scientists now link creative hobbies to slower ageing

engaging with art may slow biological aging

What if visiting museums, attending concerts, singing in a choir, or regularly engaging with creative hobbies did more than improve mood or reduce stress? A new scientific study led by Daisy Fancourt suggests that arts and cultural engagement may also influence the biological pace at which we age.

Published in Innovation in Aging, the new research builds on years of work connecting the arts with physical and mental health outcomes. But while previous studies largely focused on wellbeing, depression, loneliness, or longevity, (find designboom’s previous coverage here) this latest paper moves into far more microscopic territory: epigenetic ageing, the molecular processes that shape how quickly the body biologically ages over time.

Drawing on data from more than 3,500 adults in the UK Household Longitudinal Study, the researchers found that people who engaged more frequently and more diversely with arts and cultural activities showed signs of slower biological aging across several advanced epigenetic aging clocks. Remarkably, the associations were found to be comparable in magnitude to those linked with physical activity.

Net Prostoria, Meštrović Pavilion, Zagreb, Croatia, 2021. image © Numen / For Use

from emotional wellbeing to molecular ageing

Over the last decade, Daisy Fancourt’s research has helped establish the growing field of arts and health, demonstrating how cultural participation can affect stress regulation, immune function, mental health, cognitive resilience, and even mortality risk. Her 2026 book Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health argued that the arts should be considered a foundational pillar of wellbeing alongside sleep, diet, exercise, and nature.

This new study by Fancourt together with Lehané Masebo, Saoirse Finn, Hei Wan Mak, and Feifei Bu pushes that argument further. The research investigates whether cultural engagement may be linked to measurable biological aging processes inside the body itself. The study focuses on epigenetic aging, a field of molecular biology that examines how environmental and behavioral factors influence patterns of DNA methylation over time.

Scientists increasingly use so-called epigenetic clocks to estimate biological age, which may differ from chronological age. While someone may be 50 years old chronologically, their biological aging markers could suggest a body aging faster or slower depending on lifestyle, stress exposure, and health behaviors.

The researchers analyzed seven different epigenetic clocks, ranging from earlier models based primarily on chronological age to newer generations designed to measure physiological decline and pace of aging. The strongest associations appeared in newer second- and third-generation clocks, including PhenoAge and DunedinPACE, which are considered more sensitive to health-related behavioral factors.

image by Uğurcan Özmen via Pexels

museums, concerts, choirs, and creative hobbies

The study defines arts and cultural engagement broadly, including visiting museums, galleries, and heritage sites; attending concerts, theater performances, and exhibitions; singing, dancing, painting, photography, and crafts; and participating in libraries, archives, and community cultural spaces.

Researchers evaluated both the frequency and diversity of engagement. Participants who engaged monthly or weekly with cultural activities generally showed slower biological ageing markers than those who participated only once or twice a year.

One of the most striking findings of the paper is that diversity mattered almost as much as frequency. People participating across many different kinds of cultural activities appeared to show stronger associations with slower aging than those engaging in only one or two forms.

The authors suggest this may be because different forms of arts engagement activate multiple systems simultaneously, including cognitive stimulation, emotional processing, sensory immersion, social interaction, creativity, identity formation, and stress reduction.

mezzanine library integrates modular shelving | image by Qingshan Wu

the comparison with exercise

Perhaps the most consequential aspect of the research is its direct comparison between arts engagement and physical activity. Alongside cultural participation, the study also analyzed exercise habits, including activities such as running, swimming, yoga, cycling, and walking. Both arts engagement and physical activity were associated with slower epigenetic aging, and the effect sizes were found to be broadly comparable across several measures.

The findings do not suggest that museums replace exercise or that attending a concert functions identically to physical training. But they do position arts and cultural participation as a potentially meaningful health behavior in its own right, rather than merely a form of leisure or entertainment.

For decades, exercise, diet, smoking cessation, and sleep have dominated discussions around healthy aging and longevity. The study proposes that cultural participation may deserve consideration within that same framework.

Importantly, the strongest findings appeared among adults over the age of 40, a period increasingly understood as a key threshold in the acceleration of biological aging processes.

Kimsooja, To Breathe — Constellation, 2024, image courtesy Pinault Collection

a new role for cultural spaces

Beyond the biological findings themselves, the research also carries broader implications for how cities and societies value cultural infrastructure. If museums, libraries, performance venues, choirs, and community arts programs contribute to healthier aging trajectories, cultural access begins to look like part of a preventative health ecosystem. This perspective aligns with a growing movement around social prescribing, where healthcare systems refer patients to community and cultural activities alongside medical treatment. Architecture, urban planning, exhibition design, acoustics, accessibility, and public cultural funding all become intertwined with questions of health and longevity.

The paper remains cautious in its conclusions. The researchers highlight that epigenetic aging science is still evolving and that associations do not prove direct causation. Biological aging clocks themselves remain an emerging and sometimes debated area of research.

Still, the study marks one of the clearest attempts yet to connect arts engagement with measurable molecular aging processes, suggesting that cultural participation may become increasingly important to how societies think about ageing itself. Daisy Fancourt’s research points toward a larger cultural shift, proposing that the arts also help shape the biological conditions through which people age, recover, and remain resilient over time.

image by Anastasia Shuraeva via Pexels