Winston Churchill painted, Judi Dench was famous for her crude embroidery, and Tom Daley famously knitted at the Olympics. Now researchers say we could all benefit from creative endeavors, and that such pursuits may have a greater impact on life satisfaction than having a job.
Arts and crafts have long been used to aid mental health, but most studies have looked at the effects on patients rather than the general population and have tended to focus on specific activities, experts said.
But researchers now say such attention could be an important tool to improve overall public health.
Dr Helen Keys, co-author of the study from Anglia Ruskin University, said: “This is something that is very affordable, accessible and ultimately popular with people – and that's the key – we're not forcing people to do something they don't want to do.”
Keys and his colleagues reported in the journal Frontiers in Public Health how they analysed data from more than 7,000 people aged 16 and over who took part in a face-to-face “participatory survey” conducted by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport between April 2019 and March 2020.
As part of the survey, participants were asked to rate different aspects of well-being on a 10-point scale, report whether they took part in arts and crafts, and provide demographic details.
The researchers found that just over 37% of participants reported taking part in at least one arts or crafts activity in the past 12 months, ranging from painting to pottery to photography.
Next, the researchers looked at ratings of happiness.
The findings showed that people who make arts and crafts rated themselves as more happy, satisfied with their lives and felt that their lives were worth living than those who didn't, even taking into account other factors known to have an impact, such as age, gender, poverty, poor health and employment status.
“So crafting in itself leads to a bigger boost (to happiness),” Keys said.
The team found that engaging in arts and crafts was associated with an increase in happiness equivalent to a 20-year increase in age (though as Keys points out, happiness increases slightly with age), while a sense that life was worthwhile was more strongly associated with crafts than with employment.
“This is probably our most interesting finding, because it certainly seems like having a job makes people feel a lot more valued,” Keys said, adding that the results could reflect that while not everyone has a rewarding job, people often experience control, achievement and self-expression when working on arts and crafts, and feel a sense of mastery or “flow.”
The new study didn't compare specific creative activities or include all such activities participants did, so it can't prove causation, but smaller clinical trials suggest that engaging in arts and crafts may increase happiness, Keys said.
Keys also acknowledged that the happiness gains associated with creating arts and crafts are quite small — on average, engaging in such activities is associated with just a 2% increase in people's ratings of their life as worthwhile — but the results are still meaningful at a population level, she said.
She added: “A 2% increase in overall wellbeing would mean a lot at a national level to the NHS and to the government.”
Keyes said supporting such efforts would be an easier way for governments to improve the welfare of their citizens than other factors known to have a larger impact.
“We're showing that this can have a pretty big effect relative to other factors,” she said, “but this is something that is very cheap, easy and accessible for us to get people involved.”
