Blog — art and literature as anti-ageing

There is a particular kind of time that opens up when we enter a gallery, sit in a theatre, sing with others, or lose ourselves in a novel. It is not productivity time. It is not screen-scrolling time. It is not the adrenalised time of errands, inboxes and appointments. It is slower time. And according to a growing body of research, that slowing may not only be psychological. It may also be biological. A new study published in Innovation in Aging by Daisy Fancourt (you can listen to my podcast interview with here here) and colleagues asks a quietly radical question: does engagement with the arts...