Museums can enhance feelings of wellbeing
This week is the first ever ‘National Museums and Wellbeing Week’.
Visiting museums and participating in the arts has been shown to alleviate stress, combat isolation and increase levels of satisfaction and happiness.
Whilst that sounds like a big claim, museum and gallery goers will understand how just taking 20 minutes at lunchtime to admire some beautiful paintings or ancient artefacts can improve your day. In an increasingly busy world, it’s good to take some time out, stimulate the mind and the senses, and perhaps be reminded of the wide expanse of universe that reaches beyond our daily concerns.
To help get you started, we have put together a few events for Museums and Wellbeing Week, but it doesn’t have to be an organised activity. We guarantee just making time to pop in for a visit will help you feel better. Don’t forget to tell us about it on Twitter using the #museumsandwellbeing hashtag.
There are lots of benefits to visiting museums that can improve an individual’s health and wellbeing, and an increasing amount of research and evidence is now documenting this. If you are interested, a good starting point is the research of Dr Helen Chatterjee MBE, Chair of the National Alliance for Museums, Health and Wellbeing. The alliance aims to connect organisations from the museums and health sector, to share examples of best practice and raise the profile of this valuable work, including projects such as National Museums Liverpool’s House of Memories. As a founder member of the alliance, we will also be attending the inaugural annual conference at The Whitworth in Manchester later this week – we hope to see some of you there!