Connecting Art with Wellness, Health, and Healing
Art Health & Healing
Since research has shown that even a casual stroll through a museum has positive health benefits, doesn’t it make sense to incorporate the arts in the healing of chronic illness?
We provide high-need individuals with the expressive outlet needed to process their illness and reawaken the happiness that’s been buried by their illness.
Clinical Benefits of Arts & Crafts
- Improves vital signs
- Reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol
- Lowers the amount of medication required to induce sleep
- Decreases the need for narcotic pain medication
- Speeds hospital discharge time
Emotional Benefits of Arts & Crafts
- Reduces symptoms of emotional distress
- Boosts psychological well-being and resilience
- Improves coping ability
- Facilitates expression of feelings
- Enhances self-worth and self-esteem
- Enables the maintenance of social identity
Living Proof
What if you had to endure kidney failure and a 9-year healing process including a transplant? And what if you discovered along the way that you can use the powerful energy contained in good art for your own healing, simply by allowing yourself to experience and participate in it?
Paul Braswell, RN is living proof that the arts heal. During his 9-year journey he discovered that the arts could enliven the happiness so often buried by serious life challenges. He founded AH&H to offer that opportunity to chronically ill patients. Makes sense, doesn’t it? A 2019 501c3 nonprofit, AH&H is working with health care professionals to transform their institutional settings with hands-on arts education and exhibitions.
“Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented – which is what fear and anxiety do to a person – into something whole.”
-Hellen Keller
AH&H Programs
Therapeutic Art
Workshops
AHNH provides patient centered art therapy workshops facilitated by qualified facilitators within in-patient care facilities and treatment units. Workshops are supported through a growing referral network of local medical providers and take place in residential homes, clinics, and community centers.
Gallery
Exhibitions
Setting aside a few hours to stroll through a gallery, or to attend an art exhibit at a museum, has a proven link to good health and life satisfaction. Experiencing art can also help lower anxiety, alleviate depression, and improve critical thinking, delivering positive consequences with significant results for all of us. As such, AHNH provides a range of gallery exhibits featuring local and acclaimed artists. We host the exhibits in community centers, residential homes and clinics.
Health Awareness &
Education Fairs
Working to educate the public about certain chronic conditions (such as diabetes, HIV, Epilepsy, certain mood disorders, etc.) we partner with local community-based organizations and participate in health fairs in order to extend our reach. Additionally, we hold education workshops and seminars, promoting evidence-based data to include and support art as a part of the treatment modalities in the healthcare industry and its effects.
