The Health Benefits of Improv

Where an improviser goes, there are no roads, only possibilities. The stage is an empty space that becomes anything at all. A choice is made by one player, and another player responds to it, creating a world that only exists in the imagination of players and audience. For example, a player sits facing another player, also seated, leaning on an elbow as if there is a table between them. “Sorry I couldn’t take you to someplace a little nicer than this run-down old diner,” he says, then motions to a corner of the stage and tosses an imaginary quarter to his partner. “Go play a couple songs on the juke box.” “A real life juke box? From the olden days?” the other player responds, revealing that this character is much younger. “Yup, like in the olden days, when your mom and I went out on dates before you were born,” the first player says. Now we know they are a father and son. Their tone of voice, eye contact, and physicality establishes a dynamic. This simple, brief interaction is the heart of a human story generated by people having an impact on one another. We see this happen in real time. An improvised story is created at the same time it is told. The players discover the dynamic along with the audience. The improviser’s skills use emotion, action and imagination to produce a story, characters, props — and a world — out of thin air. This rich creative experience is powerfully satisfying to the brain, which feasts on the activity and the joy of discovering moments and scenes that range from wildly comic to wonderfully compelling. The process of brain-to-brain and social-emotional interaction makes improvisation training uniquely effective for strengthening the capacity to cope with uncertainty, manage anxiety and boost the creative thinking that is so essential to navigating an increasingly complex world.

What makes improvisation delightful to experience is the right combination of risk and reward. When we learn to improvise we practice deep listening, focused attention, and openness to others’ ideas. This requires effort, emotional risk, and engagement that light up the reward chemistry of the brain. “When learning is challenging, you have to pay more and better attention to each idea, causing your brain to build stronger connections between neural networks, which embeds the new knowledge for later recall,” write Mary Slaughter and David Rock in Fast Company’s “No Pain, No Brain Gain: Why Learning Demands (A Little) Discomfort. “ When an experience has just enough discomfort to trigger the brain’s natural problem-solving capacity — just not so much that the prefrontal cortex shuts down — it stimulate a lovely burst of dopamine, the brain chemistry associated with reward that is linked to motivation and learning. Add to that the laughter and social bonds generated by this kind of imaginative interaction and we have all the elements of a healthy, positive, social connection. The boost in positivity boosts our resilience and ability to manage real life stresses and problems.

The science of resilience tells us that mental states become neural traits. Day after day, our mind is building our brain - what scientists call “experience-dependent neuroplasticity,” - a hot area of research these days.” according to Brain Rules by molecular biologist John Medina. He explains that “when the brain detects an emotionally charged event, the amygdala releases dopamine into the system. Because dopamine greatly aids memory and information processing, you could say it creates a Post It note that reads ‘remember this.’”
A 2017 study published in the Journal of Mental Health looked at improvisation exercises as a therapeutic intervention and found significant improvement in symptoms of anxiety, depression, and reduction of perfectionism — which is a significant source of stress.

Improv games used in wellness classes and therapy groups have all the elements that make improvisation look like magic when performed onstage. Through adding details about character and setting to what another player offers, improvisers create a world together. Their commitment to the imagined reality ignites the imagination of observers, who enter a world that is invisible by any rational standard. To co-create an imagined reality with no script nor external direction nor guarantee of success, an improviser relies on a set of thinking and relationship skills that fine-tune the ability to communicate ideas clearly, rapidly assess what others are communicating and respond in ways that support and expand on those ideas. This method that relies on imagination and collaboration to create an entirely invisible world teaches us a mindset and toolkit for coping with the reality we share in daily life.

Jude Treder-Wolff, LCSW, CGP, CPAI is a consultant/trainer and writer/performer. She is President of Lifestage, a NYS-approved provider of Continuing Education for social workers that provides professional and personal development classes and workshops for individuals and organizations. She offers Improv For Everyone groups once a month and on some weekends at Lifestage. No experience in improvisation is required. The next group is Wed. Nov. 14, 2018.