placeholder

Healing Arts in the Age of Anxiety

Location

Truman Brewery (Truman Brewery Stage 2)

Date & Time

June 3, 2025, 10:05 - 10:40 AM

About

Category: Business & Leadership

Track: People & Workplace

Format: Panel

Description

"Healing Arts in the Age of Anxiety" will be a timely discussion on the potential of the arts to support evidence-based arts interventions that can promote, protect, and restore our mental health. Despite a growing body of evidence showing that arts engagement improves emotional regulation, lowers stress hormones like cortisol, enhances cognitive flexibility, and builds social connection, the arts remain under-utilised in health systems worldwide. In an age of heightened anxiety, attention fatigue, and deepening isolation, the arts offer accessible, community-based, and evidence-informed pathways to mental wellbeing. Yet global health strategies have often bypassed this powerful resource, leaving behind a gap that cannot be filled by medicine or technology alone. The economic implications of this omission are stark: mental health conditions are projected to cost the global economy $6 trillion annually by 2030, with depression already the leading cause of workplace absenteeism in many high-income countries. Investing in the arts is not just a cultural imperative—it is a scalable, cost-effective health intervention and a productivity strategy.

Speakers

CB

Christopher Bailey

Arts & Health Lead, World Health Organization & Co-Director, Jameel Arts & Health Lab

World Health Organization

DS

Dr. Nisha Sajnani

Founder, Arts & Health @ NYU & Co-Director

Jameel Arts & Health Lab

SS

Stephen Stapleton

Founder, EOA & Co-Director

Jameel Arts & Health Lab

Moderator

LV

Lord Ed Vaizey

Advisor, Radio Presenter, Member of the House of Lords

Times Radio

View all Sessions