Health | 100 Tips

How I Grew Out My Pixie Cut

Image: Instagram @lauriceimani

I vividly remember sitting at my computer Googling phrase after phrase with no luck. “How to grow out a pixie cut fast“, “how to grow your hair”, and “how did Jennifer Lawrence grow out her pixie so easily?” got me nowhere. I cut my hair after allowing my friend to color it at home—big mistake. I had never colored my hair and had NO idea how much work taking care of colored strands really was. So I continued my usual hair routine, completely disregarding breakage. I decided I would get my hair braided, weaved, and then braided again, until my stylist admitted that my hair was extremely unhealthy.

She told me that I was running out of options and if I was ever going to get my hair back to a healthy state, I needed to at least trim some of the split ends. I thought about the idea of a trim and basically having a mushroom cut (not cute…), and decided to let her go for the big chop. I was emotional; I never liked the idea of cutting my already short hair. But eventually, I fell in love with my pixie and couldn’t imagine my life without it. I moved cities and was afraid I wouldn’t find another stylist who could cut my hair like my last, so I started the journey of growing out my hair. My only goal? To be able to put my hair in small, bun ballerina bun. (Spoiler alert: Goal = achieved.)

Here are some tips, truths, and strategies I found helpful while growing out my pixie:

Purchase the products your stylist uses

Of course you don’t have to use everything your stylist uses on your hair, but I like to believe that your hair is like a good boyfriend. It likes consistency and tender love and care. I asked her how to use each product and how often each should be applied, and the rest is history.

Become a regular at your salon

My bank account wasn’t too happy, but I did my best to make sure I visited my hairstylist at least twice a month. I wanted to make sure my hair was doing well and in a healthy state.

Braid it

Braids are a complicated subject for most women—either you love them on yourself or you don’t. I found a style I was in love with and braided my hair so that I didn’t keep playing in it. One of the main reasons my hair was getting so damaged was because I couldn’t keep my hands out of it. Braids solved that problem.

Get extensions

Playing with different lengths and textures was probably the only reason I didn’t run back to my stylist for anotherhaircut.

Embrace the bad hair days

You’re forced to get creative when growing out your hair, which means you’re guaranteed to have a few bad hair days. And then you’ll have days when you look in the mirror and decide yep, it’s a hat day.

Take supplements

I took biotin supplements ($11.50, target.com) for a good portion of the time it took to grow my hair longer and noticed a huge difference. My hair was growing a lot faster, but also growing at a quicker pace. The only downside was that the pills were a bit large and hard to swallow. If taking straight biotin scares you, try HUM Nutrition Runway Ready Supplements ($35, humnutrition.com), which strengthens your hair and nails with a mix of vitamins.

This article originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com.

More from MIMI:

You Just Got a Pixie Cut — Now What?

The 25 Most Iconic Celebrity Pixie Cuts

Everything You Need to Manage Your Pixie Cut

Malin Akerman Shares Her Tricks for Growing Out Your Pixie Cut

MIMI Chatter is an endless stream of beauty content. We bring together the must-knows and the how-tos from your favorite sites, beauty influencers, our editors, and YOU.

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Lena Dunham On How Exercise Changed Her Life

Photo: Getty Images

Once upon a time, Lena Dunham‘s boyfriend told her she was “the most mentally energetic, physically lazy person he’s ever met.” And she agreed with him. Now, the author-actress-screenwriter-producer-overall superstar is proud to share mid-jog paparazzi shots on her Instagram. How’d she come such a long way?

In a new interview with espnW, the author, actress, Girls creator, and co-owner of the soon-to-launch Lenny newsletter opened up about her evolution from a sports-free childhood to having a newfound love of running. One of the best parts, she explained, was realizing just how much her body is physically capable of. (The talk was part of espnW‘s “My Body Can” campaign, a series to celebrate women’s athletic accomplishments.)

“When we really own and understand our bodies and claim our physicality, our superficial quibbles with our bodies lessen because we realize what our bodies can do for us,” Dunham told the website. “My relationship to eating, my relationship to critiquing my own shape, all of that has changed since I’ve started viewing my body much more as a tool to do my work.”

Here are our favorite healthy and happy quotes from her candid chat.

On learning to love fitness

“When it became something that actually gave me pleasure, I was shocked. Also, endorphins are real. You run with someone for an hour, you feel pretty good,” she said. “Running for an hour does not make you feel worse.”

Is a triathlon on her horizon? Not yet—and that’s totally okay, she said. “I just feel good knowing that if I were to choose to try and run, it would be possible,” said Dunham.

She also talked about getting hooked on the workout method crafted by Tracy Anderson (who is Health‘s contributing fitness editor), which Dunham described as “a mix of aerobics, strength training, and something that kind of resembles Pilates.”

Dunham explained, “With Tracy it’s not about getting everyone to look a specific way. It’s about getting everyone to feel strong. And she uses the word ‘connected’ a lot, which I really love. I love the idea of feeling connected.”

On using exercise to help relieve her anxiety

When Dunham is up against a jam-packed schedule and can’t fit in her workouts as much as she’d like, she feels the anxiety “creeping back in.”

“I have to remind myself that when you exercise, there is a natural calm that comes from knowing that you did something with your body that day. Actually going and working out makes everything else easier and better,” she continued.

The star also addressed her struggles with endometriosis and obsessive-compulsive disorder: “Another lesson came because I have endometriosis, which has been chronic for me and at times very painful. I’ve also had mental health issues. I value my health and my happiness. And I’ve realized exercise can give me both of those things.”

On getting older

It’s constantly evolving, according to the 29-year-old. “I’m going to be 30 next year. I had to learn, as you age, you have to move. You have to move so you don’t die. You have to move so your brain doesn’t atrophy. … There are a thousand reasons why exercise is important, and I’ve had to find ways to make it sexy for myself.”

On her favorite physical trait

Let’s just say she doesn’t hate staring into her own eyes—or at her boobs. “I don’t know if this counts, but I’m really into my face. I feel good about it most days,” she said. “I like my teeth and my eyeballs. And I also really, really feel great about my boobs. They are doing what I want them to, and I feel like they’re continuing to impress me as they grow and change.”

On the haters

Dunham is no stranger to dealing with trolls who feel the need to constantly critique her body on her Instagram, but she doesn’t ever let it get to her.

“When I see s—-y comments, at this point they don’t even feel like they’re about me. Like, I don’t feel I need to lose 200 pounds or whatever these people are saying. I don’t feel that way about myself. I feel like I have better days, I have worse days, but I’m pretty happy in my own form.”

On the advice she’d give other women

Focus on loving your whole self—not just your thighs. “I know that so many women think they’re being held back by the shape of their body, and ultimately what is holding them back is that they have absorbed all of this negative messaging,” Dunham said. “And so you just have to work, we all have to work really hard to take care of ourselves and feed ourselves good information, just like we feed ourselves good food.”

Her second life tip? Get rid of your scale. “There is no reason why you ever need to be getting a scale or measuring your value by a scale,” she added.

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5 Ways I’m Changing My Training for My Second Race

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I ran the New York City Half this spring as part of a local charity team. It was my first-ever public race, and my biggest concern was finishing the thing without keeling over somewhere between Times Square and Battery Park.

Thankfully, I crossed that finish line alive (woohoo!) and determined to do it all over again in another half-marathon—because survival, as they say in Star Trek, is insufficient. Now I’m gearing up for the Staten Island Half in October, and I have every intention of making my performance back in March look like kid stuff.

How, you ask? Well, I learned a thing or two during my first try at training. Here are the five things I’m doing differently this time, so you can learn from my mistakes.

I’m training with a buddy

My husband has decided to throw his shoes in the ring for this race, which is excellent news: battles of the sexes and Feats of Strength aside, it’s much easier to plan our weekends when everybody’s got a long run to crank out. Furthermore, there’s much to be said for not going it alone: researchers from Michigan State University found that women who performed aerobic exercise with a partner performed significantly better (and were more motivated to work out again) than those who exercised alone.

I’m taking rest days seriously

Back in the spring, I took a “more is more” approach to training. I figured that sneaking in an extra run on so-called recovery days would render me all the more Amazonian when it came to race time. In reality, I ended up exhausted; I’m lucky I didn’t hurt myself. “When you’re increasing your physical activity, your body needs rest more than ever,” says Sarah Wenk, the personal trainer and running coach who advised my team the first time around. “You’re putting extra strain on every system in your body. One or two days a week of rest (which can include yoga or Pilates, or one day of total rest and one with something like an easy swim) will give everything a chance to sink in and reset.” Yes, ma’am.

I’m checking out the course ahead of time

I told myself that I’d head uptown and eyeball the race route ahead of time for my first half marathon, but it was snowy and I was lazy. Instead, I found a few maps and read blog posts from people who’d run it before. On the day of the race, I congratulated myself for making it through the hilly part of the course—then turned a corner and discovered much more of it. That process repeated itself, oh, six times; there’s just no substitute for previewing a course in person if you can. (There are also no substitutes for riding the Staten Island Ferry with my training buddy or pizza at Goodfella’s once we’re out there, two additional enticements of the previewing plan.)

I’m doing speed work

“For first-time racers, speed work isn’t essential,” Wenk says. “You just want to run your race and have that experience, then evaluate and decide what’s next.” That was my reasoning back in the spring, and I ignored tempo runs and intervals in my training schedule. Now that I know 13.1 miles are within my ability, I’m making things weird: a 20-minute hard run on one day, 8 sets of 400-meter almost-sprints and cool-downs on another, and so forth. They are by no means as pleasant as my training runs of yore, but I can feel my bewildered lungs and quads figuring things out. “If your goal is to run faster,” Wenk says, “you have to run faster.” Hang in there, lungs and quads! We’re turning into a real runner!

I’m learning to love the balm

It took me a very long time to acknowledge that chafing doesn’t mean I need to buy yet another sports bra, or feel ashamed of how much I sweat, or overhaul my form again. Chafing happens to me because it’s a common complaint for long-distance runners, and I’m tired of coming home from a training session feeling like I’ve just escaped from a fetish dungeon. If that means getting balmy with Body Glide prior to runs, so be it; by God, this half marathon will be smooth.

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Antidepressants Top Treatment Choice for Severe PMS: Researchers

By Emily Willingham
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 23, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Antidepressants are the first treatment choice for a severe type of premenstrual syndrome associated with suicidal thoughts, according to a new research review.

Up to 8 percent of women with PMS have this condition, called premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, according to researchers who evaluated 31 published studies on it.

Any woman with “depression, hopelessness, and self-deprecating thoughts that occur in the final week before the onset of menses” should see that as a warning sign to consult her physician, said study author Kenneth Trevino, a psychologist at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Options for treating PMDD include birth control pills, psychiatric drugs like antidepressants, and supplements such as saffron, calcium and ginkgo biloba, the researchers say in background notes.

The researchers’ “reasonable and evidence-based” recommendations are important because “rather than just being a nuisance, PMDD interferes with a woman’s ability to ‘do life,'” said Dr. Christine Isaacs, a division head of the Virginia Commonwealth University’s department of obstetrics and gynecology, who wasn’t involved in the study.

Trevino and his co-author Shalini Maharaj, also at UT Southwestern, looked at the evidence supporting different therapies. They recommended that antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, should be the first choice for a woman with PMDD. This class of drugs includes Paxil, Zoloft and Prozac.

Serotonin is a nerve signaling chemical, or neurotransmitter, related to mood. SSRIs help keep this chemical available longer for brain cells to use, according to researchers.

Trevino and Maharaj analyzed studies looking at these antidepressants in almost 4,400 women with PMDD or premenstrual syndrome. Their recommendations were published in the September issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Practice.

Hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle can affect serotonin levels, which is one factor in PMDD, said the study authors. About 60 to 70 percent of women with PMDD will experience improvement with an SSRI, Trevino noted.

In general, PMDD differs from premenstrual syndrome by involving several symptoms just before a period starts, including mood-related problems such as anger, anxiety or depressed mood, and physical symptoms such as low energy or appetite, headaches or sleeplessness, Trevino said.

Isaacs also looks for repeated bouts of these issues in patients. “I would expect these symptoms to repeat and be cyclic in nature,” she said. “Often, I find women will come speak to me after the encouragement of a family member or loved one who is worried about them, having observed this pattern on multiple occasions.”

Trevino said the primary factor that should be considered is symptom severity, especially a woman’s current level of emotional distress. “The greater the symptom severity, the more important it is to start with the most effective or established treatment option, which would be an SSRI,” he said.

However, SSRIs are not for everyone. Just this week, a study published in the British Medical Journal concluded that Paxil (paroxetine) is not safe for teens with major depression, increasing their risk of suicidal behavior and self-harm.

Trevino said the 30 to 40 percent of women with PMDD who don’t benefit from antidepressants might try other treatment options, such as anti-anxiety medications or hormonal contraceptives. Indeed, contraceptives can be considered for a woman who wants to start birth control anyway, he said.

For other patients, “I may incorporate multiple modalities, such as SSRI and calcium, and recommend an exercise regimen,” said Isaacs. “It requires some trial and error at first and close follow-up with a trusted provider.”

The researchers found that calcium supplementation appears helpful for women with PMDD.

Options such as saffron and ginkgo biloba showed some promise in initial trials but need more research, said the authors. Behavioral therapies don’t seem to produce much improvement, they found.

Dietary factors like caffeine and “carbohydrate-rich” beverages seemed to have some benefit for mood in women with premenstrual syndrome, the authors wrote. Results with exercise are “encouraging” but also require more study, they said.

The last-ditch choice when other options don’t work is a drug that brings on “medical menopause,” but these medications are costly and can have unpleasant, menopause-like side effects, said the authors.

All of the possible therapies have their pros and cons, said Isaacs. “As a general philosophy, I try to incorporate the safest, least-invasive options first,” she said.

More information

For more about PMS and PMDD, see Womenshealth.gov.

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Suicides Decline With Prevention Measures at Known ‘Hotspots’: Study

TUESDAY, Sept. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Preventive measures at “suicide hotspots” such as high bridges and cliffs might greatly reduce the number of suicides at these locations, a new review suggests.

Researchers analyzed data from 18 studies to determine the effects of three methods of suicide prevention in use at known suicide hotspots around the world.

The intervention methods include signs that encourage people to seek help and provide crisis telephone numbers (help-seeking), increased video surveillance and suicide patrols (third-party help), and measures such as installing safety nets and barriers to block the means of suicide (access restriction).

The average number of suicides at the sites dropped from almost six to to slightly more than two per year after the interventions were implemented, according to the study being published online Sept. 23 in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry.

When combined with other interventions, access restriction led to 91 percent fewer suicides per year and 93 percent fewer suicides when used alone.

Measures encouraging people to seek help led to 51 percent fewer suicides when used with other interventions, and 61 percent fewer suicides when used alone. Third-party help measures led to 47 percent fewer suicides when used with other measures.

“These key interventions have the potential to complement each other and buy time to allow an individual to reconsider their actions and allow others the opportunity to intervene,” study author Jane Pirkis said in a journal news release. Pirkis is director of the Centre for Mental Health at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Although suicide methods at high-risk locations may have only a small impact on overall rates, Pirkis said attempts at these sites are often fatal and attract media attention that can lead to copycat acts.

“These methods of suicide also have a distressing impact on the mental well-being of witnesses and people who live or work near these locations,” she said.

Pirkis also noted that even though restricting access may shift the problem from one site to another, it still results in a significant overall reduction in deaths.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Eric Caine wrote that blocking access to a hotspot should be part of a broader overall regional or national approach to suicide prevention. Caine is from the Injury Control Research Center for Suicide Prevention at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about suicide prevention.

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Not All Trans Fats Harm the Heart, German Study Contends

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Sept. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — For years, trans fats have been viewed as bad for the heart, prompting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last summer to ban artificial trans fats from food products.

But a new study suggests that not all trans fats are equal, and some might even be good for you.

The German researchers found that naturally occurring trans fats found in dairy and meat products might actually help protect the heart, while low levels of artificial trans fats did not seem to pose a health risk.

“We now show that, at these low levels, industrially produced trans fats are not hazardous to health,” said senior study author Clemens von Schacky, head of preventive cardiology at the University of Munich. “Come to think of it, it is a fairly common phenomenon: Some things are toxic at high levels, but we can live with them at low levels.”

The findings were published in the Sept. 23 issue of the European Heart Journal.

Trans fats have long been considered the worst type of dietary fat, since they have been shown to simultaneously increase “bad” LDL cholesterol and lower “good” HDL cholesterol, according to the American Heart Association.

In June, the FDA gave food manufacturers three years to remove partially hydrogenated oils, American’s primary source of dietary trans fats, from the nation’s food supply.

Alice Lichtenstein is director of Tufts University’s Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory and an expert with the American Heart Association. She said the new study, while interesting, does not show that FDA regulators made the wrong call.

“It [the study] certainly raises some important questions that we’ll need to think about, but right now these data do not suggest that in 2015 in the U.S., that we should change our recommendations regarding trans-fatty acids,” Lichtenstein said. “The overwhelming amount of scientific evidence supports that decision.”

Partially hydrogenated oils are created by pumping hydrogen into vegetable oil to make it more solid, and they are used to improve the texture, shelf-life and long-term flavor of processed foods, according to the FDA.

But some trans fats are naturally produced in the gut of some animals, and can be found in the milk and meat derived from these animals, the heart association explains.

In background information, the researchers noted it is well-established that high levels of artificial trans fats in food can lead to high cholesterol, heart problems, stroke and diabetes. They have even been linked to infertility, Alzheimer’s disease and some cancers.

However, few have explored whether low levels of trans fats can be safe for humans, and whether or not there is any difference between artificial and naturally occurring trans fats, von Schacky explained.

For their government-funded study, the researchers measured the concentrations of trans fats found in the membranes of red blood cells in participants in a long-term, ongoing study of about 3,300 heart patients in Germany. During an average follow-up period of just over 10 years, 30 percent of the patients died.

The investigators assessed the total concentrations of trans fats in each patient’s blood, and also sorted out concentrations of artificial versus natural trans fats.

The study found that people with higher levels of naturally occurring trans fats were 37 percent less likely to suffer a sudden cardiac death, compared with those who had low levels of natural trans fats.

“We were surprised to find that naturally occurring trans fats were associated with a lower rate of deaths from any cause, and this was driven mainly by a lower risk of sudden cardiac death,” lead author Dr. Marcus Kleber, a post-doctoral researcher at the Vth Department of Medicine of the Medical Faculty Mannheim at Heidelberg University, said in a statement.

However, the study was not designed to prove a cause-and-effect link between the two.

At the same time, the researchers found that increased levels of artificial trans fats did not appear to increase a person’s risk of death.

There is a catch, though — the Germans in the study had levels of trans fats that were much lower than those typically found in Americans.

Trans fats in the blood of the German study participants averaged just under 1 percent. By comparison, a recent study in the United States found that Americans have a 2.6 percent concentration of trans fats, on average, the study authors pointed out.

Von Schacky said Germans’ low levels allowed researchers to properly assess the safety of small amounts of trans fat in people.

“You could not have done the study we did in the U.S.,” he said. “However, in Germany, levels of industrially produced trans fats were low already years ago. Therefore, we could find out what that means.”

But Lichtenstein said that the low trans fat levels in Germans may have skewed the study’s results, since the researchers couldn’t assess the effects of very large amounts of trans fats.

“They may not have the range of intakes necessary to properly test the connection,” she said.

The low levels of trans fats in Germans might also point to other fundamental differences between Germans and Americans that would affect the results, including weight, smoking and other heart risk factors, Lichtenstein added.

More information

Visit the American Heart Association for more on trans fats.

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‘The View’ Is Losing Advertisers After Bashing Miss Colorado

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The fallout continues for ABC’s The View following the show’s co-hosts snarky comments about Miss Colorado Kelley Johnson’s nurse monologue at the 2016 Miss America pageant. Several advertisers have now pulled their support for the program.

Johnson & Johnson and Eggland’s Best were the first to cut ties from the daytime talk show last week, and Party City, Snuggle, and spice company McCormick followed suit the following day, according to multiple reports. It’s unclear whether the decisions are permanent.

On Thursday, Johnson & Johnson was first to release a statement announcing the company disagrees “with recent comments on daytime television about the nursing profession and we have paused our advertising accordingly.” The following four companies took to Facebook to share the news of their decisions, along with messages in defense of nurses. (Party City responded to individual commenters on its page that it has decided to “pause its advertising accordingly.”)

The social media storm began last Monday after hosts Michelle Collins and Joy Behar joked about Johnson’s talent portion during the pageant, during which the 22-year-old performed a monologue about her career as a nurse who aids Alzheimer’s patients.

“There was a girl who wrote her own monologue and I was like ‘Turn the volume up, this is going be amazing—let’s listen,’” Collins said. “She came out in a nurse’s uniform and basically basically read her emails and, shockingly, did not win. I swear to God it was hilarious.”

Her co-host Joy Behar then chimed in, “Why does she have a doctor’s stethoscope on?”

Collins continued the cringeworthy commentary by telling the crowd, “She helps patients with Alzheimer’s, which I know is not funny, but I swear, you have to see it. Like, Google it if you can.”

Nurses across the country immediately rallied on social media with the hashtag #NursesUnite to support Johnson, who spoke out Thursday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show about the situation, saying “[Nurses] work so hard and they are life savers, and that was all the message I wanted to give. It’s about them, not about me.”

After initial apologies on last Wednesday’s show, the hosts went a step further by inviting a group of nurses to visit the show on Friday and take a stand for their hard work. Collins went on to apologize again for her comments and said she “really didn’t understand the challenges facing nurses.”

Behar also added during Friday’s episode that it has become “abundantly clear to me this week that nurses wear stethoscopes.”

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5 Surprising Health Benefits of Religion

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On Tuesday afternoon, Pope Francis touched down on American soil for the first time when he landed outside Washington, D.C., to begin his six-day visit. “The People’s Pope,” as Time named him, is expected to draw enormous crowds, and Catholics aren’t the only ones expected to gather. Francis is popular across the board, with a whopping 90% approval rate among Catholics, 74% with Protestants, and even a favorable 68% with those unaffiliated with a church, according to a Pew Research Center survey.

Excited about the Pope’s visit? Interestingly, being a believer is great for your health. In honor of the pontiff’s big trip, we rounded up five ways any kind of religion or spirituality has been shown to benefit your mind and body.

Lower blood pressure

Watching your blood pressure? A 1998 study found that religiously active older adults are 40% less likely to have high blood pressure than those who are less active. The researchers from Duke University Medical Center measured the blood pressure of almost 4,000 participants, and surveyed them on their religious participation, and while the results were positive for spiritual people, the researchers couldn’t figure out why.

More life satisfaction

Religious people report more happiness and score higher in terms of life-satisfaction than non-believers. According to a 201o study in the American Sociological Review, this is likely because regular church attendance leads to strong social bonds within congregations. In other words, believers tend to have more friends!

More resilience in the face of insurmountable odds

When people are suffering from advanced-stage cancers, turning to religion to cope may actually prolong their lives, according to a 2009 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers interviewed 345 late-stage cancer patients, and assessed their spirituality up through their death. Most of the patients—88%—were religious, and their resilience showed during treatment. The rate of resuscitation was 7.4% for those with a high level of religious coping, versus 1.8% among those with low levels.

A healthier immune system

Colds beware: those who attend religious services at least once a week may have a stronger immune system. The 1997 study, also from Duke University Medical Center looked at 1,718 older adults, and found that the highly spiritual participants were about half as likely as those who don’t attend religious services to have high levels of interleukin-6, an inflammatory protein in the immune system linked to certain cancers, autoimmune diseases, and some viral infections.

A longer life

Finally, attending religious services more than once a week has been linked to an additional seven years of life, compared to those who never go. The 1999 study found that skipping religious services translates into a 1.87 times greater risk of death versus those who (heh, religiously) show up. The researchers theorize the many social benefits of a religious community may help keep people healthier for longer.

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More Educated More Likely to Delve Into the Arts, Study Finds

TUESDAY, Sept. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — People with a high level of education are more likely to participate in the arts, a new study suggests.

Social status and income didn’t seem to affect participation in music, painting, photography, dance and drama, but having a college degree did, according to the report published recently in the journal Sociology.

“Arts participation, unlike arts consumption and cultural engagement generally, is not closely associated with either social class or social status. This result deviates from the expectation — unexpectedly, those with higher incomes are less likely to be arts participants,” wrote study leader Aaron Reeves, a sociologist at the University of Oxford in England.

The study involved slightly more than 78,000 people. Eighteen percent were involved in painting or photography, 9 percent danced, 10 percent were involved in music, 2 percent participated in drama or opera, and 6 percent were writers. Reeves said that 22 percent were not involved in any artistic activities.

Those with higher incomes were no more likely to participate in cultural activities than those making less money, the study found. Other factors that were not linked to the likelihood that someone would be active in the arts: higher social status or a high-level job.

Education was the strongest link to arts participation, the study showed. People with a college degree were about four times more likely to paint or engage in photography than those who didn’t go to college. College graduates were also five times more likely to be involved in dance or make crafts. They were also four times more likely to play a musical instrument, the study found.

Reeves suggested that one reason for the link between education and involvement in the arts could be because college graduates may have the intellectual capacity to not only enjoy but also participate in these cultural activities. Colleges partially base their admissions decisions on students’ extracurricular and cultural activities, which increases the odds that undergrads are already active in the arts, he added.

More information

The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies has more about arts participation.

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More Educated More Likely to Delve Into the Arts, Study Finds

TUESDAY, Sept. 22, 2015 (HealthDay News) — People with a high level of education are more likely to participate in the arts, a new study suggests.

More information

The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies has more about arts participation.

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Pages

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How I Grew Out My Pixie Cut

Purchase the products your stylist uses

Become a regular at your salon

Braid it

Get extensions

Embrace the bad hair days

Take supplements

Lena Dunham On How Exercise Changed Her Life

On learning to love fitness

On using exercise to help relieve her anxiety

On getting older

On her favorite physical trait

On the haters

On the advice she’d give other women

5 Ways I’m Changing My Training for My Second Race

I’m training with a buddy

I’m taking rest days seriously

I’m checking out the course ahead of time

I’m doing speed work

I’m learning to love the balm

Antidepressants Top Treatment Choice for Severe PMS: Researchers

Suicides Decline With Prevention Measures at Known ‘Hotspots’: Study

Not All Trans Fats Harm the Heart, German Study Contends

‘The View’ Is Losing Advertisers After Bashing Miss Colorado

5 Surprising Health Benefits of Religion

Lower blood pressure

More life satisfaction

More resilience in the face of insurmountable odds

A healthier immune system

A longer life

More Educated More Likely to Delve Into the Arts, Study Finds

More Educated More Likely to Delve Into the Arts, Study Finds