BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology for Clinical Settings
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1620583
The impact of digital art-making on anxiety: A feasibility study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Psychology, School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences, King's College London, London, United Kingdom
- 2Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
- 3Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Extensive research shows art-making reduces stress and activates the brain's reward system, yet few studies explore remote digital art interventions.This feasibility study examines whether a remote digital art-making intervention can reduce anxiety. It offers preliminary insights into the potential of online art tools to broaden access to creative expression.Participants engaged in an eight-week program using the Mindfull of Art platform, which enables digital artmaking without technical skills. Each week, they completed a themed task designed to encourage creativity and reduce self-criticism, along with surveys measuring anxiety, flow, and affect.At registration, we collected demographic data, artistic interest, self-perceived creativity, and trait anxiety. Trait anxiety was reassessed after eight weeks, regardless of participation level.Results suggest digital art-making can help reduce anxiety, especially in highly anxious individuals. Effects were independent of artistic interest or self-perceived creativity. This suggests self-guided digital art-making could be a scalable, affordable complement to existing mental health services.While intervention frequency did not predict outcomes, our findings align with prior research suggesting art based interventions support mental wellbeing, and highlight the potential of digital art-making as an accessible, low skill self-help tool for anxiety management.
Keywords: neuroaesthetics, Mental wellbeing, Digital art making, State-trait anxiety inventory, Aesthetic responsiveness, Art interventions
Received: 29 Apr 2025; Accepted: 05 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gallo, Giampietro and Choi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Laura M. H. Gallo, Department of Psychology, School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences, King's College London, London, United Kingdom
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.