Let's dance How getting creative could save your life

Scientific evidence shows that engaging in the arts can reduce depression, improve immunity and delay ageing - all while you're having fun

- By Daisy Fancourt

For some reason, we have collectively agreed that the new year is the time to reinvent ourselves.

The problem, for many people, is that we've tried all the usual health kicks - running, yoga, meditation, the latest diets - even if we haven't really enjoyed them, in an attempt to improve our minds and bodies. But have any of us given as much thought to creativity? Allow me to suggest that this year be a time to embrace the arts.

Ever since our Palaeolithic ancestors began painting caves, carving figurines, dancing and singing, engaging in the arts has been interwoven with health and healing. Look through the early writings of every major medical tradition around the world and you find the arts. What is much newer - and has rapidly accelerated over the past two decades - is a blossoming scientific evidence base identifying and quantifying exactly what the health benefits of the arts are.