How To Academy Podcast Psychobiologist Daisy Fancourt – How the Arts Can Transform Your Health
Feb 3, 2026
Daisy Fancourt, psychobiologist at UCL and author of The Art Cure, studies how arts shape brain, body and population health. She explores music’s rhythmical power, storytelling’s role in empathy, biological mechanisms from dopamine to gene expression, and why participatory and live arts often beat passive consumption. Practical tips for squeezing art into daily life and tackling access barriers are also discussed.
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Arts Affect Stress, Immunity And Ageing
- Arts trigger reward systems and reduce stress, affecting neurotransmitters, autonomic function, hormones and immune markers.
- Regular engagement links to lower inflammation and slower biological ageing markers.
Negative Emotions Can Be Healthy
- Sad or challenging art can still be beneficial because we experience aesthetic distance.
- This helps the brain rehearse emotion regulation and predictive coding for real-life events.
Singing Beat Socialising For Postnatal Depression
- Daisy describes trials where singing classes for mothers with postnatal depression outperformed non-singing social groups.
- Singing improved mood via bonding, emotional expression and mother-baby interaction beyond social support alone.
