When you’re recovering from a serious illness or trauma, it’s easy to feel like every part of your day is just waiting. Waiting for doctor visits, blood tests, and medication times. The physical stuff gets all the attention. The emotional part? Not so much.
But the emotional part of getting well is no less important. I mean, healing the body and leaving the soul is a battle half won.
If you’re like most people, the next logical step will be to go for therapy. But what if this isn’t your thing? What other option do you have? This is where art therapy comes in.
According to a recent BMC Psychology publication in the National Library of Medicine journal, arts therapies, including arts and crafts, visual arts, music and drama, and even writing, can significantly reduce the symptoms of PTSD.
This kind of healing is about mending the part of you that is broken, even if not physically.
In this article, we’ll be discussing how art therapy can help people suffering from serious health challenges like cancer, kidney diseases, and other forms of trauma.
What Is Art Therapy?
Simply put, this is a form of therapy that involves creative activities like painting, drawing, scrapbooking, journaling, card making, and other art forms to help people express and process their feelings.
The beautiful thing about this approach is that you don’t necessarily need to be good at art to use it. It’s just about expressing yourself through arts and crafts and using it to work through those emotions, like pain and frustration, that you’re tired of expressing in words.
Usually, a trained or licensed art therapist will guide you through this process to ensure that you get the full benefits, but this is also something you can do on your own when you feel like it, and without anyone looking over your shoulder.
Studies have shown that merely observing art can boost serotonin and make you feel a lot better. Now imagine how you’d feel when you actually do the art itself. That’s a lot of feel-good hormones flowing through your system. And when you’re in a good place mentally, it’s easier to cope with the challenges that recovery brings.
Coping With Long-Term Treatment
Now, let’s talk about why relying on medical care alone may not be enough. Imagine that you’re going through cancer treatment or recovering from an accident. This means doctors’ appointments, procedures, and maybe physical therapy. All of these can be very stressful.
Some people even need specialized medical equipment like a home oxygen machine, ventilator, cervical and lumbar spine traction device, and implantable medical devices like the Bard PowerPort to make treatment easier.
While these devices can be lifesaving, they’re not always without their own problems.
Take the ongoing Bard Power Port lawsuit, for example. It’s happening because some patients are experiencing infections, device malfunctions, and a myriad of other issues, which only adds stress to an already difficult treatment process.
TorHoerman Law estimates that settlements in this case could reach and even exceed $250,000.
The truth is that when you’re dealing with a demanding recovery, you don’t want more complications. You need a way to make things easier. Of course, art will not automatically fix the problems. But it can provide much-needed mental clarity.
Key Benefits of Art Therapy During Recovery
Now, let’s look at the actual, real-life benefits of doing art when recovering.
Emotional Expression
When you’re going through a tough recovery journey, expressing what’s happening inside your head may not be easy. Art gives you a way out. You pick up a paintbrush or drawing pencil, and suddenly you can express yourself without words. And guess what? This creative process can be highly therapeutic.
Stress and Anxiety Reduction
If you’ve ever had surgery to deal with a health condition, you may know about post-operative blues.
These are emotional lows, where one minute you feel sad, the next, you’re anxious, irritable, and sometimes hopeless. Post-operative blues typically happen after a particularly difficult operation, or due to stress from pain, discomfort from medication, or because you have no control over your routine.
Whatever the cause, it’s a natural part of healing.
Many people manage this condition with support from friends and family and through self-care. But art is another way to deal with it. When you channel your mind into something creative, even if it’s just scrapbooking, you spend less time worrying.
Pain Management
This might sound surprising, but art therapy can actually help you deal with physical pain.
Take cancer, for example. Research shows that pain and emotional distress affect roughly 40% of cancer survivors. These issues can significantly affect their quality of life. Creative activities, even DIY arts and crafts, may be able to help here.
When you’re deeply engaged in drawing, painting, or sculpting, and you’re seeing your creation come to life before your very eyes, your focus shifts from these issues, and the pain fades into the background. This is not to oversimplify things, but that’s the reality for many people.
One study cited in IFL Science even found that just 45 minutes of art-making can reduce cortisol levels in people. Less cortisol means less stress. Less stress may influence pain perception.
Of course, art will not actually take the pain away. It’s not a cure, but it’s a tool in the kit.
Final Thoughts
Not every recovery is an easy process. Recovering from cancer, accidents, surgery, and even substance addiction can involve a rollercoaster of emotions, from anxiety, to pain, and hopelessness. Art lets you take back some form of control.
As we’ve said throughout this piece, it’s not a magic bullet solution that makes everything better automatically, but it puts you in a better frame of mind so that you can focus on your healing and not the pain and discomfort.
So, if you’re going through a recovery at the moment, why not try your hand at some creative artwork? It might give you the psychological boost you need to get better faster.
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