Beauty Is Not a Luxury: The Neuroscience of Why We Need Beauty

Yesterday I had a very thought-provoking conversation with my friend Halka Baláčková. She was sharing her thoughts about a podcast she’d been listening to. It was about beauty. More precisely, the topic was around the perception of beauty as an essential component of our wellbeing and the neuroscience behind it.

Last night, I was lucky to experience raw beauty. In a small venue downtown, I witnessed my musician friends Strahil Gaydarski and Lucia Radecká perform jazz. And there it was—beauty in its purest form. Not just in the music itself, but in something even more profound: the beauty of co-creation.

Two musicians, listening so deeply to each other that they weren’t just playing together—they were thinking together, breathing together, and building something that neither could have created alone.

And just like that, the tension I had accumulated over the past period melted away, washed out by jazz rhythms.

So, what is it about beauty that moves us so? Do we really need it? And how does it impact us?

The Brain on Beauty: The Science

Research using fMRI has identified the specific area in the brain that activates when we experience beauty—whether visual, musical, or from other sources: the medial orbitofrontal cortex. This part of the brain plays a major role in our feelings of reward and pleasure.

But there is another, less obvious part of the brain that turns out to be crucial for aesthetic appreciation—the anterior insula. This part is typically associated with processing pain and disgust, functioning as part of the brain’s system for evaluating whether something is good or bad for us.

Beauty, in other words, is how our brain signals value. It’s an assessment system that tells us: this matters, pay attention.

Our brains respond rapidly and automatically to beauty, even when we’re not consciously thinking about it. Experiencing beauty activates our reward system, releasing dopamine and other neurochemicals that don’t just make us feel good—they motivate us, sharpen our focus, and prime us for learning.

It turns out that having beauty in our lives isn’t optional. It’s not a luxury or an indulgence. It’s essential brain food.

Beauty and Mental Health

The connection between beauty and mental wellbeing runs deeper than we might think. Perceptions of beauty significantly impact self-esteem, self-concept, and mental wellbeing. No, it’s not about unrealistic beauty standards or the pressure to look a certain way. It’s about the experience of encountering beauty in the world around us.

And noticing it!

Think about the last time you saw a sunset that stopped you in your tracks. Or heard a piece of music that gave you chills. Or watched someone do something with such skill and grace that you forgot to breathe. These aren’t frivolous moments—they’re neurologically restorative.

Beauty is everywhere. In nature, certainly—the way light filters through leaves or the geometry of frost on a window. It is also present in cities: architecture that makes you look up, street art that makes you smile, and the rhythm of footsteps on pavement.

Beauty is in smells—fresh bread, a forest just after the rain, and coffee in the morning.

It’s in sounds—laughter, birdsong, and the endless waves of the sea.

A smile, the tone of a loving “good morning,” a melting snowflake, peaceful silence… endless moments of beauty.

Beauty, at its core, is a feeling. It’s the moment when the external world and your internal state align perfectly, and something resonates.

Beauty and Creativity

Here’s where it gets even more interesting: experiencing beauty doesn’t just feel good—it enhances creativity by modulating brain networks involved in both idea generation and evaluation.

When we’re immersed in beauty, our default mode network—involved in memory retrieval and spontaneous divergent thinking, such as the “yes, and…” brainstorming method—becomes active, while the executive control network that normally keeps our thinking conventional temporarily quiets down.

This makes creativity more intuitive and associative.

In other words, experiencing beauty literally makes us more creative by opening new neural pathways and allowing unexpected connections to form.

Beauty in Jazz Bands and Teams

Which brings me back to that jazz concert.

Watching Strahil and Lucia perform, I remembered a metaphor used by one of my first Ericksonian trainers, Pedja Jovanovic: great jazz bands perform the same dance as great teams.

Jazz improvisation isn’t chaos—it’s structured freedom.

Research on improvising jazz pianists shows that activity in the area of the prefrontal cortex associated with self-monitoring decreases, while activity in areas associated with self-expression increases. This allows players to lose their inhibitions and become more creative.

Every high-performing team is a jazz band.

Think about it: in both, you need people who are deeply skilled in their individual instruments. But skill alone isn’t enough. You need people who can listen—truly listen—to what others are contributing. You need people who can read the room, sense where the energy is going, and adapt in real time.

In a jazz band, there’s no rigid hierarchy when the music is playing. Leadership flows. Someone takes a solo, and everyone else creates space for them to shine while supporting the structure. Then it shifts. Someone else steps forward. The bassist might lay down a groove that becomes the foundation. The drummer might shift the entire tempo and mood.

The beauty of jazz—and of great teamwork—is in the spaces between the notes. It’s in the trust that allows you to take risks. It’s in the generosity of amplifying someone else’s idea rather than competing with it. It’s in the collective intelligence that emerges when individuals stop protecting their own territory and start co-creating something bigger than themselves.

The Beauty of Metaphors

Speaking of jazz bands and teams, let’s talk about metaphors.

Metaphors are themselves a kind of beauty—they’re the brain’s way of finding unexpected connections and seeing patterns across different domains. When you hear “every team is a jazz band,” your brain doesn’t just understand it intellectually. It feels it. You can almost sense the improvisation and imagine the creative flow.

The default mode network, linked to imagination, creativity, and empathy, becomes active during moments when we experience beauty. It allows us to place ourselves within a piece of artwork and feel what the artist was feeling. Metaphors work in the same way—they engage multiple brain systems simultaneously, creating a richer and more memorable understanding.

During his storytelling course, my colleague David Merten dedicates an entire module to metaphors—and for good reason. Every leader, parent, and speaker should study and use metaphors, as they can access unconscious processes by bypassing analytical filters.

The best leaders, coaches, and facilitators know this intuitively. They don’t just give instructions—they paint pictures. They create resonance. They help people see and feel what’s possible.

Beauty as a Team Practice

So, what does all this mean for how we work together?

It means beauty isn’t a luxury we indulge in after the “real work” is done. Beauty is the work. Or at least, it should be woven into the work.

When we create space for beauty in our teams—whether through the elegance of a well-designed solution, the satisfaction of smooth collaboration, or the joy of creative problem-solving—we’re not just making things pleasant. We’re optimizing the neurological conditions that enhance creativity, strengthen connection, and improve mental wellbeing.

We’re creating the conditions for our teams to truly improvise together. To listen deeply. To take risks. To build on each other’s ideas with the kind of generosity and trust that makes something new and unexpected possible.

More on Beauty…

If you’re curious about how to bring more beauty, more creative flow, and more jazz-band energy into your teams, come and explore our team coaching course this November in Prague. It is ICF-accredited and includes CCEUs, but most importantly:

We focus on how to help teams move from mechanical coordination to genuine co-creation.

We work with the dynamics that make the difference between a group of people working near each other and a team that creates something none of them could have imagined alone.

If you want to know more about working with metaphors—learning to use language that doesn’t just inform but transforms, creates resonance, and unlocks new ways of seeing—join our fantastic MCC trainer Zerrin Baser in Prague in December for three days of Advanced Metaphors and Dreamwork.

Because at the end of the day, the most beautiful thing about beauty is this: it’s not scarce. It doesn’t run out when we use it. In fact, when we create it together—like musicians in a jam session—it multiplies.

And that’s not luxury. That’s necessity.

So, here’s your challenge: start noticing!

What’s your moment of beauty today? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Want to explore team coaching or metaphor work? Send me a message. Let’s create something beautiful together.