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Inspiring: Power of Art & Music Media Articles

Art makes the revolution irresistible. — Toni Cade Bambara

Below are key excerpts of inspiring news articles on the power of art from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

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Why dancing can be more powerful than antidepressants
2025-09-26, National Geographic
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/health/article/how-dance-boosts-brain-and-...

“Dance is a language of the body,” says Julia F. Christensen, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics and author of Dancing is the Best Medicine. “Our brain understands gestures that we may do as we dance like an expressive language.” For centuries, communities have turned to dance not only for celebration but for ritual and healing. Long before scientists tracked brain waves or measured neurotransmitters, dancers had an intuitive understanding of the power of moving together. Now, the research is starting to catch up. A 2024 meta-analysis published in The BMJ reviewed 218 clinical trials and found that dance reduced symptoms of depression more than walking, yoga, strength training, and even standard antidepressants. While only 15 of the studies focused specifically on dance, the results were enough to grab the attention of researchers. Our brains are wired for rhythm—and dancing engages our entire nervous system. Some neuroscientists describe this full-body stimulation as a neurochemical symphony. Anticipating a melody can trigger the release of dopamine. Physical movement boosts endorphins. Dancing with others increases oxytocin. Studies have shown that this trifecta can enhance mood, increase social bonding, and reduce stress. Dance offers a unique way to reconnect with oneself. It can activate emotional, cognitive, and sensory pathways, reawakening a sense of connection within and beyond the self.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the power of art and healing our bodies.


Building Empathy Through the Sounds of ‘a World in Motion’
2025-07-18, Reasons to be Cheerful
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/crossing-borders-music/

[The] universality of music, its ability to elicit the same emotions in diverse audiences, is exactly what inspires the work of Chicago-based nonprofit Crossing Borders Music. Composed of artists trained mainly in the Western classical tradition, the group compiles and performs music from Haitian, Palestinian, Rohingya, Native American and many other marginalized communities via free concerts held in libraries, cultural centers and university spaces. “Often, we find that in the West, refugees and immigrants are defined only by the conflict in their home countries,” says Tom Clowes ... the founder of Crossing Borders. “But nobody wants to be defined by the worst things that have happened to them, especially when it’s not even something that they’ve done, but something that’s happened to them.” The nonprofit’s musical collaborations and concerts are a bid to not just showcase these diverse and complex musical traditions, but also to create empathy and understanding for immigrants and other communities who often get overlooked because of race, ethnicity, disability, gender, sexual orientation, identity or past trauma. Crossing Borders reaches over 10,000 people in person and online each year and organized 27 free concerts in 2024. “And when we hear audience members say our music defied their expectations or broadened their worldview, or that they felt their culture was affirmed and uplifted, we know we’re fulfilling our mission,” Clowes says.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the power of art and healing social division.


They sing to remember: The power of memory choirs
2025-06-17, National Geographic
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/health/article/memory-choir-auditory-dementia

They’ve been preparing every Tuesday for the past four months, learning to belt out favorites like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Those attending their first Giving Voice concert may not know what to expect—it is a dementia-friendly choir, meaning many of the participants have some form of dementia and are joined onstage by caregivers and loved ones. Giving Voice, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people in all stages of memory loss, was founded in 2014 with an initial chorus of 35 members. There are now more than 70 “memory choirs” throughout the world that use Giving Voice’s model as the foundation for their programs—and a slew of similar dementia-friendly choirs and bands, including Music Mends Minds, AlzheimHER’s Chorus, and The Unforgettables Chorus. The premise of these memory choirs is simple but powerful: Making music is not just a feel-good community activity; it’s also a powerful weapon to help preserve memories and enhance brain function. Over 55 million people worldwide are believed to be living with dementia. The success of memory choirs [raises] scientific questions about whether music therapy can rewire the brain in addition to improving mood and fostering community. Borna Bonakdarpour, a behavioral neurologist ... is on a quest to show that social singing can help address some of the underlying causes of the disease, such as decreased mental stimulation, isolation, and inactivity.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the power of art.


No booze, no cover, no judging: Inside Mexico City’s free dance parties
2025-04-13, Associated Press
https://apnews.com/article/mexico-city-dancing-network-free-dance-community-b...

A pavilion of towering windows in a Mexico City urban park is nearly packed. Everyone here wants the same thing: to dance freely, at no cost, without harassment or prejudice. Twenty-somethings, children with their mothers, teenagers and elderly couples gather around the disc jockey’s console. “This is an open invitation for everyone to move as they wish in a safe space!” said Axel Martínez, one of the collective’s founders, as he grabs a microphone and cheers the revelers on. At their own pace, each person is carried away by the music — and no one seems surprised by the moves of others. From experimental jazz pieces and smooth Egyptian hip-hop to the more familiar pulse of cumbias grooved with an electronic touch, people dance to it all. The party was organized by the Nueva Red de Bailadores or NRB (New Network of Dancers), a collective that aims to create spaces where people can gather to dance freely. There’s no cover charge, no booze, and no pressure to do the “right” moves. As organizers pointed out, their parties forgo police and security, fostering a sense of collective care where attendees look out for one another. Isabel Miraflores, a 73-year-old retired high school assistant principal, came with her husband and said she enjoyed both the dancing and the presence of people of different ages. “I think it’s wonderful because it’s a free event,” she said. “We get together with people from all parts of society and we have fun without any trouble.”

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the power of art and healing social division.


This artist turned a forgiveness journey into a film
2024-10-16, Christian Science Monitor
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2024/1016/exhibiting-forgiveness...

Filmmaker [Titus Kaphar] has many reasons to smile. The premiere for “Exhibiting Forgiveness” attracted attendees such as Serena Williams and Oprah Winfrey. The visually sumptuous movie examines what it takes to pardon wrongdoing. Famously, Mr. Kaphar was in his mid-20s when he decided to become an artist. The spark? An art history class in junior college. Mr. Kaphar taught himself how to paint by visiting art museums. In 2001, he completed an MFA degree at Yale. He was awarded the “genius grant” in 2018. Yet for all the artist’s success, he was secretly having panic-attack nightmares about his father. “The thing that was the revelation is that my father is not the villain of my narrative,” says Mr. Kaphar, who’d left home to live with relatives in California after witnessing his father commit a “heinous” act. While completing the script, Mr. Kaphar started writing and thinking from the perspective of La’Ron, the father. Mr. Kaphar realized that there are very few true villains in this world. “I began to realize that my father is as much a victim as I was. My father suffered at the hands of his father and, in fact, did better than his father,” he says. “That was difficult for me to accept initially. But by the time I got finished, it was just clear. It was absolutely clear. It meant that I have developed a new compassion and sympathy for my father.” Like his proxy character in the movie, Mr. Kaphar has let go of resentment toward his father. It had a healing effect. “Since the film, I haven’t had any more of those nightmares,” says Mr. Kaphar. “I haven’t had one for almost two years now."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on the power of art.


Blind Jazz Sax Teacher Inspires Students to ‘Feel’ Their Instruments, Uses His Disability as Teaching Tool
2024-02-09, Good News Network
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/blind-jazz-sax-teacher-inspires-students-to-f...

From a Tampa performing arts conservatory comes the story of a blind jazz saxophonist who uses his disability as a teaching tool. He encourages his students to act on instinct; to feel the music through their instruments, and not let the waking world deceive them. “Welcome to every day of my life,” says Matthew Weihmuller in his jazz improvisation class after turning the lights off. “Then we have a big laugh,” he adds. When Weihmuller started playing, he needed braille sheet music, and pieces would take months; even years to learn. As if that weren’t difficult enough, few people in the country were capable of providing braille music, so he started “brailling” his own, with the help of his mom. “They can’t look at their instrument. Now, they have to feel their instrument with their fingers and hands, right?” Weihmuller told Fox 13. “Now, we’ve got to listen to the music. We can’t read it. It forces the students to use their other senses.” During improvisational sessions, a musician has to be ready for sudden changes in time signature or key. This is nearly impossible to express through sheet music. At least in this regard, the children are learning in the best way for this unorthodox, yet traditional form of jazz music. As an educator with blindness, Weihmuller stresses turning any disadvantage into an advantage, a teaching philosophy that has led some students to tell the man that he has changed the way they look at life.

Note: Read more inspiring news articles on the power of art. For more, explore our uplifting Inspiration Center, which focuses on solutions and the best of humanity and life.


Getting On the Dance Floor Will Shred Pounds in Overweight People, Improve Blood Pressure and Mental Health
2024-01-23, Good News Network
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/getting-on-dance-floor-will-shred-pounds-in-o...

Boogying the night away produces meaningful improvements in one's body mass and waist circumference in people who are overweight or obese, a new study found. Dancing was also seen to improve blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, physical fitness, cognitive disorders, hypertension, cardiovascular ailments, diabetes, and mental health—in other words, all the root causes of the non-communicable diseases that kill most people in the West. The researchers believed that dance would be a more ideal form of exercise because it is sustainable—it's a sociable, entertaining way of exercising that participants will enjoy, rather than a drudgery they have to push themselves through. “Dance is effective on fat loss in people overweight and obese and has a significant improvement on body composition and morphology,” said Zhang Yaya, a Ph.D. student at Hunan University, China. To get their results, published in the journal PLoS ONE, the team studied data from 646 participants who were overweight and obese across ten different studies. They found that dance is very effective for improving body composition and showed that more creative dance types had the most pronounced body composition improvement when compared with traditional dance. Improvements were also found in overweight children and patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


From hip hop to ‘Top Chef’: How two NYC after-school programs teach students about healthy eating
2023-10-06, Chalkbeat
https://www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2023/10/6/23901806/nyc-healthy-eating-after...

Kevin, a sixth grader at P.S. 146 in Queens who hopes to one day work as a doctor, said he’s always tried to study nutrition. But it wasn’t until he participated in the Hip Hop H.E.A.L.S., or Healthy Eating and Living in Schools, after-school program last year that he found an engaging way to learn about it at school. The program, developed in partnership between Columbia University neurologist Olajide Williams and hip hop artist Doug E. Fresh, relies on music to help teach students about healthy eating. What Kevin participated in was one of two after-school healthy eating programs that are being studied as part of a partnership between the after-school provider New York Edge and Columbia University. About 300 students across 20 school sites were provided with either the Hip Hop H.E.A.L.S. program, or NY Edge’s Food Explorers program, with their nutritional choices tracked over the course of 10 or more weeks. Through the partnership, researchers aim to learn if the educational interventions from these programs can help kids make healthier choices, particularly at chain restaurants. The focus on teaching students to navigate settings like chain restaurants is especially important as many kids in the programs live in “food swamps,” or areas with few healthy food options, Williams said. “We’d love to have community gardens everywhere,” he added. “But the reality is many people live in food swamps. It’s about how we get them to make better decisions within those swamps.”

Note: Explore more positive stories on healing our bodies and the power of art.


How rhythm shapes our lives
2023-05-26, BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230526-how-rhythm-shapes-our-lives

Why do we care about rhythm? It connects us to the world. It plays a role in listening, in language, in understanding speech in noisy places, in walking, and even in our feelings toward one another. Rhythm is much more than a component of music. We experience the rhythmic changes of the seasons. Some of us have menstrual cycles. We have circadian rhythms – daily cycles of mental and physical peaks and troughs. Tides, 17-year cicadas, lunar phases, perigees, and apogees are other naturally occurring rhythms. Human-made rhythms include the built world – street grids, traffic lights, crop fields, mowed designs in baseball diamond outfields, the backsplash behind the kitchen counter, spatial patterns in geometric visual artforms. Rhythms in the brain have been called out as a basis for consciousness itself. Even in very young children, being (literally) "in sync" with another person engenders positive feelings toward them. Music in general, and rhythm in particular, does an uncommonly good job fostering a sense of community. Indeed, music being played at negotiation sessions helps to smooth the conversations and leads to breakthroughs and compromisesMusicians Without Borders is used to form relationships in troubled regions around the world, to bring hope, comfort, and healing to diverse populations. The Resonance Project and the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, which are forming bonds between Israeli and Palestinian children, are other examples of using musical rhythm to overcome differences.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.


Revolutionary Music Therapy Helps Paralyzed Man Walk and Talk Again – It 'Unlocked the Brain'
2023-04-30, Good News Network
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/music-therapy-helps-paralyzed-man-walk-and-ta...

A patient who was left almost completely paralyzed from a rare disease is now walking and talking again, after a music therapist prescribed mindful listening to his favorite song every night–in this case, a tune by The Carpenters. 71 year-old Ian Palmer was struck down with Guillain-Barr© syndrome last June, forcing him to spend seven months in a hospital where he was unable to walk or speak properly. The rare condition happens when a person's own immune system attacks their body's motor nerves, causing muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis. But when Ian was transferred to Sue Ryder Neurological Care Centre, a state-of-the-art care unit in Lancashire, England, clinicians used music therapy techniques to overcome 'near total paralysis of his body'. His specialist, Clare, taught him mindfulness techniques using his favorite records–and he began listening to The Carpenters each night. Ian was admittedly skeptical, but he can now walk 2 miles a day (3k) and have conversations with his family after the exercises "opened up" his brain. He's never been very musical, so when Sue Ryder first suggested music therapy he said, 'What good is that going to do?' "I'm a typical Northern man, and I thought, 'What's a girl with a guitar going to do for me–get me to the gym.'" "But it really worked. Clare sat me down and explained the process. I learned that music is very unlike other therapies, as it opens up all of the brain."

Note: Watch a profoundly touching documentary about a man who takes on the broken healthcare system to demonstrate music's ability to heal, combat memory loss, and awaken the soul and the deepest parts of humanity. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


What Art Does for Your Brain
2023-04-25, Greater Good
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_art_does_for_your_brain

A new book, Your Brain on Art, by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, helps explain ... the science of “neuroaesthetics”—how our brains respond to aesthetic and artistic experiences. The authors make the case that art is good for our physical and mental health. Appreciating or making art involves using many parts of our brain—from those that process our senses to those involved in emotion, memory, and cognition. “When you experience virtual reality, read poetry or fiction, see a film or listen to a piece of music, or move your body to dance, to name a few of the many arts, you are biologically changed,” write Magsamen and Ross. “There is a neurochemical exchange that can lead to what Aristotle called catharsis, or a release of emotion that leaves you feeling more connected.” One study involving more than 23,000 ... participants found that those who either made art at least once a week or attended cultural events at least once or twice a year were happier and had better mental health than those who didn’t. This was independent of their age, marital status, income, health behaviors, social support, and more. “The arts are being used in at least six distinct ways to heal the body: as preventative medicine; as symptom relief for everyday health issues; as treatment or intervention for illness, developmental issues, and accidents; as psychological support; as a tool for successfully living with chronic issues; and at the end of life to provide solace and meaning,” the authors write.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about the incredible power of art.


The Lullaby Project helps incarcerated mothers connect with their kids through music
2023-04-16, NPR
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/16/1170315860/the-lullaby-project-helps-incarcera...

When someone is pregnant and they're incarcerated, separation after they give birth is almost immediate. At a women's prison outside Columbia, S.C., a project is underway to help reconnect a few mothers with their children through the creation of lullabies. Ashley [is] incarcerated at the Graham Camille Griffin Correctional Institution, and she's taking part in the prison's pilot songwriting program, working with graduate students from the University of South Carolina School of Music. Together, the grad students and the mothers chart out lyrics, workshop the melodies and collaborate on the layers of musicality needed to get the lullabies just right for a vocalist with the university. Ashley has five children, including her most recent. She says the hardest part of this is being away from them as she counts down the days till her parole or release. And she says the good graces of the students is not lost on those serving out their sentences. "It's - yeah, they could be volunteering anywhere else, like an elementary or something," [said Ashley]. "But they took their time to come to a prison. And even though we are here for crimes and we are sitting here being punished and everything, we're still human, and we still have families that care about us. And everybody makes mistakes, and we're here paying for our mistakes. So any mother out there that has kids, and they're your world, let them know it."

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Why Our Movements Need to Start Singing Again
2022-12-04, Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/12/04/why-our-movements-need-start-si...

Social movements are stronger when they sing. That's a lesson that has been amply demonstrated throughout history, and it's one that I have learned personally in working to develop trainings for activists over the past decade and a half. In Momentum, a training program that I co-founded and that many other trainers and organizers have built over the last seven years, song culture is not something we included at the start. And yet, it has since become so indispensable that the trainers I know would never imagine doing without it again. We developed a session within Momentum devoted to reviving song culture. We named it "Why did we stop singing?" This module teaches how to bring more music to our movements by breaking down common barriers like self-consciousness, discomfort with vulnerability, and lack of a shared repertoire. Once Momentum began incorporating it into its curriculum, "Why did we stop singing?" quickly became one of the most popular parts of the training. Over several years, many of the organization's trainers and leaders worked to develop the module and, as they did, some important lessons emerged. Chief among them: Music is a powerful tool that we have too often neglected in our organizing–and members of our movements are hungry to bring it back. The training was designed to promote a more sustainable culture of direct action, as well as to put traditions of mass protest in dialogue with longer-term models of structure-based organizing.

Note: The above was written by Paul Engler, a co-founder of Momentum Training, which instructs hundreds of activists each year in the principles of effective protest. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Want Safer Streets? Cover Them in Art
2022-08-22, Reasons to be Cheerful
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/safer-streets-painted-intersections-crosswa...

Crosswalks don’t work. According to various studies, only between five and fifteen percent of drivers slow down at pedestrian crossings. The vast majority of drivers simply don’t pay attention to them. America’s deadly streetscape is the subject of The Street Project, a new PBS documentary about citizen-led efforts to make streets safer. When filmmaker Jennifer Boyd started making it, she assumed distracted driving must be behind the alarming rise in pedestrian deaths. But as she soon learned, digital screens are less of a culprit than most people realize. “Less than one percent of pedestrian deaths involved portable electronic devices,” she found. Instead, she discovered that two of the biggest factors are speeding and bigger cars. If speeding and visibility are the problem and crosswalks can’t stop it, color might. The Asphalt Art Initiative, a program funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, provides grants to create art to modify dangerous streets. One of these projects is in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where artists and residents transformed a high-traffic commercial thoroughfare with a block-long asphalt mural, while students marked safe walking paths in the area with stencils and wheat paste. Overall, according to the Initiative, “the data showed a 50 percent drop in crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists and a 37 percent drop in crashes leading to injuries. Intersections with asphalt art saw a 17 percent reduction in total accidents.”

Note: Don't miss the great pictures and video of public art available at the link above. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Can Listening to the Beatles Improve Your Memory? New Research Says Music Just Might Stir the Brain
2022-07-18, Northeastern University
https://news.northeastern.edu/2022/07/18/music-impact-memory-brain-pathways/

When Paul McCartney wrote “Get Back,” he never would have predicted how useful or relevant the song would become for music therapists. In new research, Psyche Loui, an associate professor of music ... found that for older adults who listened to some of their favorite music, including The Beatles, connectivity in the brain increased. Specifically, Loui—and her multi-disciplinary team ... discovered that music bridged the gap between the brain’s auditory system and reward system, the area that governs motivation. “There’s something about music that is this functional connectivity between the auditory and reward system, and that’s why music is so special and able to tap into these seemingly very general cognitive functions that are suddenly very engaged in folks with dementia who are hearing music,” said Loui. The original idea for this research came out of Loui’s own experiences playing music in nursing homes. She recalled how people who couldn’t finish a sentence or thought would suddenly harmonize and sing along to a song she was playing. “[Music] seems to engage the brain in this way that’s different than everything else,” Loui said. What the researchers found was striking: Music was essentially creating an auditory channel directly to the medial prefrontal cortex, the brain’s reward center. Music that was both familiar and well-liked tended to activate the auditory and reward areas more. The music that participants selected themselves provided an even stronger connection.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


“You Are Watching the Power of Music Changing Brain Chemistry”
2022-05-27, Reasons to be Cheerful
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/dementia-music-healing-brain-neurology/

Music, it turns out, is medicine for the mind. [A 2021 study] set out to see what happens in the brain when a person with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s disease listens to their favorite playlist for an hour every day. The 14 participants had brain scans and took neuropsychological tests that involved memory exercises. At the end of the trial the participants showed a small but statistically significant improvement in memory — something that is extremely unusual. New connections had formed between different regions of the brain ... that actually changed brain plasticity and also improved function in relaying information. Thaut says the research shows that while music is in no way a cure for Alzheimers, it can provide a "cognitive boost." That’s why a person with memory impairment may not recall their daughter’s name but may remember all the lyrics to her favorite lullaby. “It’s pulling from emotions, it’s pulling from feelings, it’s pulling from interpersonal associations, it’s pulling from a date or time or period of one’s life — historical things,” [Concetta] Tomaino says. Music serves as a clue, coaxing the brain to fill in the blanks. “It is painful to watch your beloved slip away inch by inch,” [Carol Rosenstein] says. “And if it weren’t for the music, I wouldn’t be sitting here today. As a caregiver and first responder, I can tell you, I would have never survived the journey.”

Note: Watch a deeply moving video of Henry, a 94-year old man with dementia, experience music for the first time in years.


This radio station plays songs made by trees as they grow
2021-08-03, Fast Company
https://www.fastcompany.com/90661294/this-radio-station-plays-songs-made-by-t...

Outside of a library in Cambridge, Massachusetts, an over-80-year-old copper beech tree is making music. As the tree photosynthesizes and absorbs and evaporates water, a solar-powered sensor attached to a leaf measures the micro voltage of all that invisible activity. Sound designer and musician Skooby Laposky assigned a key and note range to those changes in this electric activity, turning the tree’s everyday biological processes into an ethereal song. That music is available on Hidden Life Radio, an art project by Laposky. Hidden Life Radio also features the musical sounds of two other Cambridge trees: a honey locust and a red oak. After he read the book The Hidden Life of Trees ... Laposky thought to tune into the music trees could be making. The name Hidden Life Radio was inspired by that book, written by German forester Peter Wohlleben, which details the social networks and “sentient” capabilities of trees. “Most people probably love trees and [still] don’t consider them all the time,” Laposky says, noting a condition called “plant blindness,” in which people fail to notice the flora in their own environment. “In cities, the trees are there, but unless they’re providing shade or you’re picking apples from them, I feel like people don’t necessarily consider trees and their importance.” Tree canopies are crucial to cities, providing shade that can lower summer temperatures significantly, reducing air pollution, sequestering carbon, and providing a mental health benefit.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Making guitars saved a man from opioid addiction. Now others are getting the same help
2020-10-02, CNN News
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/18/us/cfc-making-instruments-to-fight-opioid-addi...

Earl Moore remembers the day his father walked out. Moore discovered the power of opioids to take that pain away while attending college at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Moore's addiction lasted more than 15 years - before he finally found the help he needed. It was a nightmare odyssey that led him to steal his grandmother's cancer pain medication and his police officer brother's ATM card to pay for pills. Not until Moore says he found a 12-step program and a mentor who showed him the art of building stringed instruments - did he find the self-love and confidence that turned his life around for good. Moore was trying to get clean yet again in 2012 when he heard a master luthier - an expert stringed-instrument maker - was coming to his hometown of Hindman, a tiny hamlet nestled in the lush mountains of Eastern Kentucky. Moore had been doing carpentry, building cabinets and had a love for guitars. Moore found himself in Naselroad's wood shop nearly every day learning how to craft guitars from Appalachian native hardwoods in a town where the mountain dulcimer was first made in the late 1800s. "Music has always been a part of this community ever since pioneer days," said Naselroad. What started out as a one-year apprenticeship became a six-year journey that brought Moore back to life. Since he began, Moore has made more than 70 instruments. He's sold many of them and kept others. Moore's success inspired the creation of the "Culture of Recovery" arts program at The Appalachian Artisan Center.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Do Art Lovers Live Longer?
2019-12-23, Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201912/do-art-lovers...

People who engage in arts-related cultural activities such as going to museums or musical concerts may have a lower risk of dying prematurely, according to a new study by researchers from University College London (UCL). The UCL researchers found a substantial reduction in early mortality among older adults who engaged in cultural activities. After a variety of confounding factors (e.g., socioeconomics, occupational status) were taken into account, those who participated in cultural activities "every few months or more" had a 31 percent lower risk of premature death. This "arts engagement and mortality" analysis spanned 14 years and involved nearly 7,000 older adults. Study participants self-reported the frequency of their arts engagement and cultural activities such as going to museums, art galleries, concerts, and the theater. Daisy Fancourt and Andrew Steptoe co-authored this paper. Part of the link between longevity and arts engagement is attributable to the socioeconomic advantages of those who have the leisure time and financial resources to engage in cultural activities regularly. That said, Fancourt and Steptoe report that arts engagement may have a protective association with longevity that transcends socioeconomics or occupational status. According to the authors, "This association might be partly explained by differences in cognition, mental health, and physical activity among those who do and do not engage in the arts, but remains even when the model is adjusted for these factors."

Note: See the BMJ study on this webpage. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Inventor Makes Music Memory Box So Dementia Patients Can Reconnect With Their Loved Ones
2019-04-11, Good News Network
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/dementia-patients-reconnect-with-family-thank...

The Music Memory Box was created as a means of using photographs, objects, and music to help people with dementia to remember their past. The box is programmed to play certain songs that are associated with the various possessions and photos. When one of the objects is placed in the center of the box, a sensor triggers boxs speakers so that it plays the song that corresponds with the object. 28-year-old designer Chloe Meineck says that her great-grandmothers experience with dementia served as the inspiration for the box. Whenever Meineck when to visit the senior at her nursing home, the woman always failed to recognize her. Upon hearing certain songs, however, Meinecks great-grandmother would suddenly begin to recall heartfelt stories from her past. 74-year-old Monica Garrity [said] she and her husband Steve, who has dementia, began using the box in 2017 as a means of helping him to remember events from their marriage and theyve been regularly using the box ever since. We have been able to connect again, it is wonderful, says Monica. He doesnt usually communicate with me but when the music plays, he hums along and even holds out his hand to grab mine. It takes us back to when we got married. In addition to receiving dozens of awards for her design, Meineck recently held a Kickstarter campaign in order to fund the manufacturing of the first batch of Music Memory Boxes. Within two weeks, she was able to raise the necessary funds.

Note: Don't miss a video of the Music Memory Box in action at the link above. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


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