Want a quick fix to happiness?
This simple creative solution is proven to lift your mood, get the creative juices flowing and spawn desire.
Researches have discovered viewing beautiful works of art triggers a surge of the feel-good chemical, dopamine. The same section of the brain invokes the same pleasurable feelings experienced with romantic love and desire.
Neuroesthestics expert, Professor Semir Zeki, of the University College London conducted an experiment that scanned the brains of various cultural/gender/age backgrounds as they looked at a series of paintings every ten seconds. Zeki found, after examining the MRI images of his subjects’ brain, that when people look at something they find beautiful, the front part of the brain called the medial orbito-frontal cortex “lights up.” There is an immediate increase in blood flow into this area, which is associated with pleasure, and also reward. His conclusion found that those subjects that were exposed to more culture, “pretty” things, art, subjective beauty and pleasurable experiences not only visually, but audibly had overall more happiness and a feeling of well being.
The artist in me loves pretty things. Like the study implies, beautiful people / objects do make me happy. I find it extremely important to always have things around that stimulate me and lift my mood. From flowers to hot shoes to designed furniture to curated playlists piping throughout my home…I make sure to surround myself with visual boosters that enhance my many moods. But I don’t stop at my home. From my photography shoots to where I lunch to where imbibe my evening cocktails, I always try to curate the perfect ambience that satisfies my soul or as Dr. Zeki says, my orbito-frontal cortex.
