Guess what? Not only is drawing a super awesome and fun hobby, but it also comes with a huge range of other benefits for your health and well-being!
No matter what age you are, or what level your artistic skills are at, drawing can help improve so many aspects of your life! What are the amazing positive effects gained through tapping into your creativity? Here are our TOP 11 reasons to start drawing today!
1. Increase Your Brain’s Activity
Yes, this is a real thing that drawing can do for you! Though there are many different ways to stimulate your brain, drawing is a very effective method for activating multiple parts of your brain at once.
Studies have shown an overall increase in gray matter in the brains of people who regularly engage in artistic hobbies or careers. (Gray matter—named for its pinkish-gray color—is home to neuronal cell bodies, axon terminals, and dendrites, as well as all nerve synapses.)
This means that drawing regularly will help you keep your brain healthy and growing gray matter!
2. Improve Your Creativity
Creating art requires you to use your imagination efficiently. By using your imagination to come up with ideas, you improve your ability to visualize and process your own inner thoughts.
Drawing enables you to express these inner concepts visually and continue developing your creativity.
3. Improve Your Memory
Engaging in drawing or other artistic activities can help to improve your recollection skills. Research suggests drawing has even been found to be helpful for patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
This is because drawing forces us to utilize our ‘mental storage’ skills to recall a range of techniques and artistic knowledge. Subconsciously, this process of revisiting our visual library and artistic imagination helps our brain strengthen its ability to remember things.
4. Improve Your Communication Skills
Art is a great tool for people to explore and express their emotions. Drawing can help you communicate your inner thoughts to others, not just visually, but also by giving you time to better process them.
This introspection can be very healthy for growing your emotional intelligence overall. The use of visual language for communication is also a powerful way to communicate without cultural and verbal boundaries.
5. Stress Relief
Drawing can provide you with the escapism needed to mentally remove yourself from the stress of everyday life. Releasing your daily stress through creativity is a great way to boost your mental health, as well as to help manage mental illnesses.
Creativity is very effective for this purpose as it requires you to focus fully on your project, rather than letting your brain run wild with anxious thoughts.
A great way to keep yourself motivated and calm when practicing drawing each day is to follow along with guided video lessons.
6. Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills
The creative process often requires a lot of trial and error to achieve the desired visual results, especially as there is often more than one solution to every problem.
This motivation to achieve a certain aesthetic drives us to think outside the box and solve a range of different technical problems.
Because of this, growing your critical thinking skills through art is an effective way to widen your perspectives and improve your adaptability overall in life.
7. Improve Your Fine Motor Skills
There is a common misconception that it is only children who need to work on their fine motor skills. However, this is not actually the case. Adults also can work to improve these skills!
Drawing and painting require you to develop more efficient, precise hand movements. This actually improves your brain’s ability to send information regarding specific movements you want to make with your body.
8. Increase Your Positive Emotions
Drawing has been known to increase your positive emotions and decrease your negative emotions by creating a feeling of accomplishment.
Each time you create something new or progress in your drawing skills, your brain produces feel-good hormones. Because of this, individuals who draw regularly are more likely to be relaxed and optimistic.
9. Become More Observant
Artists in general are known for being quite observant of their surroundings. This is because individuals who study artistic techniques are more likely to have an understanding and interest in lighting, shading, color, and many other aspects foundational to drawing.
These factors train your brain to focus on the intricacies of ordinary things you see throughout the day. By being more observant, you also improve your ability to focus!
10. Boost Your Self Esteem
Achieving your drawing goals and creating gorgeous artwork can create a sense of pride, triggering your brain to release dopamine. Practicing art can be a huge self-esteem booster as it provides you with a recurring sense of achievement.
11. Have Fun!
One of the best things about drawing is that you don’t need to be a professional artist to gain all of these amazing benefits!
All you have to do is take some time out of your day to relax and enjoy being creative. When it comes to drawing, the possibilities of what you can do are truly endless! There is no right or wrong way to be creative. So grab yourself a pencil and start reaping the benefits today!
Not sure where to start or just need some fresh motivation? Why not try out one of our amazing video courses or grab one of our inspiring art books!
Rhea
Rhea is an Australian concept artist who is currently studying at Griffith University. She is passionate about spreading her love of art to others.
