Your Brain on Art

Your Brain on Art, by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, was not quite the book I expected. I expected something light and easy to read, but it was a deeply researched and fascinating book about every single aspect of art and beyond. It made me think « oh, I need to do this! » and « oh, I have to do that, too! » and… you get my point! I did decide to try painting a bit again, once or twice a week, but without any books or website or anything to tell me how to do things. I started painting with one set of colours only, like all the greens I have for example, while listening to Japanese short stories, which forces me to concentrate on what I am listening to instead of what I’m painting and if it’s « good » or « bad. »

The research projects cited in this book were extremely impressive and sometimes just crazy-unbelievable but not surprising at the same time. Like « wow, they really did a research project to study how the brain reacts differently if you are playing music pieces or improvising music? So cool! » Or how the chemicals in your brain change depending on how long you search for an answer to a question/riddle/game before giving up and looking it up. Stuff like that. And more complex things, too.

One thing that I heard that I already knew but not to that extent was about concentration, and how bad it is to do many things at the same time. Like watching reruns of Bones while practicing Japanese kanji over and over and over. I always knew it was bad. But the authors go one step farther and talk about studies that show how in reality, our brain cannot concentrate on two things at the same time and simply goes back and forth between the two very rapidly and we are therefore doing both things poorly.

Anyway, if you’re interested in any way in improving your physical and/or mental health and/or that of your kids/grandkids, this book is for you! Read it! Listen to it (the narrator was excellent)! And do something about it!