Using music with Therapy
Research has shown that music has a profound effect on your body and psyche. In fact, there’s a growing field of health care known as music therapy, which uses music to heal. Those who practice music therapy are finding a benefit in using music to help cancer patients, children with ADD, and others, and even hospitals are beginning to use music and music therapy to help with pain management, to help ward off depression, to promote movement, to calm patients, to ease muscle tension, and for many other benefits that music and music therapy can bring. This is not surprising, as music affects the body and mind in many powerful ways.
The following are some of the effects of music, which help to explain the effectiveness of music therapy:
Music alters brain waves: Research has shown that music with a strong beat can stimulate brainwaves to resonate in sync with the beat, with faster beats bringing sharper concentration and more alert thinking, and a slower tempo promoting a calm, meditative state. Also, research has found that the change in brainwave activity levels that music can bring can also enable the brain to shift speeds more easily on its own as needed, which means that music can bring lasting benefits to your state of mind, even after you’ve stopped listening.
Music, breathing and heart rate: With alterations in brainwaves come changes in other bodily functions. Biofeedback therapists use music to teach you to regulate body processes governed by the autonomic nervous system, such as breathing and heart rate. Blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, irregular heartbeat, migraine headaches and healing can be regulated by the changes music can bring. This can mean slower breathing, slower heart rate, and an activation of the relaxation response, among other things. This is why music and music therapy can help counteract or prevent the damaging effects of chronic stress, greatly promoting not only relaxation, but long term health.
A calmer state of mind: Music can also be used to reach an alpha brain wave state - a more positive state of mind, helping to keep depression and anxiety at bay. This can help prevent the stress response from wreaking havoc on the body, and can help keep creativity and optimism levels higher, bringing many other benefits.
Other Benefits: Music has also been found to bring many other benefits, such as lowering blood pressure (which can also reduce the risk of stroke and other health problems over time), boost immunity, ease muscle tension, and more.
Using Music On Your Own: While music therapy is an important discipline, you can also achieve many benefits from music on your own. Music can be used in daily life for relaxation, to gain energy when feeling drained, for catharsis when dealing with emotional stress, and in other ways as well. Think about how certain music makes you feel. When you think about "throwing your hands in the air like you just don't care" - your whole body loses tension!
In recent research it was found that the organs of the body respond the same way to an imagined activity as they do to the activity itself. Specifically, it was found that music causes the brain to activate physical capabilities in Parkinson's patients that they could not experience when they were not hearing the music. Music from "back in the day" allowed them to dance and move in ways that their Parkinson's disease normally prevented.
So when you're feeling down and overwhelmed, re-energize with your favorite up-tempo jam! Pay attention to what that feels like, and whenever you need it, go to that feeling. It will bring good-mood hormones not just to your mind, but to your entire body.
Using music does not replace therapy but music can be used to complement those tools that have been learned in therapy.