Good art decreases pain. Bad art, not so much.

A recent study from Consciousness and Cognition found that people looking at art they considered beautiful allowed them to distract themselves from a painful stimuli. They used a laser (not to be confused with the pain-relieving cold laser therapy available at most of our offices) and then directly measured brain waves activated when pain is occurring as well as the subjects opinion on the pain. Neutral or ugly art neither increased or decreased pain on average. Favorites as beautiful were "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh and Botticellis "Birth of Venus", Picasso's work was often chosen as ugly. Interestingly, a few labelled Edward Munch's "The Scream" as beautiful, and noticed pain lessened while looking at it. As doctors focused on relieving pain, we are focused on any reasonable means of reducing pain, and there's certainly no harm in enjoying the art. In addition to encouraging people with pain to use art as a way of feeling better, it has other applications too. Men who are asked their opinion of china patterns, fabric swatches or paint samples could offer concrete evidence that they have absolutely no aesthetic preference. I would personally find this less painful than traditional alternatives. Art critics who claim an uncoventional art is beautiful could have their brain waves measured to see if they're telling the truth, or just being pretentious. If you've got a question on therapy for pain; conventional, unconventional or completely outside the box, feel free to ask any of our doctors.