I blog here for fun, community and to pursue my own interests in feminism and fitness, but my day job is Dean of Arts at the University of Guelph. I rarely get to read or think about the same things, both for curiosity and for my serious role at the university. Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about the art-health connection in conjunction with a new program we’re offering at Guelph and I thought that might be of interest to our blog community.
Our Bachelor of Creative Arts, Health and Wellness (BCAHW) is a 4-year honours degree. It’s the first undergraduate program of its kind in Canada, merging arts (Music, Studio Art, Creative Writing, or Theatre Studies) with healthcare, psychology, and therapeutic practices. We’re also home to a BFA in Music Theatre and to courses in Dance.
In my capacity as Dean, I picked up this book, which I’ll review for you soon. Promise! The author argues that arts engagement should be considered a fifth pillar of health alongside diet, sleep, exercise, and nature.
As a result of this recent turn in my work interests, I’ve got a social media newsfeed full of the arts-health connection. When I came across a headline this spring claiming that visiting an art gallery could be as good for you as going for a run, I had to dig in. I’m interested both as Dean and as a feminist fitness blogger. Turns out there’s research behind it, even if the truth is a little more interesting and complicated than that headline.
The study that started it: In May 2026, researchers at University College London published a study in the journal Innovation in Ageing that made a striking claim: engaging with arts and culture can slow biological aging by roughly the same amount as physical activity does. The team looked at data from more than 3,500 UK adults, measuring biological age using seven different “aging clocks” — tools that estimate how quickly someone’s body is aging based on biomarkers, rather than relying on the calendar. People who engaged more often with arts and culture, and in a wider variety of ways, showed slower biological aging. The effect size was comparable to that of physical activity, and it was strongest among adults over 40. Co-author Feifei Bu suggested the arts might work through several “active ingredients” at once: aesthetic experience, sensory and sometimes physical stimulation, and social interaction. It’s a plausible story. But it’s worth thinking about the obvious caveat, which outside reviewers were quick to point out: this is a single snapshot in time. It shows a correlation, not proof that going to more concerts and galleries causes you to age more slowly. People who are already healthier and more energetic may simply be the ones out doing more things — including going to museums and art galleries. There is also the obvious wealth-health connection. Richer people have more time to go to galleries and they also have better health.
The gallery study everyone’s been sharing: The other piece of research behind that “art vs. exercise” narrative in my social media newsfeed comes from King’s College London, published in October 2025, though it hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed. Fifty volunteers were split into two groups: half viewed original paintings by Van Gogh, Manet, and Gauguin at London’s Courtauld Gallery, and half viewed reproductions of the same works in a plain, non-gallery room. Everyone wore sensors tracking heart rate and skin temperature, and gave saliva samples before and after. The results favoured the real thing. The gallery group’s cortisol — a key stress hormone — dropped by an average of 22%, compared to just 8% for the reproduction group, and only the original-art group showed a meaningful change in inflammatory markers. Their heart-rate variability also became more dynamic, a pattern generally associated with healthy nervous-system flexibility. It’s the first study to show art activating the immune, hormonal, and nervous systems all at once. The researchers framed it as evidence that being in front of the real object — not a photo, not a print, and definitely not an AI-generated image — matters.
A useful reality check: Not every study agrees, and that’s worth including rather than glossing over. A separate 2026 study published in Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being took a more measured view. Comparing art viewing to a neutral activity and to another pleasant activity, the researchers found that art produced greater subjective well-being and lower self-reported stress — especially for people who started out already stressed — but heart rate and cortisol levels didn’t actually differ. In other words, people felt better, but the physiological signature wasn’t as clean as the more dramatic headlines suggest.
So, is art the new running? Probably not literally — nobody’s claiming a gallery visit builds cardiovascular fitness the way running does. But the research does support something we talk about a lot on this blog: that “movement” and “wellness” are bigger categories than the treadmill and the weight room. Sitting in front of a painting, walking through a museum, taking in live music — these things appear to do real, measurable things to our stress hormones and possibly our long-term biological aging, even if the exact mechanism is still being sorted out. That’s part of why we blog here about the books we read, the dogs we walk, and our meditation and gratitude habits as well as our more active adventures.
For those of us thinking about what a sustainable, whole-life approach to health looks like — especially as we get older, where the UCL study found the strongest effects — this feels like permission to take a gallery afternoon exactly as seriously as a gym session. Not instead of movement, necessarily. Alongside it. Maybe walk to the gallery! And certainly walk around the gallery while you’re there.
Read more here:
U of G Offers New Bachelor of Creative Arts, Health and Wellness
Your streak is legendary. Let’s keep it rolling!
