Healing And Wellness Through Music

Music has been a part of man’s existence. It doesn’t matter which culture or era — music is as old civilization, older even.

You can make music with anything — from the most primitive instruments to the most advanced synthesizers. Perhaps the most natural for man is to produce vocal music.

You listen to music from your mother’s womb up to the end of your existence. We learn to move with music and call it another art form — dance. Music naturally became an expression, a medium which to communicate with passion. Music makes the world go round.

Your brain has a unique gift to perceive music. It has great influence to your mental, emotional, social and physical disposition.

Many among us make music a part of your daily lives. Commuters listen to music while on buses or trains, drivers sing along to radio tunes, gym buffs plug in their favorite pump-up songs for more energy in their workouts. For the most part, listening to music distracts us from the monotony of our daily responsibilities.

Each form of music has a different neurological stimulus on a particular person.

Read on and learn how listening to beautiful music can impact your health and general well-being.

Therapeutic Effects of Listening to Music

Reduces Stress, Anxiety, And Depression

Music can soothe your aching body and double the relaxation when you are listening to a soothing music while having massage.

Music would harmonize and organize your thought patterns as you gradually fall into a pleasant and relaxing trance.

When you’re feeling down or cranky, music can uplift your spirits and cheer you up. On the other hand, it can also mellow you down and even make you fall into a comfortable melancholic state.

Relieves Pain

Musical intervention has long been used in different pain management settings – labor room, operating room, doctor’s clinic and during chemotherapy sessions. This is because of music’s impact on dopamine release or maybe due to its effect in calming patients.

Improves Immune Functions

Listening and playing music increase the body’s production of antibody IgA (Immunoglobulin A), the first line of defense against diseases.

Increases Cognitive Performance

Listening to your favorite melodies can perk you up, thus improving your attention capacity and making you more alert. There are people who can work better under high-pressure situations with background music.

Music Therapy

Music Therapy is an established health practice and profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals.

Music can help patients with these conditions:

Autism – Autistics are said to show an intensive interest and response to music which may benefit them to communicate and establish normal self development.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s – Music has been found to reduce aggressiveness, troubled behavior, and eventually improves temper of demented patients and with Alzheimer’s.

Infant Development
A study has been conducted that soothing music may help newborn babies to relax, less agitated, and have better sleep quality. This is also true with adults — most can doze off easily and sleep like a baby when relaxing music is being played.

In Conclusion…

Neuroscience is just at the beginning stages in terms collecting data from various studies about music and how it affects people. It should be noted that the initial studies suggest that it has to do with how humans recognize the patterns of sound — whether its tempo, rhythm, melody, or harmony. This largely separates us from majority of animals.

Our response to music is an overall result of our instinct shaped through years of evolution.