February 3, 2026 • 40 mins
Reading a book, going to the movies, listening to your favorite band… you call them hobbies, but acclaimed scientist Daisy Fancourt calls them public health strategies. She joins producer Mary to discuss her new book, Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives, and shares insights from her research—like the fact that engaging with the arts reduces the risk of depression, and listening to music before surgery results in faster healing. Daisy also explains why she’s hopeful in the face of widespread cuts to arts funding, and why you don’t have to be good at the arts to benefit from them.
Got a question or idea for the show? Call our hotline at (302) 405-5925 or email higeniuses@gmail.com.
Follow us on Instagram @parttimegenius and Bluesky @parttimegenius.bsky.social!
Learn more about your ad choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Hey there are podcast listeners. It's Mango here.
You know. Back when I was in seventh grade, I
got the chance to go to the Vatican in Italy
and as we were walking through just the opening, I
(00:37):
got to turn to my right and I saw one
of Michelangelo's pietas. I think he's done four paetas. This
wasn't the most famous one, but I was insanely moved
by it. Now, I'm not a particularly religious person, but
something about how he knew that the marble was telling
him that this story was inside it. And it is
(01:02):
just so emotional, this image of Christ laying across Mary's lap,
and it's just really really moving. And I couldn't understand
how much emotion could be held in a rock, essentially,
And when I went home, I started playing with charcoals
and I tried to capture that image and I just
(01:23):
couldn't get it out of my head. Just the way
art moved me to something that was near tears, and
you know that story. It actually gets me thinking about
how much the arts have affected my life, not just
this Pieta, but all the books and music and movies
and visual art I loved, and also the art I've
made myself, whether it's writing or drawing, or playing the piano,
(01:48):
which I really love playing in bands, also making podcasts
with my friends Skyline Drive especially, was this really meaningful
thing to me, and I don't know who who I
would be without the stuff. And I started to wonder
if there's a scientific way of looking at the arts
and measuring its impact on us. And it actually turns
out there is, and this British researcher named Daisy Fancourt
(02:12):
has actually written this extraordinary new book called Art Cure,
The Science of How the Arts Save Lives. In it,
she makes the case that the arts aren't just a
nice little diversion, they're an essential part of human life
and public health. Now, Daisy was kind enough to sit
down with producer Mary to tell us all about her
(02:33):
work and this story of the time she and Brian
Eno tried to make hospitals just a little better for
patients and it even gets into some concrete recommendations for
how we can all use the arts to improve our health.
And it's really incredible conversation. So let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So I am here with Daisy Fancourt. She is a
professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London, and
she is the author of an incredible new book. It
is out now and it is called art Cure, The
Science of How the Arts Save Lives.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Daisy, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
It is a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
There's so much to unpack with this book, but I
just want to start with something kind of basic, which
is what do we mean when we refer to the arts.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
A lot of people hear that.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Phrase, they probably think about like going to the ballet,
playing the saxophone, going to a museum. But you write
that there are actually a lot of activities in our
lives that contain what you call artistic ingredients.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I love that phrase.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So what are artistic ingredients and where can we find them?
Speaker 5 (03:56):
These are the components that are common across lots of
different expersperiences that we often call arts. So things like creativity, imagination,
multisensory stimulation, things that we might perceive sometimes as beautiful,
other kind of esthetic components as well. And what's really
nice is that this kind of definition that looks at
these core common ingredients includes many of those things that
(04:19):
you list, these sort of common things performing arts, visual arts,
literary arts. But it also allows us to include things
like culinary arts like baking, for example, and decorating cakes,
or horticultural arts like growing and arranging flowers. And I
think this expanded definition of creativity can stop it being
quite so highbrow and actually speak to a lot of
the practices that people really love as part of their
(04:40):
day to day lives.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So people might be doing arts and not even really
realizing it exactly.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
And I really think we have to celebrate all of
those different creative practices because I don't think there's anything
that's really going to tell us that baking a beautiful
cake is that different to making a beautiful clay sculpture.
I mean, they're so similar in terms of the tactile
and esthetic dimensions.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Baking a cake is very hard. Actually I say this
as an amateur baker. It's very difficult. I would never
make it. In the bakeof Tent, I will tell you that.
So in the book, you talk about how there are
so many benefits to the arts, but I want to
start by talking about mental health. You describe so many
studies where arts engagement helps people living with mental illness,
(05:24):
even severe conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder. And what's really
interesting to me is that you found that benefit persisting
even after you controlled for other factors that could influence
people's health. And you write about an incredible woman named
Debs whose mental illness really almost cost her her life
and taking an art class and then developing an art
(05:44):
practice kind of set her on the path to becoming healthier.
What's going on. I mean, it's kind of common sense,
right that doing art can reduce your stress, But it's
actually way more complicated than that, right, it is.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
And I think we can kind of group this into
different ways that the art support mental health. Because there
are some people who've got let's say, mild or moderate
depression or anxiety, and that's actually a population where we
know that the evidence base for medication really isn't that great,
and lots of people don't find benefits or.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
They experience a lot of side effects.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
But actually the studies suggest that arts engagement for those
populations actually have benefits with the same kind of effect
size that we see, but without those side effects. And
then there are other people who might have more severe
mental illnesses, where yes, there are medications and psychological therapies
that can help, but those aren't really treating the whole person.
And that's where the arts can be so vital. It's
(06:33):
actually providing another way for people to help tackle their
symptoms and to find ways of living and coping with
their mental illness. And some of these ways are neurological,
you know, arts engagement actually engages pleasure and reward networks
in the brain and helps us to experience higher levels
of dopamine like pleasure hormones. Some of them are more
to do with psychological processes, arts engagement helping us to
(06:57):
have a sense of autonomy of self, identify a way
of expressing our emotions. And some of them are even
underlying biological effects arts engagement reducing stress hormones and even
reducing levels of inflammation which are so interlinked with symptoms
like depression.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
And we're going to talk more about that inflammation point
later because I found that really interesting as well. But
again with the mental health angle, there can be a
preventative effect, right that people who engage in arts are
actually less.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Likely to develop depression. So how does that work?
Speaker 5 (07:27):
This is such an exciting area of research is where
I spend a lot of my day to day work,
is this field of epidemiology. So these day to day
behaviors that many of us have in our lives. I
started wondering about ten years ago with some colleagues, could
these actually help to reduce our risk of developing depression
in the first place through building our psychological resilience and
helping us to manage our emotions. And actually, we can
(07:49):
use these massive data sets called cohort studies, which track
thousands of people over their lives, looking at all of
their behaviors, their health outcomes, and lots of these cohort
studies included questions on arts, so that's exactly what we've done,
and we've found that over time, people who engage more
in the arts have this reduced risk, in fact, nearly
half the risk of developing depression over the next ten years,
(08:12):
even when we've taken account of their demographics, their wealth,
their other aspects of their lifestyle, even their genetics. And
this is so exciting because it's really helping us to
value those day to day arts practices for the long
term benefits they can have for us.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
And this is something that human beings have been doing
for a long time. Obviously, the arts are one of
the sort of oldest things about being human. We've been
telling stories, we've been painting on caves, right So in
a way, the arts practice has actually influenced how we
evolved and survived as a species.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Right completely, and actually right from the beginning of the
earliest records we have of the arts, we believe they
were used as part of health and healing rituals. And
if you look back across every major medical tradition from
around the world, you find the arts discussed in the
early writings from that tradition. So this is far from
a new idea, but we now have the benefit of
(09:05):
really new, rigorous scientific evidence actually quantifying those benefits.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That's actually one of the really fun things about your
book is you do talk about how you do the work.
You talk about these data sets and these studies and
the challenges of doing this kind of research. What are
some of the things that you've run up against that
you had to sort of overcome just from a practical
point of view in trying to gather all of this
data about the arts.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
I think we always have this tension between wanting to
get data in a way that is as sort of
rigorously controlled as possible, like laboratory experiments for example, where
we've got these controlled environments, but at the same time
we want it to have a bearing on the real world.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
And this is a real.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Challenge because if you're someone who loves Taylor Swift, for example,
then you'll know that the idea of lying in an
MRI tube whilst you listen to her music is completely
different to standing in an arena watching her perform live.
And I think this is one of the big challenges
that we're still g with, is how we can actually
capture those live experiences. But there's so much happening now
(10:05):
with wearable monitors, ways of actually tracking in real time
what's happening within our brains, and even with things like
smart watches how it's affecting us physiologically. And this is
really like opening a whole new box and window into
about understanding about the health benefits of the arts.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Are you a Swiftie?
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Of course I am, who's not.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I think it would be amazing if on her next
tour everyone in the audience is wearing some sort of
special biomarker for you for your research. Maybe Taylor herself
could wear one.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
That is what I heard.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Should we pitch this? We can pitch this to HERR.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Taylor, if you're listening, and I know you are, please
call Daisy. Let's make this happen. I would love to
see it. But so, actually that brings up an interesting question,
right Taylor versus her audience? Are there differences in terms
of the arts benefits watching versus doing? Oh?
Speaker 5 (10:52):
Yes, I mean I think this depends whether we're talking
about us doing it for the fun or whether we're
talking about professional musicians. And actually the swift the idea
isn't quite so out there because we actually did that
in some experiments in the UK a few years ago.
People who were going to concerts were actually presented with
saliva tubes under their seats and they had to spit
into them before the concert and during the interval, and
(11:13):
we were actually able to show what was happening with
their stress hormones decreases in a whole panel of stress
hormones from watching that concert. But actually for the performers
it was quite a different story. Like the professional musicians
who were performing actually had really elevated stress when they
were starting off with that performance. So I think that's
one distinction if it's just us in our personal lives,
(11:34):
though often it doesn't matter too much if we're participating
or engaging in some other way like watching something or
walking around a gallery for example, they can still have
so many benefits. I think it only depends on which
kind of health outcome you're hoping for, because if you're
looking at things like some kind of physical health outcome
like increased mobility reduced pain, for example, sometimes having that
(11:55):
ingredient of mobility can be really critical, or something like
dance that actually helps you to have that physical activity.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Hey everyone, we've got to take a quick break, but
we'll be right back with more part time genius.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
One of my favorite stories in the book is about
the project you did with Brian Eno. So, Taylor Daisy
has worked with Brian Eno. I mean, you know, and
you were in a hospital working with surgical patients, and
this was just extraordinary. You found that using a simple
app to compose music pre surgery made the whole process easier,
including getting needles placed for anesthesia, which I know can
(12:45):
be a very difficult and time consuming thing. But this
is the part that blew my mind. You found that
engaging with the music app before surgery actually helped with
pain levels after surgery.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
How is that even possible? I mean, it sounds like magic.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Honestly, this is actually one of it's had so many
different studies now showing that music in that sort of
surgical area, whether you're listening before surgery or during surgery,
actually helps to reduce people's anxiety levels. And in fact,
a number of the randomized trials have compared the effects
of recorder music versus anti anxiety medications like benzodiazepines and
(13:19):
actually found the music is more effective at reducing people's
stress levels, but of course it's way cheaper and it
also doesn't bring the same kinds of side effects. And
we see that this reduced anxiety is really key to
people's experience of pain afterwards. If people are calmer before surgery,
they tend to have much better recovery outcomes. They'll have
even faster wound healing as well as reduced levels of
(13:41):
pain and better recovery longer term. So these studies have
shown people need fewer opioids after surgery, and this is
so valuable I think to be knowing this kind of
evidence because in an age where we unfortunately have opioid
crises ongoing, finding that actually music could be something that
would reduce the volume of opioids people need, That could
be the difference between people then not actually necessarily becoming
(14:03):
dependent on those later with like really major outcomes long
term for those individuals.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
I'm wondering if you could actually just quickly tell the
story of how you came to connect with Brian Eno
and how this project took shape, because I've never, honestly
never really heard of anything like it in a medical setting.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
It was really wonderful. Brian Nino has spoken publicly about
a car accident, and he's hit by a car a
number of years ago, and whilst he was recovering in hospital,
he spoke about having some music on really quietly in
the background, so low he couldn't really quite hear it,
and it was this sort of ambient noise to him,
and that gave birth to this idea of ambient music,
which of course he's become so globally famous for. And
(14:41):
it was only years later he actually started doing some
work with hospitals again, and I was really lucky that
the hospital I worked at, Chelsea and Westminster hospital in
London was one that he worked with, so he developed
this absolutely beautiful ambient music alongside this incredible electronic kind
of light box that had these very slowly moving images.
It's completely mesmerizing, and we ran these studies placing this
(15:04):
in the booths that people wait in before their surgeries
and could see this instant physiological reduction in their stress.
One of the patients I was with one day had
been having a panic attack, saying she couldn't have her surgery,
and we put her in the brian enobooth and within
minutes she was just sound asleep. She went ahead and
had the surgery. So it was a really amazing project,
(15:24):
something so simple with such big effects.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
You talked a moment ago about inflammation. Chronic inflammation is
really at the root of a lot of major health problems.
So what are the mechanisms by which engaging with or
practicing the arts can reduce that inflammation.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
So I've run a number of studies, as have colleagues
of mind, looking at what happens when we engage in
the arts to inflammatory markers, particularly markers called cytokines, which
are chemical messengers that communicate between ourselves and basically lower
or increase our levels of inflammation. And we've actually found
that when people engage in activities like singing or dancing,
like invigorating arts activities, they have short term increases in
(16:06):
cytokine activities, kind of an immune boost. But if they're
doing this repeatedly, actually what we tend to see is
that this is an overall boost, but it's a reduction
in the ratio of pro to anti inflammatory cytokines, and
over time we see these profiles of decreased levels of inflammation.
And in fact, when we look at this in those
big kinds of cohort studies I mentioned earlier, again we
(16:27):
see that people who are regularly engaged in the arts
have lower levels of inflammatory markers like cytokines and other
proteins as well. So it's really building this picture showing
the arts engagement really does have these quite complex and
deep relationships with the abundance of our proteins.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
And so this ties into I believe I'm going to
get this right psychoneuroimmunology.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
That is right.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Oh, that is a word I had never never It
is rare that I come across the word that I've
literally never seen before, but that did happen in this book?
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Tell me what is psychooneuroimmunology?
Speaker 5 (16:59):
Well, I'm the like just say, have a PhD in
psych on your immunology. This is the right at the
heart of my field. So it's essentially thinking about how
our psychological processes are bi directionally related with biological processes.
So the thoughts that we have, the experiences in our
lives influence our underlying biology, and our biology also influences
(17:20):
how we then think and feel. And inflammation and depression
is a prime example here. Higher levels of inflammation are
related to higher levels of depression, but higher levels of
depression also trigger higher levels of inflammation, So we can
get into these vicious or virtuous cycles depending on experiences
in our lives.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
That's really interesting, you know. I think so many of
us are conditioned to think about the mind and the
body as being very separate things. But it sounds like
this is maybe just a more holistic and accurate view
of how the human organism works.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
It is, and it's also about building up the richer picture.
We are not just component parts like we are. This
more than the sum of those component parts. We have
to understand all about what's going on in our minds,
our brains, our bodies, and our behavior if we really
have a full picture of our health.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
And that's part of what makes the arts so powerful
because it does affect us entirely. It can be immersive,
it can engage our brains, our bodies, all of these
things sort of at the same time.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Right, That's sort of the value.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
Exactly, And that's what I think has been undervalued about
the arts so far. I think we rarely think about
just what an impact they can have on all of
those full processes I mentioned, But it's what I try
to celebrate in the book I cover mind, brain, body,
and behavior because I think that understanding that full picture
can help us make informed choices in our lives about
how and when we engage in the arts.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So I want to talk a little bit about how
we engage in the arts.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Then.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Is watching the latest HBO drama at home the same
as going out to a movie theater? And is that
the same as going to see a live theater performance.
Are they different in terms of the effects and benefits
that they can give us?
Speaker 5 (18:54):
They're different exposures because the ingredients are different. You know,
one of those you're watching a screen, another one, you're
actually seeing people live, and that is fundamentally different as
an experience, But whether it affects us depends on what
way we're thinking about that effect. For example, all of
those things involve some kind of stories, whether you're watching
a film, whether you're watching a play. For example, stories
is such a powerful way for us thinking and reflecting
(19:16):
on our lives and our behaviors, and those stories, whichever
mode we receive them in, equally, whether we read a
book about them, they can all challenge our brains to
think differently on the world and also even reflect on
our own behavioral decisions. And I talk a lot in
the book about how stories can fundamentally change decisions, from
what kinds of contraceptive we use, to whether we follow
vaccination recommendations, or whether we make other kinds of key
(19:40):
health related life decisions. But then there are also other
kinds of outcomes where it will matter more about what
you're thinking in terms of your engagements. So, for example,
going to the cinema we know is much less effective
for supporting cognition when you get older compared to going
to the theater, and we believe this is because of
the screen based effect, which does have a slightly unusual
effect on our brains, giving us this very alert but
(20:02):
quite passive state, which is very different to watching a
live performance. You can still get plenty of health benefits
from screen based arts, but I think wherever possible, making
that engagement live can just bring those extra alternative health
benefits as well.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Is a social factor something to do with that as well?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I mean, I think during the pandemic especially, we all
learned what happens to us when we don't engage with
people in real life. So is that part of it
just being out and about and in contact phase to
face with other people socializing?
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Yes, as a social experience. I'm sure we're all fully
aware now that seeing friends on zoom is just not
the same as in real life. And in fact, we've
even done studies where we've directly compared screen and non
screen art, like singing in a choir versus singing in
a virtual choir from your own bedroom.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
You do.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
You still get benefits for things like emotion regulation, for example,
but they're just not quite as strong, and often people
don't feel as socially present as in that live setting.
So if you're really hoping for an activity that's going
to reduce loneliness or help you to feel more socially connected.
You're always going to get that more strongly in real life.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Right, And it's so easy to get distracted too when
you're just looking at something on a screen. And that's
something you talk about as well in the book, which
is you know, we can listen, we can have music
on in the background while we're doing twelve different things.
I do it all the time, But that's not really
what we mean when we think about engaging with music
for the purpose of what you're talking about here, right,
we need to have some level of attention.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
I mean, don't get me wrong, those things can still
be so beneficial. I mean I often find, like you've said,
having it on in the background. For me, it's a stressbuster.
If I've got calm music on, it keeps my heart
rate lice and slow. It can keep my mood happier
if I'm doing something that I find a bit of
a bore. But if I really want to experience the
full benefits, I want to have the greatest dopamine releases
when I'm listening, for example, then actually I've got to.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Give intention to that listening.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
So now if i'm listening to new music, I really
try and sit down and just listen to one track
before I then carry on with the multitasking involve just
to try and get those extra benefits.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Shifting a little bit to the idea of doing arts
or performing arts in some way. You write about something
that I've read about it, and actually, now that I've
read about it, I realize I've experienced it quite a lot.
And that is the flow state that you can get
into when you're practicing an art, whether it's baking and
decorating a cake or playing the violin.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
What is the flow state and why is it so
good for us?
Speaker 5 (22:23):
The flow state is that feeling of complete immersion where
you just lose track of time and you suddenly find
you've been doing something for an hour without even realizing it.
And it's really beneficial for our brains when we get
into this state. It's a very meditative type process. There
was a wonderful study actually that was conducted. I believe
it was in the US a number of years ago now,
but they asked people about over two hundred different activities
(22:44):
that they'd done over the course of two weeks, and
that they randomly alerted them to see whether they'd had
a flow state doing that activity over that time. And
out of all of those two hundred activities, the one
that had the highest flow state was arts and crafts.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
It even outperformed sex.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
So I think if you're looking for a way of
having that full emersion, I cannot recommend art slightly enough.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
We have to take another quick break, but we'll be
back with more part time Genius in just a few minutes.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
I want to talk a little bit about aging.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Our host Mongash is actually working on a new show
about longevity and he's talking to a lot of scientists
and researchers in the longevity field, and he's going to
be trying out some modifications to his lifestyle things like that.
But you're right that the arts are really key to longevity.
And you did a lot of research with seniors into
how it doesn't just lengthen their life, but it increases
(23:50):
their healthy lifespan. What are some ways that engaging in
the arts can help people live healthier lives longer.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
So we have actually seen in over a dozen studies
now relationship between arts engagement and a longer life span.
And this is independent again of people's demographics, their health,
their wealth, their other behaviors in their lives. But we've
also seen this increase in what you just describe, what's
known as our health span, so that time free from
disease or illness where we can enjoy our lives hopefully
(24:17):
to the max. Part of what drives this is the
arts helping us to stay physically active. You know, arts
can be a vehicle to us staying mobile and socially
connective and cognitively engaged. And we see a relationship between
ARTS engagements and a reduced risk of future frailty, age
related disability problem, psy chronic pain. We also see some
(24:38):
specific cognitive benefits, so engaging we're in the arts actually
increases the connectivity between brain regions that are vulnerable to aging.
So people who are more ARTS engaged actually have younger
looking brains on brain imaging, and actually we see that
they have a reduced risk of cognitive decline and a
reduced risk of developing dementia as well. But we also
(24:59):
now even understand about the deep seated biological effects. Research
that my team has been doing has been showing that
ARTS engagement is related to particular patterns of gene expression
called epigenetic clocks, which indicate a slower pace of biological aging.
And this is really highlighting that these relationships between arts
engagement and health span and lifespan are occurring at a
(25:20):
very deep biological level.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
That's so fascinating, and you know, it makes me think
about my grandfather, my dad's father. He was a piano
teacher and he lived to be in his mid nineties
and he was sharp as attack, I mean really up
until the day he died. I wonder if all of
that datoven that he was mainlining for literally his entire life.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Might have had something to do with it.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
Well, there have been studies now involving over two million
people that have shown that people who engage in cognitive
leisure activities do have better cognitive preservation in this reduced
dementia risk. And partly this is through building something called
cognitive reserve, which is the resilience of your brain.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Against cognitive decline.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
So even if you are accumulating the early signs of
dementia within your brain, your brain can compensate for longer.
We've actually now seen through a number of studies that
arts engagement is not only part of this general catchual
of cognitive leisure, but actually arts engagement is one as
the drivers of these effects. It's the perfect example of
a cognitive leisure activity because it involves so many different
(26:18):
parts of the brain, involves so much different sensory engagements,
and also involves challenge, which is so critical to keeping
our brains healthy.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
And that's why also it's important for kids, young people
to engage with these things early. I'm wondering if you
can talk a little bit about sort of your perspective
as a parent and how you address bringing your children
into the arts.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
I've definitely thought a lot more about this since becoming
a parent, because of course you're always reflecting, aren't you,
on what can I do that's going to give my
child a good start and support their developments, and arts
are just absolutely fundamental in all of this. Right from
when we're babies are in the womb, we can see
that they respond to music. Singing or giving that kind
of sing song lullaby voice with me actually helps to
(27:01):
build architectural development within their brain. We can process music
before we can process language, so it helps to build
that scaffolding that later helps to support language acquisition. We
also see benefits for children in terms of more developmental
processes too, Children in primary school who engage regularly in
the arts actually have a reduced risk of developing behavioral
(27:22):
problems depression as they enter adolescents. They're less likely to
become lonely. They're even less likely to commit crimes or
take substances like marijuana or tobacco. And we actually the
analyzes show that one of the key things here is
arts engagement helping to build life skills like self esteem
and self control and problem solving, which actually can help
(27:43):
young people to navigate all of these complex life choices
that they get presented.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
With reading this book and hearing your talk, it is
impossible not to come away with the idea that the
arts should be a major social priority, not just for culture,
but for education and really for public health health. But
the unfortunate reality, and you're very clear about this in
the book, is that when budgets are cut, the arts
are often the first to go. You've seen cuts in
(28:09):
the UK, I'm here in the US. You know, our
National Endowment for the Arts is being dismantled. I honestly,
going back, Ronald Reagan wanted to get rid of it
entirely this is an ongoing issue that the need for
the arts is not matched by governmental support for the arts.
Two questions, One, how depressed should I be about this?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
And two, if we.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Can't fix it at the global or even national level,
what can we do at the local or personal level
to keep the arts alive and vibrant for ourselves.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
I find this honestly baffling when I look around and
see what's happening, because the scientific evidence space is so
strong about these health benefits, but also about the health
economic return on investments of investing in the arts. And
I'm certainly not suggesting that we should only be funding
the arts for their health benefits. This isn't about some
instrumentalists press but it's more recognizing that arts engagement inherently
(29:04):
has health benefits that are of value to us as
individuals and societies. We've actually done economic modeling in the
UK where we found that just amongst working age adults alone,
the annual health economic benefits of engaging in the arts
are worth eighteen billion pounds to society. So I've always
find it so surprising when arts budgets are cut, because
(29:26):
that has ramifications not just for health but to healthcare
systems as well. I veer between being pessimistic and optimistic
on this one, but I think overall I'm optimistic because
when we look back across history in the last hundred years,
every decade or so, we've sort of had a light
bulb moment, what I call a seat belt moment in
(29:47):
the book of Awareness, about a particular behavior and suddenly
how fundamental it is to society. We had it for
seat belts and cars in the nineteen nineties, Suddenly everyone
agreed that they should.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Be wearing them.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
We had it for exercise in the nineteen eighties, in
the nineteen seventies, sleep, more recently, smoking bands around the millennium.
And I do feel that there is this shift now
that's happening in people's public awareness and the benefits of
the art. So I really feel that seat belt moment,
that tipping point of awareness, which could then lead to
changes within society revaluing of the arts, is coming. And
(30:18):
I think in the meantime, for individuals, we can change
our own behaviors. And I talk a lot in the
book about working out what your blocks are and how
to use behavior change science to overcome them. But also
I think within communities, we can value the arts. We
can even set up our own groups, we can lobby,
we can show the evidence to schools, to communities, to policymakers,
and we from the grassroots level up can hopefully be
(30:40):
part of that seat belt movement and part of that
catalyzing that change.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
I like that you brought up that thing about the block.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
So a lot of people, I think feel, especially when
it comes to engaging or participating in the arts.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
The instinct is, well, I'm not good at that. I'm
not good at that.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I'm not a good singer, I'm not a good musician,
I can't dance. But you don't have to be good
at these things to get the benefits from them.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
No, absolutely not.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
You don't have to be good at the arts to
get benefits. Just participating gives you the chance to experience
the things like dopamine release or stressful maine releases. You
haven't necessarily got to be even getting better in that process.
And there are other myths as well that you don't
have to have lots of time to do this. There
are simple ways you can swap existing routines to make
them more creative. And the arts also don't have to
(31:23):
cost anything. I think that's a real barrier for many people.
But as I talk about in the book, there are
so many free ways that people can actually increase the
amount of creativity they've got in their day to day lives.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
What are your favorite ways to engage with the arts.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
I really make sure that I do not doom scroll
on my commute. I always read a book, and I
think that's such an easy way of just having a
bit of creativity before and after work each day. I
love listening to music, and like I said, I try
to listen to it intentionally. I particularly have got into
listening to live concerts recently on the radio because that's
such a good way of feeling like you're actually part
(31:57):
of something that's happening, even if it's one hundred miles away,
so it can feel much more real. I have young children,
so they are inherently creative. Kids always are, and that's
really helped me to be less afraid about trying new
things and even afraid of doing them badly, because it
doesn't matter. Like part of that process is making mistakes
and having the joy of discovery within that.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
All right, Daisy, before I let you go, would you
do me a favor and join me down in the
rec center to make some suggestions for people who might
be looking for ways to engage with the arts in
their day to day life.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
I would love to.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
So I'm going to tell you about some imaginary people.
These are not real. I want to emphasize these are
hypothetical people that I made up. If anybody out there
recognizes themselves in this, that is on you, not me.
So I'm going to describe someone, Daisy, and you're going
to make a recommendation. I know there are lots of recommendations,
lots of things that people could do, but let's just
pick one or two for each person.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So our first person is a young person who just
spends a lot of time scrolling on TikTok, just getting
sucked into the algorithm. And maybe they're feeling a little
bit envious or down on themselves because they see these
influencers with their seemingly glamorous lifestyles. What is one arts
related practice that they could do instead.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
So you're someone on your phone, so you've got dexterous fingers,
maybe a short attention span, and you perhaps want the
idea that you could be contributing content too, So I
think that craft like crochet could be really great here.
They're super easy to pick up from watching videos on
places like TikTok. There's something that can keep you busy,
but you've got quite a nice product really quickly from it,
(33:44):
and best of all, you can then actually share it.
And I think that following the accounts of fellow crocheos
could be a really lovely swap to doom scrolling people
you've got more glamorous lifestyles.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
I'd love that you mentioned that, because I learned how
to crochet from watching videos. And if I can do it, people,
anyone can do it. I am the least crafty person.
I've made some adorable things, and you can give them
away too. That's the other thing you can make. It
gives exactly people love them. Okay, So our next person
is someone who's recovering from surgery or maybe a serious illness,
and maybe they don't have a lot of physical strength
(34:16):
or physical energy. With a caveat that we are not
your doctor. What is one arts related practice that they
could try as they're recovering.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Music feels perfect here because you haven't got to be
doing anything if you don't want to. I think live
concerts like I mentioned, but it's one of my favorite things.
Can be great as an option here. Music actually reduces inflammation,
it can reduce stress, It also reduces pain, so it
could be great if you're experiencing any of those things,
if you're recovering from a surgery, for example, And actually
(34:46):
music's associated with faster wound healing, so it can have
those benefits too. I would say try and push yourself
outside your comfort zone though, so that this feels like
it's a novelty and actually a chance to try things
and that you wouldn't normally have listened to.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
So like try out a new genres, something maybe you've
never listened to before.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
It's a way of being a venturist, so you can
feel like you're getting a new experience.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, So our third person is a busy professional. They
have no free time. They've got work, they've got family,
they've got a commute, they have so many responsibilities. What
is one realistic arts related practice that they could try
to squeeze in somewhere.
Speaker 5 (35:20):
Don't squeeze it in. That's going to be the mistake here.
Do a swap instead. So if you would normally have
a date night with your partner every now and then
swap that for going to a gig together instead. If
you might meet up for a drink with friends, well
instead go to a craft's workshop.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
There are so.
Speaker 5 (35:35):
Many of these even developing in like pubs or bars
and things now. And if you've got a day with
a family or why not go to an exhibition together
because that could be a way of integrating arts without
it having to change your current busy schedule.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
That's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Okay, so this one might be a little bit related
to me, a news junkie who feels a constant need
to know everything that is going on, but then find
themselves getting stressed out because of everything that's gone going on.
What is an arts related practice that they could add
to their new side if their primary motivation is consuming
information in some way.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
You have just described me up until twenty twenty four,
and then I made the swap to reading novels on
my commutes, and whenever I would reach for my phone
to look at the news, I just reach for the
novel now. And I have to say it's been such
a game changer because it's a much nicer way of
regulating my emotions. It gives me much more creative and
positive outlook on things. So I cannot recommend that one
(36:30):
highly enough.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I'm just curious, what about things like reading nonfiction books
or memoirs. Do those have the same sort of impact
as a novel or do we not know that yet?
Speaker 5 (36:38):
Well, actually they're still counted as reading for pleasure and
their literature and the studies that we've done as well
show that those do have those same benefits. And let's
be honest, you're never quite sure how truthful those things are. Anyway,
they could well be a work of fess.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I love that, okay, and our last one we talked
about this a little bit. But an older person who's
in good health but really really wants to maintain that
and stay sharp and healthy as thee But maybe they've
never they've gone their whole lives without ever really developing
an arts related practice, and maybe they're feeling like it's
too late. What's something they can do that isn't too late?
Speaker 5 (37:10):
It is definitely not too late. So do something that
you think is going to be cognitively challenging. I actually
saw a fantastic study which was giving people who were
aged over sixty circus arts, so they were having to
learn juggling, and actually, within just a few weeks they'd
actually found that there were increases in the volume of
gray matter in certain regions of their brains. And that
really is evidence that it doesn't have to be something
(37:32):
you'd done before. Not one of them had juggled. But
you have to maintain it because actually those who stopped
actually found that their gray matter reduced the levels that
had been before. Those who continued continued to see those benefits.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
So user or lose it exactly.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
It's a same for a reason, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
That's right, well, Daisy, this has been absolutely wonderful. Thank
you so much for taking the time to speak with
me today.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Thank you so much to Daisy Fank. Her book Art
Cure The Science of How the Arts Saved Lives is
out now. You can get it wherever you get your books.
We'll put a link in the show description, so please
be sure to check it out. And if this episode
inspired you to make more time for the arts in
your life, we'd love to hear about it. As you know,
(38:18):
my kids and I have a Tuesday night art club
where we make art together. It's often terrible art but
it's a lot of fun and if you make art,
give us a call at three O two four oh
five five nine two five, send us an email at
high Geniuses at gmail dot com. That's Hi Geniuses at
gmail dot com, where you can always find us on
(38:38):
Instagram or Blue Sky. We're at part Time Genius, and
you know I love seeing those pics. So we will
be back next week with another brand new episode. But
in the meantime, from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself,
thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
(39:08):
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeart Radio. It is hosted
by my good pal Will Pearson, who I've known for
almost three decades now. That is insane to me. I'm
the Utaco host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is Mary
Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer. I'm going to
fix that in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who
(39:30):
I've also known for like a decade at this point,
maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is
always dressed up, always cheering us on, and always ready
to hit record and then mix the show after. He
does a great job I also want to shout out
the executive producers from iHeart my good Pals Katrina and
Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media support from
(39:52):
Calypso Rallis if you like our videos. That is all
Calypso's handiwork for more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio What
is it the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or tune in
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's it from
us here at Part Time Genius. Thank you so much
for listening.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Hey there are podcast listeners. It's Mango here.
You know. Back when I was in seventh grade, I
got the chance to go to the Vatican in Italy
and as we were walking through just the opening, I
(00:37):
got to turn to my right and I saw one
of Michelangelo's pietas. I think he's done four paetas. This
wasn't the most famous one, but I was insanely moved
by it. Now, I'm not a particularly religious person, but
something about how he knew that the marble was telling
him that this story was inside it. And it is
(01:02):
just so emotional, this image of Christ laying across Mary's lap,
and it's just really really moving. And I couldn't understand
how much emotion could be held in a rock, essentially,
And when I went home, I started playing with charcoals
and I tried to capture that image and I just
(01:23):
couldn't get it out of my head. Just the way
art moved me to something that was near tears, and
you know that story. It actually gets me thinking about
how much the arts have affected my life, not just
this Pieta, but all the books and music and movies
and visual art I loved, and also the art I've
made myself, whether it's writing or drawing, or playing the piano,
(01:48):
which I really love playing in bands, also making podcasts
with my friends Skyline Drive especially, was this really meaningful
thing to me, and I don't know who who I
would be without the stuff. And I started to wonder
if there's a scientific way of looking at the arts
and measuring its impact on us. And it actually turns
out there is, and this British researcher named Daisy Fancourt
(02:12):
has actually written this extraordinary new book called Art Cure,
The Science of How the Arts Save Lives. In it,
she makes the case that the arts aren't just a
nice little diversion, they're an essential part of human life
and public health. Now, Daisy was kind enough to sit
down with producer Mary to tell us all about her
(02:33):
work and this story of the time she and Brian
Eno tried to make hospitals just a little better for
patients and it even gets into some concrete recommendations for
how we can all use the arts to improve our health.
And it's really incredible conversation. So let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
So I am here with Daisy Fancourt. She is a
professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London, and
she is the author of an incredible new book. It
is out now and it is called art Cure, The
Science of How the Arts Save Lives.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Daisy, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
It is a pleasure to be with you. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
There's so much to unpack with this book, but I
just want to start with something kind of basic, which
is what do we mean when we refer to the arts.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
A lot of people hear that.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Phrase, they probably think about like going to the ballet,
playing the saxophone, going to a museum. But you write
that there are actually a lot of activities in our
lives that contain what you call artistic ingredients.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I love that phrase.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So what are artistic ingredients and where can we find them?
Speaker 5 (03:56):
These are the components that are common across lots of
different expersperiences that we often call arts. So things like creativity, imagination,
multisensory stimulation, things that we might perceive sometimes as beautiful,
other kind of esthetic components as well. And what's really
nice is that this kind of definition that looks at
these core common ingredients includes many of those things that
(04:19):
you list, these sort of common things performing arts, visual arts,
literary arts. But it also allows us to include things
like culinary arts like baking, for example, and decorating cakes,
or horticultural arts like growing and arranging flowers. And I
think this expanded definition of creativity can stop it being
quite so highbrow and actually speak to a lot of
the practices that people really love as part of their
(04:40):
day to day lives.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So people might be doing arts and not even really
realizing it exactly.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
And I really think we have to celebrate all of
those different creative practices because I don't think there's anything
that's really going to tell us that baking a beautiful
cake is that different to making a beautiful clay sculpture.
I mean, they're so similar in terms of the tactile
and esthetic dimensions.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Baking a cake is very hard. Actually I say this
as an amateur baker. It's very difficult. I would never
make it. In the bakeof Tent, I will tell you that.
So in the book, you talk about how there are
so many benefits to the arts, but I want to
start by talking about mental health. You describe so many
studies where arts engagement helps people living with mental illness,
(05:24):
even severe conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder. And what's really
interesting to me is that you found that benefit persisting
even after you controlled for other factors that could influence
people's health. And you write about an incredible woman named
Debs whose mental illness really almost cost her her life
and taking an art class and then developing an art
(05:44):
practice kind of set her on the path to becoming healthier.
What's going on. I mean, it's kind of common sense,
right that doing art can reduce your stress, But it's
actually way more complicated than that, right, it is.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
And I think we can kind of group this into
different ways that the art support mental health. Because there
are some people who've got let's say, mild or moderate
depression or anxiety, and that's actually a population where we
know that the evidence base for medication really isn't that great,
and lots of people don't find benefits or.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
They experience a lot of side effects.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
But actually the studies suggest that arts engagement for those
populations actually have benefits with the same kind of effect
size that we see, but without those side effects. And
then there are other people who might have more severe
mental illnesses, where yes, there are medications and psychological therapies
that can help, but those aren't really treating the whole person.
And that's where the arts can be so vital. It's
(06:33):
actually providing another way for people to help tackle their
symptoms and to find ways of living and coping with
their mental illness. And some of these ways are neurological,
you know, arts engagement actually engages pleasure and reward networks
in the brain and helps us to experience higher levels
of dopamine like pleasure hormones. Some of them are more
to do with psychological processes, arts engagement helping us to
(06:57):
have a sense of autonomy of self, identify a way
of expressing our emotions. And some of them are even
underlying biological effects arts engagement reducing stress hormones and even
reducing levels of inflammation which are so interlinked with symptoms
like depression.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
And we're going to talk more about that inflammation point
later because I found that really interesting as well. But
again with the mental health angle, there can be a
preventative effect, right that people who engage in arts are
actually less.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Likely to develop depression. So how does that work?
Speaker 5 (07:27):
This is such an exciting area of research is where
I spend a lot of my day to day work,
is this field of epidemiology. So these day to day
behaviors that many of us have in our lives. I
started wondering about ten years ago with some colleagues, could
these actually help to reduce our risk of developing depression
in the first place through building our psychological resilience and
helping us to manage our emotions. And actually, we can
(07:49):
use these massive data sets called cohort studies, which track
thousands of people over their lives, looking at all of
their behaviors, their health outcomes, and lots of these cohort
studies included questions on arts, so that's exactly what we've done,
and we've found that over time, people who engage more
in the arts have this reduced risk, in fact, nearly
half the risk of developing depression over the next ten years,
(08:12):
even when we've taken account of their demographics, their wealth,
their other aspects of their lifestyle, even their genetics. And
this is so exciting because it's really helping us to
value those day to day arts practices for the long
term benefits they can have for us.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
And this is something that human beings have been doing
for a long time. Obviously, the arts are one of
the sort of oldest things about being human. We've been
telling stories, we've been painting on caves, right So in
a way, the arts practice has actually influenced how we
evolved and survived as a species.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Right completely, and actually right from the beginning of the
earliest records we have of the arts, we believe they
were used as part of health and healing rituals. And
if you look back across every major medical tradition from
around the world, you find the arts discussed in the
early writings from that tradition. So this is far from
a new idea, but we now have the benefit of
(09:05):
really new, rigorous scientific evidence actually quantifying those benefits.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That's actually one of the really fun things about your
book is you do talk about how you do the work.
You talk about these data sets and these studies and
the challenges of doing this kind of research. What are
some of the things that you've run up against that
you had to sort of overcome just from a practical
point of view in trying to gather all of this
data about the arts.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
I think we always have this tension between wanting to
get data in a way that is as sort of
rigorously controlled as possible, like laboratory experiments for example, where
we've got these controlled environments, but at the same time
we want it to have a bearing on the real world.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
And this is a real.
Speaker 5 (09:45):
Challenge because if you're someone who loves Taylor Swift, for example,
then you'll know that the idea of lying in an
MRI tube whilst you listen to her music is completely
different to standing in an arena watching her perform live.
And I think this is one of the big challenges
that we're still g with, is how we can actually
capture those live experiences. But there's so much happening now
(10:05):
with wearable monitors, ways of actually tracking in real time
what's happening within our brains, and even with things like
smart watches how it's affecting us physiologically. And this is
really like opening a whole new box and window into
about understanding about the health benefits of the arts.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Are you a Swiftie?
Speaker 4 (10:22):
Of course I am, who's not.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I think it would be amazing if on her next
tour everyone in the audience is wearing some sort of
special biomarker for you for your research. Maybe Taylor herself
could wear one.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
That is what I heard.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Should we pitch this? We can pitch this to HERR.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Taylor, if you're listening, and I know you are, please
call Daisy. Let's make this happen. I would love to
see it. But so, actually that brings up an interesting question,
right Taylor versus her audience? Are there differences in terms
of the arts benefits watching versus doing? Oh?
Speaker 5 (10:52):
Yes, I mean I think this depends whether we're talking
about us doing it for the fun or whether we're
talking about professional musicians. And actually the swift the idea
isn't quite so out there because we actually did that
in some experiments in the UK a few years ago.
People who were going to concerts were actually presented with
saliva tubes under their seats and they had to spit
into them before the concert and during the interval, and
(11:13):
we were actually able to show what was happening with
their stress hormones decreases in a whole panel of stress
hormones from watching that concert. But actually for the performers
it was quite a different story. Like the professional musicians
who were performing actually had really elevated stress when they
were starting off with that performance. So I think that's
one distinction if it's just us in our personal lives,
(11:34):
though often it doesn't matter too much if we're participating
or engaging in some other way like watching something or
walking around a gallery for example, they can still have
so many benefits. I think it only depends on which
kind of health outcome you're hoping for, because if you're
looking at things like some kind of physical health outcome
like increased mobility reduced pain, for example, sometimes having that
(11:55):
ingredient of mobility can be really critical, or something like
dance that actually helps you to have that physical activity.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Hey everyone, we've got to take a quick break, but
we'll be right back with more part time genius.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
One of my favorite stories in the book is about
the project you did with Brian Eno. So, Taylor Daisy
has worked with Brian Eno. I mean, you know, and
you were in a hospital working with surgical patients, and
this was just extraordinary. You found that using a simple
app to compose music pre surgery made the whole process easier,
including getting needles placed for anesthesia, which I know can
(12:45):
be a very difficult and time consuming thing. But this
is the part that blew my mind. You found that
engaging with the music app before surgery actually helped with
pain levels after surgery.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
How is that even possible? I mean, it sounds like magic.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Honestly, this is actually one of it's had so many
different studies now showing that music in that sort of
surgical area, whether you're listening before surgery or during surgery,
actually helps to reduce people's anxiety levels. And in fact,
a number of the randomized trials have compared the effects
of recorder music versus anti anxiety medications like benzodiazepines and
(13:19):
actually found the music is more effective at reducing people's
stress levels, but of course it's way cheaper and it
also doesn't bring the same kinds of side effects. And
we see that this reduced anxiety is really key to
people's experience of pain afterwards. If people are calmer before surgery,
they tend to have much better recovery outcomes. They'll have
even faster wound healing as well as reduced levels of
(13:41):
pain and better recovery longer term. So these studies have
shown people need fewer opioids after surgery, and this is
so valuable I think to be knowing this kind of
evidence because in an age where we unfortunately have opioid
crises ongoing, finding that actually music could be something that
would reduce the volume of opioids people need, That could
be the difference between people then not actually necessarily becoming
(14:03):
dependent on those later with like really major outcomes long
term for those individuals.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
I'm wondering if you could actually just quickly tell the
story of how you came to connect with Brian Eno
and how this project took shape, because I've never, honestly
never really heard of anything like it in a medical setting.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
It was really wonderful. Brian Nino has spoken publicly about
a car accident, and he's hit by a car a
number of years ago, and whilst he was recovering in hospital,
he spoke about having some music on really quietly in
the background, so low he couldn't really quite hear it,
and it was this sort of ambient noise to him,
and that gave birth to this idea of ambient music,
which of course he's become so globally famous for. And
(14:41):
it was only years later he actually started doing some
work with hospitals again, and I was really lucky that
the hospital I worked at, Chelsea and Westminster hospital in
London was one that he worked with, so he developed
this absolutely beautiful ambient music alongside this incredible electronic kind
of light box that had these very slowly moving images.
It's completely mesmerizing, and we ran these studies placing this
(15:04):
in the booths that people wait in before their surgeries
and could see this instant physiological reduction in their stress.
One of the patients I was with one day had
been having a panic attack, saying she couldn't have her surgery,
and we put her in the brian enobooth and within
minutes she was just sound asleep. She went ahead and
had the surgery. So it was a really amazing project,
(15:24):
something so simple with such big effects.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
You talked a moment ago about inflammation. Chronic inflammation is
really at the root of a lot of major health problems.
So what are the mechanisms by which engaging with or
practicing the arts can reduce that inflammation.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
So I've run a number of studies, as have colleagues
of mind, looking at what happens when we engage in
the arts to inflammatory markers, particularly markers called cytokines, which
are chemical messengers that communicate between ourselves and basically lower
or increase our levels of inflammation. And we've actually found
that when people engage in activities like singing or dancing,
like invigorating arts activities, they have short term increases in
(16:06):
cytokine activities, kind of an immune boost. But if they're
doing this repeatedly, actually what we tend to see is
that this is an overall boost, but it's a reduction
in the ratio of pro to anti inflammatory cytokines, and
over time we see these profiles of decreased levels of inflammation.
And in fact, when we look at this in those
big kinds of cohort studies I mentioned earlier, again we
(16:27):
see that people who are regularly engaged in the arts
have lower levels of inflammatory markers like cytokines and other
proteins as well. So it's really building this picture showing
the arts engagement really does have these quite complex and
deep relationships with the abundance of our proteins.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
And so this ties into I believe I'm going to
get this right psychoneuroimmunology.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
That is right.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Oh, that is a word I had never never It
is rare that I come across the word that I've
literally never seen before, but that did happen in this book?
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Tell me what is psychooneuroimmunology?
Speaker 5 (16:59):
Well, I'm the like just say, have a PhD in
psych on your immunology. This is the right at the
heart of my field. So it's essentially thinking about how
our psychological processes are bi directionally related with biological processes.
So the thoughts that we have, the experiences in our
lives influence our underlying biology, and our biology also influences
(17:20):
how we then think and feel. And inflammation and depression
is a prime example here. Higher levels of inflammation are
related to higher levels of depression, but higher levels of
depression also trigger higher levels of inflammation, So we can
get into these vicious or virtuous cycles depending on experiences
in our lives.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
That's really interesting, you know. I think so many of
us are conditioned to think about the mind and the
body as being very separate things. But it sounds like
this is maybe just a more holistic and accurate view
of how the human organism works.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
It is, and it's also about building up the richer picture.
We are not just component parts like we are. This
more than the sum of those component parts. We have
to understand all about what's going on in our minds,
our brains, our bodies, and our behavior if we really
have a full picture of our health.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
And that's part of what makes the arts so powerful
because it does affect us entirely. It can be immersive,
it can engage our brains, our bodies, all of these
things sort of at the same time.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Right, That's sort of the value.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
Exactly, And that's what I think has been undervalued about
the arts so far. I think we rarely think about
just what an impact they can have on all of
those full processes I mentioned, But it's what I try
to celebrate in the book I cover mind, brain, body,
and behavior because I think that understanding that full picture
can help us make informed choices in our lives about
how and when we engage in the arts.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So I want to talk a little bit about how
we engage in the arts.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Then.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Is watching the latest HBO drama at home the same
as going out to a movie theater? And is that
the same as going to see a live theater performance.
Are they different in terms of the effects and benefits
that they can give us?
Speaker 5 (18:54):
They're different exposures because the ingredients are different. You know,
one of those you're watching a screen, another one, you're
actually seeing people live, and that is fundamentally different as
an experience, But whether it affects us depends on what
way we're thinking about that effect. For example, all of
those things involve some kind of stories, whether you're watching
a film, whether you're watching a play. For example, stories
is such a powerful way for us thinking and reflecting
(19:16):
on our lives and our behaviors, and those stories, whichever
mode we receive them in, equally, whether we read a
book about them, they can all challenge our brains to
think differently on the world and also even reflect on
our own behavioral decisions. And I talk a lot in
the book about how stories can fundamentally change decisions, from
what kinds of contraceptive we use, to whether we follow
vaccination recommendations, or whether we make other kinds of key
(19:40):
health related life decisions. But then there are also other
kinds of outcomes where it will matter more about what
you're thinking in terms of your engagements. So, for example,
going to the cinema we know is much less effective
for supporting cognition when you get older compared to going
to the theater, and we believe this is because of
the screen based effect, which does have a slightly unusual
effect on our brains, giving us this very alert but
(20:02):
quite passive state, which is very different to watching a
live performance. You can still get plenty of health benefits
from screen based arts, but I think wherever possible, making
that engagement live can just bring those extra alternative health
benefits as well.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Is a social factor something to do with that as well?
Speaker 2 (20:19):
I mean, I think during the pandemic especially, we all
learned what happens to us when we don't engage with
people in real life. So is that part of it
just being out and about and in contact phase to
face with other people socializing?
Speaker 5 (20:31):
Yes, as a social experience. I'm sure we're all fully
aware now that seeing friends on zoom is just not
the same as in real life. And in fact, we've
even done studies where we've directly compared screen and non
screen art, like singing in a choir versus singing in
a virtual choir from your own bedroom.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
You do.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
You still get benefits for things like emotion regulation, for example,
but they're just not quite as strong, and often people
don't feel as socially present as in that live setting.
So if you're really hoping for an activity that's going
to reduce loneliness or help you to feel more socially connected.
You're always going to get that more strongly in real life.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Right, And it's so easy to get distracted too when
you're just looking at something on a screen. And that's
something you talk about as well in the book, which
is you know, we can listen, we can have music
on in the background while we're doing twelve different things.
I do it all the time, But that's not really
what we mean when we think about engaging with music
for the purpose of what you're talking about here, right,
we need to have some level of attention.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
I mean, don't get me wrong, those things can still
be so beneficial. I mean I often find, like you've said,
having it on in the background. For me, it's a stressbuster.
If I've got calm music on, it keeps my heart
rate lice and slow. It can keep my mood happier
if I'm doing something that I find a bit of
a bore. But if I really want to experience the
full benefits, I want to have the greatest dopamine releases
when I'm listening, for example, then actually I've got to.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Give intention to that listening.
Speaker 5 (21:52):
So now if i'm listening to new music, I really
try and sit down and just listen to one track
before I then carry on with the multitasking involve just
to try and get those extra benefits.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Shifting a little bit to the idea of doing arts
or performing arts in some way. You write about something
that I've read about it, and actually, now that I've
read about it, I realize I've experienced it quite a lot.
And that is the flow state that you can get
into when you're practicing an art, whether it's baking and
decorating a cake or playing the violin.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
What is the flow state and why is it so
good for us?
Speaker 5 (22:23):
The flow state is that feeling of complete immersion where
you just lose track of time and you suddenly find
you've been doing something for an hour without even realizing it.
And it's really beneficial for our brains when we get
into this state. It's a very meditative type process. There
was a wonderful study actually that was conducted. I believe
it was in the US a number of years ago now,
but they asked people about over two hundred different activities
(22:44):
that they'd done over the course of two weeks, and
that they randomly alerted them to see whether they'd had
a flow state doing that activity over that time. And
out of all of those two hundred activities, the one
that had the highest flow state was arts and crafts.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
It even outperformed sex.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
So I think if you're looking for a way of
having that full emersion, I cannot recommend art slightly enough.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
We have to take another quick break, but we'll be
back with more part time Genius in just a few minutes.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
I want to talk a little bit about aging.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Our host Mongash is actually working on a new show
about longevity and he's talking to a lot of scientists
and researchers in the longevity field, and he's going to
be trying out some modifications to his lifestyle things like that.
But you're right that the arts are really key to longevity.
And you did a lot of research with seniors into
how it doesn't just lengthen their life, but it increases
(23:50):
their healthy lifespan. What are some ways that engaging in
the arts can help people live healthier lives longer.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
So we have actually seen in over a dozen studies
now relationship between arts engagement and a longer life span.
And this is independent again of people's demographics, their health,
their wealth, their other behaviors in their lives. But we've
also seen this increase in what you just describe, what's
known as our health span, so that time free from
disease or illness where we can enjoy our lives hopefully
(24:17):
to the max. Part of what drives this is the
arts helping us to stay physically active. You know, arts
can be a vehicle to us staying mobile and socially
connective and cognitively engaged. And we see a relationship between
ARTS engagements and a reduced risk of future frailty, age
related disability problem, psy chronic pain. We also see some
(24:38):
specific cognitive benefits, so engaging we're in the arts actually
increases the connectivity between brain regions that are vulnerable to aging.
So people who are more ARTS engaged actually have younger
looking brains on brain imaging, and actually we see that
they have a reduced risk of cognitive decline and a
reduced risk of developing dementia as well. But we also
(24:59):
now even understand about the deep seated biological effects. Research
that my team has been doing has been showing that
ARTS engagement is related to particular patterns of gene expression
called epigenetic clocks, which indicate a slower pace of biological aging.
And this is really highlighting that these relationships between arts
engagement and health span and lifespan are occurring at a
(25:20):
very deep biological level.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
That's so fascinating, and you know, it makes me think
about my grandfather, my dad's father. He was a piano
teacher and he lived to be in his mid nineties
and he was sharp as attack, I mean really up
until the day he died. I wonder if all of
that datoven that he was mainlining for literally his entire life.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Might have had something to do with it.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
Well, there have been studies now involving over two million
people that have shown that people who engage in cognitive
leisure activities do have better cognitive preservation in this reduced
dementia risk. And partly this is through building something called
cognitive reserve, which is the resilience of your brain.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Against cognitive decline.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
So even if you are accumulating the early signs of
dementia within your brain, your brain can compensate for longer.
We've actually now seen through a number of studies that
arts engagement is not only part of this general catchual
of cognitive leisure, but actually arts engagement is one as
the drivers of these effects. It's the perfect example of
a cognitive leisure activity because it involves so many different
(26:18):
parts of the brain, involves so much different sensory engagements,
and also involves challenge, which is so critical to keeping
our brains healthy.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
And that's why also it's important for kids, young people
to engage with these things early. I'm wondering if you
can talk a little bit about sort of your perspective
as a parent and how you address bringing your children
into the arts.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
I've definitely thought a lot more about this since becoming
a parent, because of course you're always reflecting, aren't you,
on what can I do that's going to give my
child a good start and support their developments, and arts
are just absolutely fundamental in all of this. Right from
when we're babies are in the womb, we can see
that they respond to music. Singing or giving that kind
of sing song lullaby voice with me actually helps to
(27:01):
build architectural development within their brain. We can process music
before we can process language, so it helps to build
that scaffolding that later helps to support language acquisition. We
also see benefits for children in terms of more developmental
processes too, Children in primary school who engage regularly in
the arts actually have a reduced risk of developing behavioral
(27:22):
problems depression as they enter adolescents. They're less likely to
become lonely. They're even less likely to commit crimes or
take substances like marijuana or tobacco. And we actually the
analyzes show that one of the key things here is
arts engagement helping to build life skills like self esteem
and self control and problem solving, which actually can help
(27:43):
young people to navigate all of these complex life choices
that they get presented.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
With reading this book and hearing your talk, it is
impossible not to come away with the idea that the
arts should be a major social priority, not just for culture,
but for education and really for public health health. But
the unfortunate reality, and you're very clear about this in
the book, is that when budgets are cut, the arts
are often the first to go. You've seen cuts in
(28:09):
the UK, I'm here in the US. You know, our
National Endowment for the Arts is being dismantled. I honestly,
going back, Ronald Reagan wanted to get rid of it
entirely this is an ongoing issue that the need for
the arts is not matched by governmental support for the arts.
Two questions, One, how depressed should I be about this?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
And two, if we.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Can't fix it at the global or even national level,
what can we do at the local or personal level
to keep the arts alive and vibrant for ourselves.
Speaker 5 (28:41):
I find this honestly baffling when I look around and
see what's happening, because the scientific evidence space is so
strong about these health benefits, but also about the health
economic return on investments of investing in the arts. And
I'm certainly not suggesting that we should only be funding
the arts for their health benefits. This isn't about some
instrumentalists press but it's more recognizing that arts engagement inherently
(29:04):
has health benefits that are of value to us as
individuals and societies. We've actually done economic modeling in the
UK where we found that just amongst working age adults alone,
the annual health economic benefits of engaging in the arts
are worth eighteen billion pounds to society. So I've always
find it so surprising when arts budgets are cut, because
(29:26):
that has ramifications not just for health but to healthcare
systems as well. I veer between being pessimistic and optimistic
on this one, but I think overall I'm optimistic because
when we look back across history in the last hundred years,
every decade or so, we've sort of had a light
bulb moment, what I call a seat belt moment in
(29:47):
the book of Awareness, about a particular behavior and suddenly
how fundamental it is to society. We had it for
seat belts and cars in the nineteen nineties, Suddenly everyone
agreed that they should.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Be wearing them.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
We had it for exercise in the nineteen eighties, in
the nineteen seventies, sleep, more recently, smoking bands around the millennium.
And I do feel that there is this shift now
that's happening in people's public awareness and the benefits of
the art. So I really feel that seat belt moment,
that tipping point of awareness, which could then lead to
changes within society revaluing of the arts, is coming. And
(30:18):
I think in the meantime, for individuals, we can change
our own behaviors. And I talk a lot in the
book about working out what your blocks are and how
to use behavior change science to overcome them. But also
I think within communities, we can value the arts. We
can even set up our own groups, we can lobby,
we can show the evidence to schools, to communities, to policymakers,
and we from the grassroots level up can hopefully be
(30:40):
part of that seat belt movement and part of that
catalyzing that change.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
I like that you brought up that thing about the block.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
So a lot of people, I think feel, especially when
it comes to engaging or participating in the arts.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
The instinct is, well, I'm not good at that. I'm
not good at that.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I'm not a good singer, I'm not a good musician,
I can't dance. But you don't have to be good
at these things to get the benefits from them.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
No, absolutely not.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
You don't have to be good at the arts to
get benefits. Just participating gives you the chance to experience
the things like dopamine release or stressful maine releases. You
haven't necessarily got to be even getting better in that process.
And there are other myths as well that you don't
have to have lots of time to do this. There
are simple ways you can swap existing routines to make
them more creative. And the arts also don't have to
(31:23):
cost anything. I think that's a real barrier for many people.
But as I talk about in the book, there are
so many free ways that people can actually increase the
amount of creativity they've got in their day to day lives.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
What are your favorite ways to engage with the arts.
Speaker 5 (31:36):
I really make sure that I do not doom scroll
on my commute. I always read a book, and I
think that's such an easy way of just having a
bit of creativity before and after work each day. I
love listening to music, and like I said, I try
to listen to it intentionally. I particularly have got into
listening to live concerts recently on the radio because that's
such a good way of feeling like you're actually part
(31:57):
of something that's happening, even if it's one hundred miles away,
so it can feel much more real. I have young children,
so they are inherently creative. Kids always are, and that's
really helped me to be less afraid about trying new
things and even afraid of doing them badly, because it
doesn't matter. Like part of that process is making mistakes
and having the joy of discovery within that.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
All right, Daisy, before I let you go, would you
do me a favor and join me down in the
rec center to make some suggestions for people who might
be looking for ways to engage with the arts in
their day to day life.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
I would love to.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
So I'm going to tell you about some imaginary people.
These are not real. I want to emphasize these are
hypothetical people that I made up. If anybody out there
recognizes themselves in this, that is on you, not me.
So I'm going to describe someone, Daisy, and you're going
to make a recommendation. I know there are lots of recommendations,
lots of things that people could do, but let's just
pick one or two for each person.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So our first person is a young person who just
spends a lot of time scrolling on TikTok, just getting
sucked into the algorithm. And maybe they're feeling a little
bit envious or down on themselves because they see these
influencers with their seemingly glamorous lifestyles. What is one arts
related practice that they could do instead.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
So you're someone on your phone, so you've got dexterous fingers,
maybe a short attention span, and you perhaps want the
idea that you could be contributing content too, So I
think that craft like crochet could be really great here.
They're super easy to pick up from watching videos on
places like TikTok. There's something that can keep you busy,
but you've got quite a nice product really quickly from it,
(33:44):
and best of all, you can then actually share it.
And I think that following the accounts of fellow crocheos
could be a really lovely swap to doom scrolling people
you've got more glamorous lifestyles.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
I'd love that you mentioned that, because I learned how
to crochet from watching videos. And if I can do it, people,
anyone can do it. I am the least crafty person.
I've made some adorable things, and you can give them
away too. That's the other thing you can make. It
gives exactly people love them. Okay, So our next person
is someone who's recovering from surgery or maybe a serious illness,
and maybe they don't have a lot of physical strength
(34:16):
or physical energy. With a caveat that we are not
your doctor. What is one arts related practice that they
could try as they're recovering.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Music feels perfect here because you haven't got to be
doing anything if you don't want to. I think live
concerts like I mentioned, but it's one of my favorite things.
Can be great as an option here. Music actually reduces inflammation,
it can reduce stress, It also reduces pain, so it
could be great if you're experiencing any of those things,
if you're recovering from a surgery, for example, And actually
(34:46):
music's associated with faster wound healing, so it can have
those benefits too. I would say try and push yourself
outside your comfort zone though, so that this feels like
it's a novelty and actually a chance to try things
and that you wouldn't normally have listened to.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
So like try out a new genres, something maybe you've
never listened to before.
Speaker 5 (35:02):
It's a way of being a venturist, so you can
feel like you're getting a new experience.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, So our third person is a busy professional. They
have no free time. They've got work, they've got family,
they've got a commute, they have so many responsibilities. What
is one realistic arts related practice that they could try
to squeeze in somewhere.
Speaker 5 (35:20):
Don't squeeze it in. That's going to be the mistake here.
Do a swap instead. So if you would normally have
a date night with your partner every now and then
swap that for going to a gig together instead. If
you might meet up for a drink with friends, well
instead go to a craft's workshop.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
There are so.
Speaker 5 (35:35):
Many of these even developing in like pubs or bars
and things now. And if you've got a day with
a family or why not go to an exhibition together
because that could be a way of integrating arts without
it having to change your current busy schedule.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
That's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Okay, so this one might be a little bit related
to me, a news junkie who feels a constant need
to know everything that is going on, but then find
themselves getting stressed out because of everything that's gone going on.
What is an arts related practice that they could add
to their new side if their primary motivation is consuming
information in some way.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
You have just described me up until twenty twenty four,
and then I made the swap to reading novels on
my commutes, and whenever I would reach for my phone
to look at the news, I just reach for the
novel now. And I have to say it's been such
a game changer because it's a much nicer way of
regulating my emotions. It gives me much more creative and
positive outlook on things. So I cannot recommend that one
(36:30):
highly enough.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I'm just curious, what about things like reading nonfiction books
or memoirs. Do those have the same sort of impact
as a novel or do we not know that yet?
Speaker 5 (36:38):
Well, actually they're still counted as reading for pleasure and
their literature and the studies that we've done as well
show that those do have those same benefits. And let's
be honest, you're never quite sure how truthful those things are. Anyway,
they could well be a work of fess.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
I love that, okay, and our last one we talked
about this a little bit. But an older person who's
in good health but really really wants to maintain that
and stay sharp and healthy as thee But maybe they've
never they've gone their whole lives without ever really developing
an arts related practice, and maybe they're feeling like it's
too late. What's something they can do that isn't too late?
Speaker 5 (37:10):
It is definitely not too late. So do something that
you think is going to be cognitively challenging. I actually
saw a fantastic study which was giving people who were
aged over sixty circus arts, so they were having to
learn juggling, and actually, within just a few weeks they'd
actually found that there were increases in the volume of
gray matter in certain regions of their brains. And that
really is evidence that it doesn't have to be something
(37:32):
you'd done before. Not one of them had juggled. But
you have to maintain it because actually those who stopped
actually found that their gray matter reduced the levels that
had been before. Those who continued continued to see those benefits.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
So user or lose it exactly.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
It's a same for a reason, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
That's right, well, Daisy, this has been absolutely wonderful. Thank
you so much for taking the time to speak with
me today.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Thank you so much to Daisy Fank. Her book Art
Cure The Science of How the Arts Saved Lives is
out now. You can get it wherever you get your books.
We'll put a link in the show description, so please
be sure to check it out. And if this episode
inspired you to make more time for the arts in
your life, we'd love to hear about it. As you know,
(38:18):
my kids and I have a Tuesday night art club
where we make art together. It's often terrible art but
it's a lot of fun and if you make art,
give us a call at three O two four oh
five five nine two five, send us an email at
high Geniuses at gmail dot com. That's Hi Geniuses at
gmail dot com, where you can always find us on
(38:38):
Instagram or Blue Sky. We're at part Time Genius, and
you know I love seeing those pics. So we will
be back next week with another brand new episode. But
in the meantime, from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself,
thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
(39:08):
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeart Radio. It is hosted
by my good pal Will Pearson, who I've known for
almost three decades now. That is insane to me. I'm
the Utaco host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer is Mary
Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer. I'm going to
fix that in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier, who
(39:30):
I've also known for like a decade at this point,
maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth. He is
always dressed up, always cheering us on, and always ready
to hit record and then mix the show after. He
does a great job I also want to shout out
the executive producers from iHeart my good Pals Katrina and
Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media support from
(39:52):
Calypso Rallis if you like our videos. That is all
Calypso's handiwork for more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio What
is it the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or tune in
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's it from
us here at Part Time Genius. Thank you so much
for listening.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
Popular Podcasts
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.
iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Milan Cortina Winter Olympics
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina are here and have everyone talking. iHeartPodcasts is buzzing with content in honor of the XXV Winter Olympics We’re bringing you episodes from a variety of iHeartPodcast shows to help you keep up with the action. Follow Milan Cortina Winter Olympics so you don’t miss any coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics, and if you like what you hear, be sure to follow each Podcast in the feed for more great content from iHeartPodcasts.