneficial impact on not just your physical well-being but also on your mental powers and decision-making skills.
#3 Appreciate connection through creativity
Empathy is founded on curiosity, active listening, observing, and learning to understand people who come from outside of our own education, personality type, and background. This is universal: true for all humans. The language of art, too, is universal.
Around 65% of us are visual learners, making art a language we can share and use for dialogue and connection through creativity. Art is a powerful social tool when it comes to meeting new people and broadening your horizons, as well as a means for expressing ourselves both with words and wordlessly.
#4 Boost productivity and problem-solving
Gazing at art may seem like procrastination or day-dreaming to us when we are under a deadline or under pressure to perform. Science tells us otherwise. The Guardian reported that office workers who had artwork in their workspace were 15% more effective at getting their tasks done on time. That number doubled to 30% when they were allowed to arrange the art wherever they wanted.
Being allowed creativity in the workplace and curating your personal visual environment strengthen confidence in your own visual environment, which in turn can increase your focus, and, by extension, your productivity.
Art has also been shown to speed patient recovery time and improve the productivity of hospital staff workers. Empowered by findings such as these, the UK-based organization Paintings in Hospitals displays 4,000 pieces of art in hospitals across Britain, Wales, and Ireland.
#5 Escape from our current visual world
Of the 10,000-plus images that we see daily on our streets, online, in our workplaces, and homes, the vast majority are commercial. They are designed to make us wish for more, consume more, and, as such, we experience a kind of “visual hunger.” We become more anxious due to this visual pollution, though we don’t identify that as the cause. We are not built to be exposed to thousands of new desires per day. These visuals do not support well-being, health, or our need for happiness.
The place where you can most easily control your consumption of visual art is your home. First, examine your visual environment and curate your visual consumption. This means becoming consciously aware of your visual environment and eliminating what does not support your happiness and wellbeing.
As a second step, dive into a regular and frequent creative outlet. Choose art. Create art yourself. Choose the materials, the colors, the forms that you are drawn to and that quietly fill your senses. Use your own art to hit a mental reset button and return to your tasks with a fresh perspective.
And then? Go and view art. Moved by this new knowledge about your visual environment, and aware of the benefits to your health and well-being, you should now support cities and local councils that encourage creativity. Aid them in reinforcing a stronger presence for art in your visual environment.
