The arts enrich the lives of older adults and those around them.

In the 1982 children’s book, Miss Rumphius, the title character recalls her grandfather once telling her she has to do three things with her adult life: travel to faraway places; live by the sea; and do something to make the world more beautiful—three essential ingredients for a life well lived.

Miss Rumphius checks off the first two without too much trouble, but struggles with the third. Eventually she finds her solution: harvest the seeds of lupines—also known as bluebonnets—and scatter them throughout her coastal Maine town. As the seeds take root, the fields and hillsides surrounding her home bloom with blue, purple, and rose-colored flowers; one might say the seeds are her paintbrush and the landscape her canvas. In her peculiar brand of art, Miss Rumphius not only improves her own life—and fulfills her promise to her grandfather—but also enriches the lives of those around her.

Such acts of creativity—let’s call them the arts—are critical to our health, especially as we get older. The arts can contribute to a higher quality of life for an individual and also better a community, according to Creativity Matters: The Arts and Aging Toolkit. After all, the arts are in some ways a social contract; an artist’s job is to collaborate with the audience so they can free their imaginations to interpret the artist’s creativity. In other words, watching a creative act is active, not passive.

Dance is a fine example. A 2019 New York Times article, titled “Is Dancing the Kale of Exercise?” suggests that ballroom dancing and other forms of the art form offer a wealth of anti-aging benefits; they’re also a lot of fun. The story suggests that the benefits apply not only to those who are participating, but also to those who may be sitting or standing on the sidelines, tapping their toes and imagining their own feet following along.

Put another way: The arts engage the mind, if not always the body.

Cognitive psychologist Helga Noice and cognitive researcher Tony Noice explored the relationship between participatory arts—dance, music, pottery, expressive writing, etc.—and the cognitive and physical health of older adults. As detailed in The Arts and Aging: Building the Science, Tony Noice demonstrated how the acting classes he conducted with older participants stimulated cognitive, emotional, and physical action, as well as engendered strong social support.

To quantify how acting affected older people, the Noices randomly assigned more than 120 residents of retirement homes to an acting, singing, or waiting-list control group. After a four-week intensive course, the actors improved significantly on seven of eight cognitive measures, more than the singers or control group. Furthermore, both the actors and singers reported improvements in quality-of-life metrics such as personal growth. The control group did not show the same improvement.

Older adults with dementia are not immune to the benefits. Creativity Matters cites research in which 12 older adults with dementia were observed in a community before and after the installation of a wall mural painted over an exit door. Researchers discovered that the residents exhibited a significant decrease in overall door-testing behavior, among other positive behavioral changes, after the mural’s installation.