Art therapy

Stress is a word that is not only used, but also felt everyday. Stress can be defined as a mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influences and capable of affecting physical health, usually characterized by increased heart rate, a rise in blood pressure, muscular tension, irritability, and depression. There are many ways and studies on stress reducing techniques. Among many of the ways of reducing stress is art therapy. Art therapy is defined as psychotherapy that incorporates the production of visual art, such as painting or sculpture, in order to understand and express one's feelings.
Using art for healing purposes has been in practice all throughout history, although art therapy first emerged as a profession in the 1940’s. Early into the 20th century educators were taking note that their student’s art was reflecting their developmental, cognitive, and emotional growth. Psychiatrists became fascinated with the artwork of their patients with mental illnesses. By the mid 20th century art therapy was becoming a wide spread practice. Now the practice of art therapy is an important method of assessment and treatment not only in children but in adults as well.
Creating art, any form of art, can be helpful in several ways. One of the first ways is art is a distraction. It absorbs your attention, then once your done you should have a clearer head. Another way art helps is because it’s relaxing; it engages you to a point where you’re almost in a meditative state. Art therapy also helps develop self expression, and can boost self-esteem and makes you more self-aware, giving you more insight.
Creating art is not the only way to use art to relax. Viewing it in an art gallery also helps reduce stress. There was a study conducted in the UK, at the University of Westminster. This specific study used twenty eight participants. Each of these participants were under an increased level of stress. It is found that one of the best indicators of stress level is the saliva cortisol level. Each participant had their cortisol level tested after viewing art. The levels were reduced by 32%. For cortisol levels to drop this amount traditionally it would take up to five hours. These participants viewed the art in Guildhall Art Gallery in the City of London. The author of this study says that though cortisol is a very important hormone in our body excess amounts can be very detrimental. This study is an answer to all those people who are searching for an answer to reduce their stress levels. Although stress is looked upon as a negative thing some amounts of stress are not harmful. Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have found that when baby monkeys are subjected to a lot of stress, they become less clingy and more adventuresome as adults. This can be held true to humans as well, actually all primates. Art therapy can also be used in the medical fields with people who are physically sick. There was a study done at Northwestern Memorial Hospital with cancer patients. Fifty patients were part of this study. During this study the patients would work on some piece of artwork of choice for an hour. After working on their art it was reported that there was a significant reduction in eight of nine symptoms measured by Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS). This is a numeric scale used by patients to asses their symptoms. These symptoms include pain, tiredness, nausea, depression, anxiety, drowsiness, lack of appetite, well-being and shortness of breath.
Why does art help reduce stress? Well it has to do with chemicals in the brain that are released. Making art causes neurons to fire (mostly in the right brain), which stimulates the hypothalamus which sends messages to the whole body. That in turn stimulates the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. Hormones and neurotransmitters (especially, endorphins) are released. This whole sequence can help with relaxation, stress reduction, and body repair and healing. Once this process occurs you will see changes in your body. The heart beat will slow down, blood pressure will lower, and breathing will become more relaxed.
Art is well defined in society and used often in clinics and rehabilitation facilities, and even in classrooms to help reduce stress. Sometimes you look at art and don’t think twice, or even create art and don’t think twice. But next time you do you should, it could help lower your stress level.

Sunrises and things

Every day early in the morning I take the train in to class...early enough to see the sun rise on my way in...today the colors were so majestic. There was a soothing glow along with the mixture of colors. There was the colors I think of when I think of a sun rise, orange, pink, blue, and cream-ish, but then there was also purple and green...not colors I think of when I think of a sunrise. The colors were reflecting off the buildings as we traveled on in towards the city enhancing the beauty. It was almost as if the colors were saying something...they were seeking to be recognized. People go about their everyday lives so unaware and oblivious of their surroundings....they're to wrapped up in things to take the time to notice the simple beautiful pleasures in life...even I wished that I paid more attention, although I think it's a choice. I mean some people are so in tune with everything around them, even the seemingly insignificant things. As we continue on I'm not only watching the sun and the colors changing shades, but the people around me, mostly the business men going into work. The majority with a news paper or a magazine, others sleeping or in a daze, and some on their computers. It seems no ones noticing what is the most intriguing thing to me at the moment. It's odd how something that occurs in every day life can all of a sudden catch our eye and get us caught up in it...I would think after seeing it so often one would be numb to it...which I think does occur all to often. So many things are just taken for granted, but once it's gone you realize what it meant to you and want it back so you can change the way you reacted towards it. Just think of the void that you would have if something you take for granted were gone... I think everyone should try to take time out of their day and think of what goes unnoticed or appreciated in their lives and consider the real impact that those things or people have in your life.

research project idea

How does art fulfillpersonal and psychological needs? [2]

Exorcising emotions andevoking pleasurable responses n
Art also possesses the potential to contribute to the release of tensions and the resolution of conflicts. For the artist, creating art is a vehicle for making inner thoughts and feelings visible and, therefore, more objective, which can have a cathartic, tension releasing payoff. What may have been repressed can be expressed through socially approved channels. This is the basic rationale for art therapy: through participation in art activity, what has been suppressed can be given form and, thereby, exorcised.
For the consumer of art, perceiving the organization of sensuous qualities in works of art can evoke feelings of excitement, pleasure, and a sense of equilibrium and euphoria (the principal reasons for purchasing art and/or visiting art museums and galleries). Works of art often involve us in those peak experiences that differ so markedly from the outcomes of routine encounters. These types of experiences are so satisfying that many of us are willing to make significant expenditures in time, effort, and money to be enriched by art.
Another way of knowing
Making and/or experiencing art involves reacting imaginatively and idiosyncratically to symbols and implied metaphors. Moving from general experience to the creation of a particular work that expresses and distills individual responses is the way of art. For example, observing the almost religious fervor that late 20th- century industrial societies engage in consumerism and are infatuated with the popular culture and then creating an appropriate icon: a painting of a soup can that assumes the importance of a traditional portrait.

http://instructional1.calstatela.edu/laa/personal-psych_2.html

pleasing others...and a sidetracked thought

OK...i wrote this on the train on my way to school this morning, so I'm just gonna write it as i wrote it earlier...its just thoughts

What do you do when you try to please the unpleasable? Who really is pleasable anyways? Nobody I've ever come into contact with. You can do things and they'd approve, but it doesn't necessarily meant that their pleased....does that make sense? I don't know, I'm just thinking. Its actually kind of...oh I don't know I can't think of the word....useless....sensless, something of that nature, although neither was the word I was thinking of....but it'll work. I mean whats the point in striving to please others? Do they really matter all that much? Shouldn't one do something because they want to? It's like it has more meaning that way....there just isn't any sense in accomplishing something for another....then you don't have the satisfaction, because you did it for someone else. Even in knowing this you still aim or strive to please others....that's like setting yourself up for disaster, isn't it? It's like trying and hoping for a different outcome knowing your set up for failure. I know that's not a good mentality to have, but if you know inside you that it's true then i guess your just stupid, well not stupid necessarily, but I don't know what word to put here, so yeah, stupid, for lack of a better word.
Its like your best isn't good enough, and never will be... I don't think that's and easy thing to accept. Why is it that humans seek to please others anyhow? Is it for the praise...or having someone behind you? I think it just feels better once you accomplish something when not only you are pleased but others as well. Its not that they don't care, or are insensitive...it just seems that their wrapped up in their own life...I mean is it fair that a little girl sits up past her bed time crying with no parent there, only some siblings that can not console her. They'll never know the damage their doing....mostly because they are not there to see....That may seem random and off topic, but its not. Even a young child seeks to please in hopes her parents will praise her. Feelings of abandonment, her mother in another state, hardly seeing her, her father hardly home....a lonely life she must lead...so young and home alone so often....I mean nobody has the perfect life, but this seems hardly close to fair...and its not neglect its just the people she cares most about are absorbed in other tasks or other people....but a child's world is almost made of porcelain...fragile, delicate and so easy to shatter....( OK so yeah that was a little of topic but again just thoughts)

so that was it...as i wrote it on the train...

never to old....

I havn't really written in awhile, simply due to the fact that I havn't been inspired. Now I have something to write about though. I live on Long Island with my dad, but that is in no way my home. I went home this week...the place I consider home and will always consider home. This place is Red Hook New York, in the Mid Hudson Valley.
What is important to me? Well being with my best friends and realizing the pettiness of things and knowing that some things just don't matter....what does matter? Well to me what matters is not caring about being silly or acting crazy....taking a million pictures just to remember the night....going bowling and being happy about getting a 63...dressing up just for the hell of it...thats one thing i will never out grow....I'm 18 and yes i still play dress up...and guess what I always will...or blasting music from middle school in the car and singing along...or just having a snow ball fight...yes there is snow here...and yes I am psyched! Just being care free even for that little amount of time and knowing you can act as ridiculous as you want cause everybody else is too and you know that nobody around you cares what bizarre one liner you blurt out next....its totally A-mazing

fortunes

One thing that I like to do is collect fortunes from the fortune cookies. I have selected one of my saved fortunes to put into my folder. The specific fortune that I picked means a lot to me.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.

I agree completely with this statement. My take on this is that if nobody ever experienced any bad then the good things wouldn't feel so good. Those good things and feelings wouldn't be appreciated as much, if at all, simply due to the fact that you wouldn't have anything to compare it to. Things that are important you just wouldn't realize it. Therefore I am thankful for the trails that we all go through to get to the end.

missing chains...or not

" We get used to the chains we wear, and we miss them when removed." - John Dewey
I believe this statement to be wrong. Not 100% wrong, because I believe that it really does depend upon what chains you are speaking of. Chains can shelter you, or be used as an excuse to do or not do something. On the other hand some people would do anything to be freed from the chains that are holding them hostage. Once the chains they bear are gone one may be vulnerable, and scared. The newly freed person will experience emotions that are unfamilar. This is because although the chains were negitive they became a way of life, a sense of security, it was all that was known for so long. Emerging into a new world is not an easy thing to do free or not. Just because certain emotions are being experienced does not in any way mean that the chains will be missed. The chains will not be missed, they will not be regretted, they in fact will be appreciated. For the chains that held the prisoner made that person to be what they are.
Once real freedom, true genuine freedom is obtained then it will feel better, and more secure than any chains could ever make anyone feel. If it does not feel like this you have not obtained freedom, and you wonder if the chains will ever be broken.... but they will in time