Poetry offers therapeutic and neurobiological benefits. Written poetry has existed for thousands of years and remains widely read, including works such as Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Paradise Lost. Neuroscience findings indicate that poetry can induce peak emotional experiences, including chills and goosebumps, which reflect meaningfulness and personal profundity. Poetry-elicited chills resemble those triggered by music and are associated with heightened activity in reward-related brain regions. Poetry also functions as an ancient, cross-cultural form of communication that emotionally resonates, mirroring human struggles, resiliency, and triumphs.
"According to a 2017 study, "poetry is capable of inducing peak emotional experiences, including subjectively reported chills and objectively measured goosebumps" (Wassiliwizky & others, 2017). Those chills and goosebumps that you feel when a line of verse resonates signify how meaningfulness and personal profundity can be found in a poem."
"Poetry-elicited chills are similar to those triggered by music and are understood to signify heightened activity within the reward-related brain regions (Blood & Zatorre, 2001). Much like music, "poetry represents an ancient, cross-cultural, and emotionally powerful variety within the human communicative and expressive repertoire" (Bradshaw & others, 2004)."
"There is good reason for this power that poetry has: dating back some 4,300 years, written poetry is the most ancient record of human literature. Many poems, such as Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Paradise Lost, are still widely read and admired today."
"Time and again, I have come back to poetry, which has served as a descriptor of human experience, a balm for a wounded world, and a humanizing force that mirrors our struggles, resiliency, and triumphs."
Read at Psychology Today
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