music has the power to heal essay

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Essay on Music Has Healing Power – Short & Long Essay Examples

Essay on Music Has Healing Power: Music has been a powerful force throughout history, capable of evoking emotions, memories, and even physical responses. But beyond its ability to entertain and inspire, music also has the incredible power to heal. In this essay, we will explore the ways in which music can be a source of comfort, solace, and healing for individuals facing physical, emotional, and mental challenges. From reducing stress and anxiety to improving mood and promoting relaxation, music truly has the power to heal.

Table of Contents

Music Has Healing Power Essay Writing Tips

1. Start by choosing a specific aspect of music’s healing power to focus on in your essay. This could be the emotional impact of music, its ability to reduce stress and anxiety, or its role in physical healing.

2. Begin your essay with a strong introduction that grabs the reader’s attention and introduces the topic of music’s healing power. You could start with a personal anecdote, a surprising fact, or a powerful quote about the impact of music on health and well-being.

3. Provide evidence to support your argument that music has healing power. This could include research studies, testimonials from individuals who have experienced the healing effects of music, or examples of music therapy programs that have been successful in treating various health conditions.

4. Use specific examples of how music has been used to promote healing in different settings, such as hospitals, rehabilitation centers, or mental health facilities. You could also discuss the role of music in traditional healing practices, such as shamanic rituals or religious ceremonies.

5. Consider the different ways in which music can have a healing effect, such as through its ability to evoke emotions, create a sense of connection and community, or provide a distraction from pain and discomfort.

6. Address any potential counterarguments to your thesis that music has healing power. This could include skepticism about the effectiveness of music therapy, concerns about the potential for music to be misused in healing contexts, or the limitations of music as a standalone treatment for serious health conditions.

7. Conclude your essay by summarizing your main points and reinforcing the idea that music has a powerful healing effect on individuals. You could also offer suggestions for how music could be more widely integrated into healthcare settings to promote healing and well-being.

8. Proofread your essay carefully to ensure that it is well-organized, coherent, and free of grammatical errors. Consider asking a friend or family member to read your essay and provide feedback before submitting it.

Essay on Music Has Healing Power in 10 Lines – Examples

1. Music has the power to reduce stress and anxiety levels in individuals. 2. Listening to music can improve mood and increase feelings of happiness and relaxation. 3. Music has been shown to lower blood pressure and heart rate, promoting physical health. 4. It can help individuals cope with difficult emotions and experiences. 5. Music therapy is a recognized form of treatment for various mental health conditions. 6. Playing musical instruments can improve cognitive function and memory. 7. Music can provide a sense of connection and community for individuals. 8. It has the ability to evoke powerful emotions and memories in listeners. 9. Music can be a form of self-expression and creativity for individuals. 10. Overall, music has the incredible ability to heal and uplift the mind, body, and soul.

Sample Essay on Music Has Healing Power in 100-180 Words

Music has the incredible ability to heal and soothe the soul. It has been used for centuries as a form of therapy to help individuals cope with emotional and physical pain. The power of music lies in its ability to evoke emotions, memories, and feelings that can help us process and work through our struggles.

Listening to music can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, as it has a calming effect on the mind and body. It can also improve mood, increase motivation, and boost overall well-being. Music therapy is often used in hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and mental health facilities to help patients recover and heal.

Whether it’s through playing an instrument, singing, or simply listening to a favorite song, music has the power to uplift, inspire, and heal. It connects us to our emotions and allows us to express ourselves in ways that words cannot. In times of pain and suffering, music can be a source of comfort and healing for the mind, body, and soul.

Short Essay on Music Has Healing Power in 200-500 Words

Music has been a part of human culture for centuries, with its ability to evoke emotions, memories, and even physical responses. It is no wonder that music has been found to have healing powers, with numerous studies showing its positive effects on mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

One of the most well-known ways in which music can heal is through its ability to reduce stress and anxiety. Listening to calming music has been shown to lower cortisol levels, a hormone associated with stress, and can help to relax the mind and body. This can be especially beneficial for those who suffer from chronic stress or anxiety disorders, providing a natural and non-invasive way to manage their symptoms.

Music has also been found to have a positive impact on mood and emotions. Upbeat and energetic music can boost mood and motivation, while slower and more soothing music can help to calm and soothe the mind. This can be particularly helpful for those experiencing depression or mood disorders, providing a way to lift their spirits and improve their overall well-being.

In addition to its effects on mental health, music has also been shown to have physical benefits. Studies have found that listening to music can reduce pain perception and improve physical performance. This is why music therapy is often used in healthcare settings, such as hospitals and rehabilitation centers, to help patients manage pain and improve their recovery.

Furthermore, music has the power to evoke memories and emotions, making it a powerful tool for those suffering from conditions such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Listening to familiar music can help to stimulate memories and improve cognitive function, providing a sense of comfort and connection for those struggling with memory loss.

Overall, music has a unique ability to heal and soothe the mind, body, and soul. Whether it is through reducing stress, improving mood, or aiding in physical recovery, music has the power to bring comfort and healing to those in need. As the saying goes, “Where words fail, music speaks,” and it is clear that music has a universal language that can touch and heal us in ways that words alone cannot.

Essay on Music Has Healing Power in 1000-1500 Words

Music has been a part of human culture for centuries, with its ability to evoke emotions, memories, and even physical responses. It is no wonder that music has been used as a form of therapy for individuals suffering from various mental and physical ailments. The healing power of music has been recognized by cultures around the world, and modern research has only served to confirm what many have known intuitively for years – that music has the ability to heal.

One of the most well-known ways in which music can heal is through its ability to reduce stress and anxiety. Listening to music can have a calming effect on the mind and body, helping to lower heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol levels. In a world where stress is a common affliction, music can provide a much-needed escape from the pressures of daily life. Whether it is the soothing sounds of classical music or the upbeat rhythms of pop music, different genres of music can have different effects on the listener, but all have the potential to reduce stress and promote relaxation.

In addition to reducing stress, music has also been shown to have a positive impact on mental health. Studies have found that listening to music can improve mood, increase motivation, and even alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety. Music therapy, a form of therapy that uses music to address emotional, cognitive, and social needs, has been used to treat a wide range of mental health conditions, including PTSD, schizophrenia, and autism. Music therapy can take many forms, from listening to music to playing an instrument or singing, but the goal is always the same – to use music as a tool for healing and self-expression.

Music can also have a profound impact on physical health. Research has shown that listening to music can reduce pain, improve sleep quality, and even boost the immune system. Music therapy has been used in hospitals and healthcare settings to help patients recover from surgery, manage chronic pain, and cope with the side effects of cancer treatment. Music can also be a powerful tool for people with physical disabilities, helping them to improve motor skills, coordination, and balance through activities like drumming, dancing, or playing an instrument.

The healing power of music is not limited to individuals – it can also have a positive impact on communities and societies as a whole. Music has the ability to bring people together, foster a sense of belonging and connection, and promote social cohesion. Whether it is through singing in a choir, dancing at a concert, or playing in a band, music can create a sense of unity and shared purpose that transcends cultural, social, and political boundaries. In times of crisis or conflict, music can be a source of comfort, hope, and resilience, helping communities to heal and rebuild in the face of adversity.

In conclusion, music has the power to heal in ways that are both profound and far-reaching. From reducing stress and anxiety to improving mental and physical health, music has the ability to touch us on a deep and primal level, connecting us to ourselves, to others, and to the world around us. As we continue to explore the healing power of music through research, practice, and personal experience, we can harness its potential to transform lives, heal communities, and create a more harmonious and compassionate world.

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Music Has Healing Power Speech – 1, 2, 3, 5 Minutes Speech Samples

Published by team sy on september 11, 2023 september 11, 2023.

Music Has Healing Power Speech: In a world filled with stress and turmoil, there’s a remarkable truth that often goes unnoticed— Music Has The Power To Heal . This article on speech on music explores the profound impact of music on our emotional and physical well-being, with a special focus on a recent speech that delved into the therapeutic potential of music. As we journey through the intricacies of this speech, we’ll discover how music transcends boundaries, soothes our souls, and even alleviates pain. Join us in uncovering the science behind music’s healing power and the ways it unites communities, offering solace and hope. Whether you’re a music enthusiast or someone seeking the therapeutic benefits of music, this article will illuminate the extraordinary role music plays in healing, and how it can be a source of comfort in our hectic lives. So, let’s dive into the harmonious world where Music Has The Power To Heal.

Table of Contents

Music Has Healing Power Speech for 1 Minute

Ladies and gentlemen,

Have you ever experienced the incredible power of music? It’s remarkable how a simple melody, a harmonious tune, or even the lyrics of a song can touch the deepest corners of our souls. Today, I want to talk to you about something truly special – the healing power of music.

Music has a unique ability to heal, soothe, and uplift us. It transcends language barriers and connects with us on an emotional level. When we’re feeling down, a cheerful song can lift our spirits. When we’re overwhelmed with stress, a calming melody can bring us peace. In times of sorrow, music can express our grief when words fail.

But it’s not just a feeling; it’s science. Studies have shown that music can reduce anxiety, lower blood pressure, and even alleviate pain. It has a profound impact on our mental and emotional well-being. Whether it’s the rhythm that sets our hearts beating in sync or the lyrics that resonate with our experiences, music has the power to heal.

So, the next time you’re feeling stressed, sad, or unwell, consider turning to music. Let its therapeutic properties work their magic. Whether you’re playing an instrument, singing along, or simply listening, remember that music has the extraordinary ability to heal us, body and soul.

Read Hindi Diwas Speech Here!

Music Has Healing Power Speech for 2 Minutes

Today, I want to share with you the remarkable and universal truth that music possesses a profound healing power. In a world filled with stress, anxiety, and uncertainties, we often underestimate the therapeutic influence that music can have on our lives.

First and foremost, music transcends boundaries and connects with us on a deeply emotional level. It speaks a language that everyone can understand, regardless of where they come from or what language they speak. It evokes emotions, memories, and feelings in a way that few other forms of expression can. When we’re feeling down or overwhelmed, music has the unique ability to lift our spirits, ease our worries, and offer comfort like a warm embrace.

Studies have shown that music has tangible effects on our physical and mental well-being. It has the power to reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure, and even alleviate pain. It can be a therapeutic tool for those dealing with mental health challenges, providing solace when words fail. Music therapy is widely used to help individuals cope with conditions such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and dementia, showcasing the incredible healing potential of music.

Moreover, music has the capacity to unite people. In times of adversity or joy, we often turn to music to express our emotions collectively. From singing national anthems at sporting events to joining in a chorus of celebration at concerts, music brings us together and fosters a sense of community.

Whether you’re playing an instrument, singing along, or simply listening, music has the power to heal us in many ways. It can transport us to different emotional landscapes, offer solace in our darkest hours, and provide an outlet for our creativity and self-expression.

So, the next time you find yourself stressed, anxious, or unwell, consider turning to music as a source of comfort and healing. Let its therapeutic properties wash over you, body and soul. Embrace the melodies that resonate with your heart, and let the healing power of music be your guiding light through life’s trials and tribulations.

In a world that can often seem chaotic and overwhelming, music remains a source of solace, a universal language of healing that has the potential to mend our spirits and bring us closer together as human beings.

Music Has Healing Power Speech for 3 Minutes

Today, I want to take you on a journey into the extraordinary realm of music—a realm where melodies, rhythms, and harmonies possess a profound healing power that transcends time and space.

We live in a world filled with stress, anxiety, and uncertainties. In these challenging times, we often overlook the therapeutic and restorative influence that music can have on our lives. Music is not merely a collection of notes and sounds; it’s a language that speaks to the deepest corners of our hearts and souls.

First and foremost, music has an unparalleled ability to connect with us on an emotional level. It resonates within us, touching our innermost feelings, memories, and experiences. It can be a source of inspiration, solace, and profound joy. When we’re feeling down, a cheerful tune can lift our spirits. When we’re grappling with anxiety, a soothing melody can calm our restless minds. Music has the power to reflect our emotions, offering a voice to our innermost thoughts when words fail.

But the healing power of music goes beyond feelings—it’s deeply rooted in science. Numerous studies have shown that music can have a tangible impact on our physical and mental well-being. It can reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure, and even alleviate pain. Listening to music stimulates the release of endorphins, those feel-good hormones that promote relaxation and a sense of well-being. In essence, music acts as a natural stress-reliever, providing comfort and tranquillity in times of turmoil.

Furthermore, music is not just for the individual; it is a communal experience. It has the extraordinary ability to bring people together, fostering unity and understanding. Think about the unifying power of music during times of celebration, such as singing the national anthem at a sporting event or joining in a chorus of jubilation at a concert. Music unites us, transcending cultural, linguistic, and social boundaries.

Music also plays a crucial role in therapy and healing. Music therapy is a well-established field that harnesses the therapeutic benefits of music to address various mental health challenges. From helping individuals cope with depression and anxiety to assisting those with post-traumatic stress disorder and dementia, music therapy has proven to be a potent tool in promoting emotional well-being and recovery.

Whether you’re a musician, a music lover, or simply someone who enjoys humming a tune, music has the power to heal. It can transport us to different emotional landscapes, offering solace in our darkest hours and providing an outlet for creativity and self-expression.

In essence, music is a universal language of healing—a language that transcends boundaries and resonates with us all. It reminds us of our shared humanity and our capacity for beauty, even in the face of adversity.

Music Has Healing Power Speech for 5 Minutes

Today, I invite you to embark on a journey into the fascinating and wondrous world of music—a world where melodies, harmonies, and rhythms possess the extraordinary power to heal, soothe, and transform our lives in profound ways.

In a fast-paced, often stressful world, we may overlook the immense therapeutic potential that music holds. We tend to think of music as entertainment, a pastime, or a form of artistic expression, but it is so much more. Music is a universal language that communicates directly with our emotions, transcending the barriers of language, culture, and time.

Let us delve into the intricate tapestry of music’s healing power, exploring the myriad ways it enriches our lives and nurtures our well-being.

First and foremost, music connects with us on a deeply emotional level. It has the power to evoke a wide range of emotions, from joy and happiness to sadness and introspection. When we’re feeling down, a cheerful tune can lift our spirits. When we’re overwhelmed by stress, a soothing melody can bring tranquillity to our minds. Music has an uncanny ability to mirror our emotions and provide solace when words fail.

Moreover, music is not just about emotions; it’s about science. Numerous studies have revealed that music can have tangible effects on our physical and mental health. It can lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety and stress, and even alleviate pain. Listening to music can stimulate the release of endorphins, those natural feel-good hormones that promote relaxation and a sense of well-being. It acts as a natural stress reliever, offering comfort and serenity in times of turmoil.

Furthermore, music possesses the power to unite us. Think about the unifying force of music during celebrations, such as singing the national anthem at a sporting event or joining in a chorus of jubilation at a concert. Music brings people together, fostering a sense of community and shared experience. It transcends cultural, linguistic, and social boundaries, reminding us of our shared humanity.

In the realm of therapy and healing, music has proven itself to be an invaluable tool. Music therapy is a well-established field that uses the therapeutic benefits of music to address various mental health challenges. From helping individuals cope with depression and anxiety to aiding those with post-traumatic stress disorder and dementia, music therapy has demonstrated remarkable effectiveness in promoting emotional well-being and recovery.

Whether you’re a musician, an avid music enthusiast, or simply someone who enjoys humming a tune, music has the power to heal. It can transport us to different emotional landscapes, offering solace in our darkest hours and providing an outlet for creativity and self-expression.

But let us not forget that music’s healing power extends far beyond the individual. It is a force that can unite entire communities, cities, and nations. Consider the role of music in times of crisis, such as concerts that bring people together to support a cause or the healing power of music after a natural disaster. Music has the capacity to heal not only the individual soul but also the collective spirit.

In essence, music is a universal language of healing—a language that resonates with us all. It reminds us of our shared humanity and our capacity for beauty, even in the face of adversity.

FAQs on Music Has The Power To Heal Essay

The essay on “Music Has The Power To Heal” was inspired by the profound impact that music has on our lives, both emotionally and physically. It explores the healing potential of music and its ability to soothe our souls in times of stress and uncertainty.

Music’s healing power operates on multiple levels. It can reduce stress and anxiety, lower blood pressure, and even alleviate pain by triggering the release of endorphins, the body’s natural mood-lifters. Moreover, music therapy is a well-established field that uses music as a therapeutic tool to address various mental health challenges.

Yes, there is a substantial body of scientific research supporting the healing power of music. Numerous studies have demonstrated its effectiveness in promoting emotional well-being and physical health. From reducing stress levels to aiding in recovery from trauma, music’s healing effects are well-documented.

Incorporating music into your daily routine is easy and enjoyable. You can create personalized playlists with your favorite calming or uplifting songs, engage in music therapy sessions, or simply listen to music that resonates with your emotions. Experiment with different genres and see what works best for you.

Absolutely. Music has the power to unite communities and nations in times of adversity or celebration. Concerts, events, and communal singing are all examples of how music fosters a sense of unity and shared experience. Music can be a source of healing and hope for entire communities, transcending boundaries and divisions.

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The Healing Power of Music

Music therapy is increasingly used to help patients cope with stress and promote healing.

By Richard Schiffman

“Focus on the sound of the instrument,” Andrew Rossetti, a licensed music therapist and researcher said as he strummed hypnotic chords on a Spanish-style classical guitar. “Close your eyes. Think of a place where you feel safe and comfortable.”

Music therapy was the last thing that Julia Justo, a graphic artist who immigrated to New York from Argentina, expected when she went to Mount Sinai Beth Israel Union Square Clinic for treatment for cancer in 2016. But it quickly calmed her fears about the radiation therapy she needed to go through, which was causing her severe anxiety.

“I felt the difference right away, I was much more relaxed,” she said.

Ms. Justo, who has been free of cancer for over four years, continued to visit the hospital every week before the onset of the pandemic to work with Mr. Rossetti, whose gentle guitar riffs and visualization exercises helped her deal with ongoing challenges, like getting a good night’s sleep. Nowadays they keep in touch mostly by email.

The healing power of music — lauded by philosophers from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Pete Seeger — is now being validated by medical research. It is used in targeted treatments for asthma, autism, depression and more, including brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and stroke.

Live music has made its way into some surprising venues, including oncology waiting rooms to calm patients as they wait for radiation and chemotherapy. It also greets newborns in some neonatal intensive care units and comforts the dying in hospice.

While musical therapies are rarely stand-alone treatments, they are increasingly used as adjuncts to other forms of medical treatment. They help people cope with their stress and mobilize their body’s own capacity to heal.

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Masks Strongly Recommended but Not Required in Maryland, Starting Immediately

Due to the downward trend in respiratory viruses in Maryland, masking is no longer required but remains strongly recommended in Johns Hopkins Medicine clinical locations in Maryland. Read more .

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Harnessing the healing power of music.

The Zoom meetup begins with Jason Armstrong Baker playing a melody on a metal drum to welcome his class.

Five people log in to the weekly, one-hour session, hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine , during which Baker teaches rhythm skills through call-and-response clapping and by listening to music with the group.

Why all the clapping? The participants have Parkinson’s disease, and according to a 2015 study of 20 patients conducted by the center’s director and co-founder Alexander Pantelyat , drumming can help improve overall quality of life and mobility.

Over the course of the hour, the group will clap different rhythms as taught by the 47-year-old Baker in a call-and-response fashion, and then move on to clap over two songs chosen by participants.

“Just listening to music activates more brain regions simultaneously than any other human activity,” says Pantelyat, a neurologist. “So therein lies both the challenge and promise studying music’s effects on the brain: There is likely something for everyone when it comes to using music as medicine, but how do you separate the effects on specific brain networks if they are being activated simultaneously?”

The center, founded in 2015, operates with a dual mission: to bring music into health care through rigorous scientific investigations of how music and medicine interact, and to develop research and clinical care to treat and prevent injuries that affect professional musicians. Its other co-founder is Serap Bastepe-Gray , a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Peabody Institute who holds a joint appointment in the Department of Neurology . Peabody partners with the center on some of its classes and research.

There is hope for musical interventions in disorders such as Parkinson’s because there are many areas of the brain that react to music:

· In the temporal lobe, areas for speech processing overlap with areas that process music.

· Songs associated with strong memories can activate the nucleus accumbens, the so-called pleasure center of the brain.

· Relaxing music can lower the production of cortisol, which lowers stress and in turn lowers elevated heart rates and blood pressure.

· Music also affects:

• the default mode network, active during daydreaming and mind-wandering, responsible for autobiographical information
• the hippocampus, which plays a prominent role in forming new memories
• the prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus and inferior parietal lobe — responsible for attention and working memory, focusing on and keeping track of music and time
• various parts of the brain responsible for motor skills

In musicians, the white matter connections between the two hemispheres of the brain are thicker, likely due to musical training that requires repeated activation of both halves of the brain. This pathway is responsible for linking the activities of the motor cortex (responsible for voluntary movement such as walking) and the somatosensory cortex (responsible for processing information about touch, temperature and pain) across the two sides of the brain.

The Healing Power of Music: The Johns Hopkins Center for Music and Medicine

Pantelyat has been playing violin since the age of 7, and pursued medicine instead of becoming a professional musician. He treats patients with various movement disorders and also directs the Johns Hopkins Atypical Parkinsonism Center.

“We need to learn a lot more about how music can help rehabilitate the networks being damaged in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s,” he says. “That’s where my interest lies.”

Thanks to a newly published study on the impact of six weeks of group guitar lessons on people with Parkinson’s, and upcoming research papers on the effects of drumming and singing, more is now known about musical interventions for this debilitating disorder.

Published in June 2022 in the journal Parkinson’s Disease , the Guitar PD study found that “playing musical instruments may have positive effects on motor, emotional and cognitive deficits” in people with Parkinson’s. The small pilot study, which consisted of twice-weekly guitar lessons for six weeks, also found significant improvements in mood and anxiety, and showed that some improvements lasted six to 12 weeks after lessons ended. The research was conducted as a feasibility study, which assesses the practicality of a treatment plan. The feasibility was promising, with 24 out of 26 participants finishing the study.

The paper concludes that larger studies are warranted to further explore guitar instruction as an intervention.

“We know that active music-making within a group setting provides a music-enriched environment that encourages simultaneous physical, social and emotional engagement, lending a therapeutic advantage by stimulating multiple complementary processes in the brain,” Bastepe-Gray, the study’s lead author, says. “Guitar PD is the first study we know that utilizes nontraditional fingerstyle guitar instruction as a music-based intervention in PD.”

As a direct result of that study, Peabody, whose faculty ran the guitar groups and partnered with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine on the study, now subsidizes group and individual guitar lessons, known as the PD Strummers Circle and Performance Ensemble, for people with Parkinson’s disease.

“The guitar, which is portable, affordable and one of the most popular instruments in the U.S., has potential as a motivational therapeutic tool both in the clinical and community settings,” adds Bastepe-Gray.

The soon-to-be-published studies include the ParkinSonics — a 30-week trial that examined the effects of singing in a weekly chorus on the voice, mood, memory and quality of life for people with Parkinson’s. One major finding is that participants saw significant improvements in their minimal voice volumes as a result of singing in a chorus.

“This is a big deal for patients with Parkinson’s disease,” Pantelyat explains. “As the disease advances, communication can be impaired by the voice getting lower and becoming more monotonous.”

Like the PD Strummers, the ParkinSonics kept going after the study, and have been meeting weekly on Zoom throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another feasibility study, a group drumming study for people with Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases and their care partners, is being prepared for publication.

Studies such as these capture how the center hopes to develop and employ evidence-based interventions involving rhythm and music for a range of conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, epilepsy and autism, as well as for Parkinson’s.

“Our research suggests that the playing of musical instruments may have positive effects on movement, emotional processing and even cognitive defects in patients with Parkinson’s disease,” Pantelyat says.

His center is chipping away at the science that supports this. For example, in Parkinson’s, the processing of rhythm is disturbed, as are the connections between frontal lobe networks and the basal ganglia (deep centers of the brain) responsible for the coordination of walking and other movements. Tremors that many people experience worsen when they aren’t using their hands or when they’re experiencing high levels of stress, so music’s reduction of cortisol levels may play a role in decreasing them. Much like in patients who experienced strokes and undergo rehabilitation, weakened brain pathways may be strengthened, new pathways may form to go around faulty pathways, or both, when musical interventions are used.

National Research

Johns Hopkins is far from alone in researching the therapeutic effects of music.

The Sound Health Network , a partnership of the National Endowment of the Arts with the University of California San Francisco, which was awarded $20 million over five years in 2019 by the National Institutes of Health, also supports research and promotes public awareness of the impact of music on health and wellness. Its website lists projects at dozens of universities that range from studying the challenges of appreciating music after cochlear implantation to researching whether music-based strategies can reduce caregiver stress levels in at-risk families in Appalachia.

International touring company the Mark Morris Dance Group started Dance for PD classes over 20 years ago. The research-backed classes are available in 300 communities in 25 countries.

Pantelyat hopes to help support a Dance for PD class in Baltimore that has been inactive during the pandemic. He also hopes the ParkinSonics can soon return to in-person classes. The center is supporting an in-person drumming class that Baker will lead at the Govans Presbyterian Church in Baltimore starting this fall.

Pantelyat says the NIH funding reflects the vision for the next five years in music and medicine, and that large, well-designed clinical trials across multiple centers are needed to definitively find whether particular music and rhythm-based interventions have effects and what the effects are. He hopes that eventually directing someone to a weekly choir or drumming class could have the same effect as a medication he would prescribe.

“This is what the field clearly needs — a better understanding of the mechanisms of how rhythm and music impact the brain and body in general,” he says. “We need to understand more profoundly the effects of music and rhythm in order to optimize our treatments. There are still a lot of unanswered questions.”

Listen to Alexander Pantelyat talk about his work on the podcast A Woman’s Journey: Insights That Matter .

Related Reading

To help patients with atypical parkinsonism.

Third generation neurologist Alexander Pantelyat was moved to join the family profession partially because of his fascination with Parkinson’s disease, or PD.

How music heals us, even when it’s sad – by a neuroscientist leading a new study of musical therapy

Professor of Cognitive-Neuroscience , Department of Psychology, Northumbria University, Newcastle

Disclosure statement

Leigh Riby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Northumbria University, Newcastle provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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When I hear Shania Twain’s You’re Still The One , it takes me back to when I was 15, playing on my Dad’s PC. I was tidying up the mess after he had tried to [take his own life]. He’d been listening to her album, and I played it as I tidied up. Whenever I hear the song, I’m taken back – the sadness and anger comes flooding back.

There is a renewed fascination with the healing powers of music. This resurgence can primarily be attributed to recent breakthroughs in neuroscientific research, which have substantiated music’s therapeutic properties such as emotional regulation and brain re-engagement. This has led to a growing integration of music therapy with conventional mental health treatments.

Such musical interventions have already been shown to help people with cancer , chronic pain and depression . The debilitating consequences of stress, such as elevated blood pressure and muscle tension, can also be alleviated through the power of music .

Across the world, we’re seeing unprecedented levels of mental illness at all ages, from children to the very old – with huge costs to families, communities and economies. In this series , we investigate what’s causing this crisis, and report on the latest research to improve people’s mental health at all stages of life.

As both a longtime music fan and neuroscientist, I believe music has a special status among all the arts in terms of the breadth and depth of its impact on people. One critical aspect is its powers of autobiographical memory retrieval – encouraging often highly personal recollections of past experiences. We can all recount an instance where a tune transports us back in time, rekindling recollections and often imbuing them with a range of powerful emotions.

But enhanced recollection can also occur in dementia patients, for whom the transformative impact of music therapy sometimes opens a floodgate of memories – from cherished childhood experiences and the aromas and tastes of a mother’s kitchen, to lazy summer afternoons spent with family or the atmosphere and energy of a music festival.

One remarkable example is a widely shared video made by the Asociación Música para Despertar , which is thought to feature the Spanish-Cuban ballerina Martha González Saldaña (though there has been some controversy about her identity). The music of Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky appears to reactivate cherished memories and even motor responses in this former prima ballerina, who is moved to rehearse some of her former dance motions on camera.

In our laboratory at Northumbria University, we aim to harness these recent neuroscience advances to deepen our understanding of the intricate connection between music, the brain and mental wellbeing. We want to answer specific questions such as why sad or bittersweet music plays a unique therapeutic role for some people, and which parts of the brain it “touches” compared with happier compositions.

Advanced research tools such as high-density electroencephalogram (EEG) monitors enable us to record how the brain regions “talk” to each other in real-time as someone listens to a song or symphony. These regions are stimulated by different aspects of the music, from its emotional content to its melodic structure, its lyrics to its rhythmic patterns.

Of course, everyone’s response to music is deeply personal, so our research also necessitates getting our study participants to describe how a particular piece of music makes them feel – including its ability to encourage profound introspection and evoke meaningful memories.

Ludwig van Beethoven once proclaimed: “Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind, but which mankind cannot comprehend.” With the help of neuroscience, we hope to help change that.

A brief history of music therapy

Music’s ancient origins predate aspects of language and rational thinking. Its roots can be traced back to the Paleolithic Era more than 10,000 years ago, when early humans used it for communication and emotional expression. Archaeological finds include ancient bone flutes and percussion instruments made from bones and stones, as well as markings noting the most accoustically resonant place within a cave and even paintings depicting musical gatherings .

Music in the subsequent Neolithic Era went through significant development within permanent settlements across the world. Excavations have revealed various musical instruments including harps and complex percussion instruments, highlighting music’s growing importance in religious ceremonies and social gatherings during this period – alongside the emergence of rudimentary forms of music notation, evident in clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia in western Asia.

Ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle both recognised music’s central role in the human experience. Plato outlined the power of music as a pleasurable and healing stimulus, stating: “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination.” More practically, Aristotle suggested that: “Music has the power of forming the character, and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young.”

Throughout history, many cultures have embraced the healing powers of music. Ancient Egyptians incorporated music into their religious ceremonies, considering it a therapeutic force. Native American tribes, such as the Navajo, used music and dance in their healing rituals, relying on drumming and chanting to promote physical and spiritual wellbeing. In traditional Chinese medicine, specific musical tones and rhythms were believed to balance the body’s energy (qi) and enhance health.

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Christian church was pivotal in popularising “music for the masses”. Congregational hymn singing allowed worshippers to engage in communal music during church services. This shared musical expression was a powerful medium for religious devotion and teaching, bridging the gap for a largely non-literate population to connect with their faith through melody and lyrics. Communal singing is not only a cultural and religious tradition, but it has also been recognised as a therapeutic experience .

In the 18th and 19th centuries, early investigations into the human nervous system paralleled the emergence of music therapy as a field of study. Pioneers such as American physician Benjamin Rush , a signatory of the US Declaration of Independence in 1776, recognised the therapeutic potential of music to improve mental health.

Soon afterwards, figures such as Samuel Mathews (one of Rush’s students) began conducting experiments exploring music’s effects on the nervous system , laying the foundation for modern music therapy. This early work provided the springboard for E. Thayer Gaston , known as the “father of music therapy”, to promote it as a legitimate discipline in the US. These developments inspired similar endeavours in the UK, where Mary Priestley made significant contributions to the development of music therapy as a respected field.

The insights gained from these early explorations have continued to influence psychologists and neuroscientists ever since – including the late, great neurologist and best-selling author Oliver Sacks, who observed that:

Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears. It is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.

The ‘Mozart effect’

Music was my profession, but it was also a special and deeply personal pursuit … Most importantly, it gave me a way to cope with life’s challenges, learning to channel my feelings and express them safely. Music taught me how to take my thoughts, both the pleasant and the painful ones, and turn them into something beautiful.

Studying and understanding all the brain mechanisms involved in listening to music, and its effects, requires more than just neuroscientists. Our diverse team includes music experts such as Dimana Kardzhieva (quoted above), who started playing the piano aged five and went on to study at the National School of Music in Sofia, Bulgaria. Now a cognitive psychologist, her combined understanding of music and cognitive processes helps us delve into the complex mechanisms through which music affects (and soothes) our minds. A neuroscientist alone might fall short in this endeavour.

The starting point of our research was the so-called “Mozart effect” – the suggestion that exposure to intricate musical compositions, especially classical pieces, stimulates brain activity and ultimately enhances cognitive abilities . While there have been subsequent mixed findings as to whether the Mozart effect is real , due to the different methods employed by researchers over the years, this work has nonetheless triggered significant advances in our understanding of music’s effect on the brain.

In the original 1993 study by Frances Rauscher and colleagues , participants experienced enhancement in spatial reasoning ability after just ten minutes of listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D.

In our 1997 study , which used Beethoven’s second symphony and rock guitarist Steve Vai’s instrumental track For the Love of God , we found similar direct effects in our listeners – as measured both by EEG activity associated with attention levels and the release of the hormone dopamine (the brain’s messenger for feelings of joy, satisfaction and the reinforcement of specific actions). Our research found that classical music in particular enhances attention to how we process the world around us, regardless of one’s musical expertise or preferences.

The beauty of EEG methodology lies in its capacity to track brain processes with millisecond accuracy – allowing us to distinguish unconscious neural responses from conscious ones. When we repeatedly showed simple shapes to a person, we found that classical music sped up their early (pre-300 millisecond) processing of these stimuli. Other music did not have the same effect – and nor did our subjects’ prior knowledge of, or liking for, classical music. For example, both professional rock and classical musicians who took part in our study improved their automatic, unconscious cognitive processes while listening to classical music.

But we also found indirect effects related to arousal. When people immerse themselves in the music they personally enjoy, they experience a dramatic shift in their alertness and mood. This phenomenon shares similarities with the increased cognitive performance often linked to other enjoyable experiences.

In a further study, we explored the particular influence of “ program music ” – the term for instrumental music that “carries some extramusical meaning”, and which is said to possess a remarkable ability to engage memory, imagination and self-reflection. When our participants listened to Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, they reported experiencing a vivid representation of the changing seasons through the music – including those who were unfamiliar with these concertos. Our study concluded, for example, that:

Spring – particularly the well-recognised, vibrant, emotive and uplifting first movement – had the ability to enhance mental alertness and brain measures of attention and memory.

What’s going on inside our brain?

Music’s emotional and therapeutic qualities are highly related to the release of neurochemicals. A number of these are associated with happiness, including oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. However, dopamine is central to the enhancing properties of music.

It triggers the release of dopamine in regions of the brain devoted to reward and pleasure , generating sensations of joy and euphoria akin to the impact of other pleasurable activities such as eating or having sex. But unlike these activities, which have clear value related to survival and reproduction, the evolutionary advantage of music is less obvious.

Its strong social function is acknowledged as the main factor behind music’s development and preservation in human communities. So, this protective quality may explain why it taps into the same neural mechanisms as other pleasurable activities.

This article is part of Conversation Insights The Insights team generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.

The brain’s reward system consists of interconnected regions, with the nucleus accumbens serving as its powerhouse. It is situated deep within the subcortical region, and its location hints at its significant involvement in emotion processing, given its proximity to other key regions related to this.

When we engage with music, whether playing or listening, the nucleus accumbens responds to its pleasurable aspects by triggering the release of dopamine. This process, known as the dopamine reward pathway, is critical for experiencing and reinforcing positive emotions such as the feelings of happiness, joy or excitement that music can bring.

We are still learning about the full impact of music on different parts of the brain, as Jonathan Smallwood, professor of psychology at Queen’s University, Ontario, explains:

Music can be complicated to understand from a neuroscience perspective. A piece of music encompasses many domains that are typically studied in isolation – such as auditory function, emotion, language and meaning.

That said, we can see how music’s effect on the brain extends beyond mere pleasure. The amygdala , a region of the brain renowned for its involvement in emotion, generates and regulates emotional responses to music, from the heartwarming nostalgia of a familiar melody to the exhilarating excitement of a crescendoing symphony or the spine-tingling fear of an eerie, haunting tune.

Research has also demonstrated that, when stimulated by music, these regions can encourage us to have autobiographical memories that elicit positive self-reflection that makes us feel better – as we saw in the video of former ballerina Martha González Saldaña.

Read more: How to solve our mental health crisis

Our own research points to the hippocampus , crucial for memory formation, as the part of the brain that stores music-related memories and associations. Simultaneously, the prefrontal cortex , responsible for higher cognitive functions, closely collaborates with the hippocampus to retrieve these musical memories and assess their autobiographical significance. During music listening, this interplay between the brain’s memory and emotion centres creates a powerful and unique experience, elevating music to a distinctive and pleasurable stimulus.

Visual art, like paintings and sculptures, lacks music’s temporal and multisensory engagement, diminishing its ability to form strong, lasting emotional-memory connections. Art may evoke emotions and memories but often remains rooted in the moment. Music – perhaps uniquely – forms enduring, emotionally charged memories that can be summoned with the replaying of a particular song years later.

Personal perspectives

Music therapy can change people’s lives in profound ways. We have had the privilege of hearing many personal stories and reflections from our study participants, and even our researchers. In some cases, such as the memories of a father’s attempted suicide elicited by Shania Twain’s You’re Still The One, these are profound and deeply personal accounts. They show us the power of music to help regulate emotions, even when the memories it triggers are negative and painful.

In the face of severe physical and emotional challenges, another participant in our study explained how they had felt an unexpected boost to their wellbeing from listening to a favourite track from their past – despite the apparently negative content of the song’s title and lyrics:

Exercise has been crucial for me post-stroke. In the midst of my rehab workout, feeling low and in pain, an old favourite, What Have I Done To Deserve This? by the Pet Shop Boys, gave me an instant boost. It not only lifted my spirits but sent my heart racing with excitement – I could feel the tingles of motivation coursing through my veins.

Music can serve as a cathartic outlet, a source of empowerment, allowing individuals to process and cope with their emotions while supplying solace and release. One participant described how a little-known tune from 1983 serves as a deliberate mood inducer – a tool to boost their wellbeing:

Whenever I’m down or in need of a pick me up, I play Dolce Vita by Ryan Paris . It is like a magic button for generating positive emotions within myself - it always lifts me up in a matter of moments.

As each person has their own tastes and emotional connections with certain types of music, a personalised approach is essential when designing music therapy interventions, to ensure they resonate with individuals deeply. Even personal accounts from our researchers, such as this from Sam Fenwick, have proved fruitful in generating hypotheses for experimental work:

If I had to pick a single song that really strikes a chord, it would be Alpenglow by Nightwish . This song gives me shivers. I can’t help but sing along and every time I do, it brings tears to my eyes. When life is good, it triggers feelings of inner strength and reminds me of nature’s beauty. When I feel low, it instils a sense of longing and loneliness, like I am trying to conquer my problems all alone when I could really use some support.

Stimulated by such observations, our latest investigation compares the effects of sad and happy music on people and their brains, in order to better understand the nature of these different emotional experiences. We have found that sombre melodies can have particular therapeutic effects, offering listeners a special platform for emotional release and meaningful introspection.

Exploring the effects of happy and sad music

Drawing inspiration from studies on emotionally intense cinematic experiences, we recently published a study highlighting the effects of complex musical compositions, particularly Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, on dopamine responses and emotional states. This was designed to help us understand how happy and sad music affects people in different ways.

One major challenge was how to measure our participants’ dopamine levels non-invasively. Traditional functional brain imaging has been a common tool to track dopamine in response to music – for example, positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. However, this involves the injection of a radiotracer into the bloodstream, which attaches to dopamine receptors in the brain. Such a process also has limitations in terms of cost and availability.

In the field of psychology and dopamine research, one alternative, non-invasive approach involves studying how often people blink, and how the rate of blinking varies when different music is played.

Blinking is controlled by the basal ganglia , a brain region that regulates dopamine. Dopamine dysregulation in conditions such as Parkinson’s disease can affect the regular blink rate. Studies have found that individuals with Parkinson’s often exhibit reduced blink rates or increased variability in blink rates , compared with healthy individuals. These findings suggest that blink rate can serve as an indirect proxy indicator of dopamine release or impairment.

While blink rate may not provide the same level of precision as direct neurochemical measurements, it offers a practical and accessible proxy measure that can complement traditional imaging techniques. This alternative approach has shown promise in enhancing our understanding of dopamine’s role in various cognitive and behavioural processes.

Our study revealed that the sombre Winter movement elicited a particularly strong dopamine response, challenging our preconceived notions and shedding light on the interplay between music and emotions. Arguably you could have predicted a heightened response to the familiar and uplifting Spring concerto , but this was not the case.

Our approach extended beyond dopamine measurement to gain a comprehensive understanding of the effects of sad and happy music. We also used EEG network analysis to study how different regions of the brain communicate and synchronise their activity while listening to different music. For instance, regions associated with the appreciation of music, the triggering of positive emotions and the retrieval of rich personal memories may “talk” to each other. It is like watching a symphony of brain activity unfold, as individuals subjectively experienced a diverse range of musical stimuli.

In parallel, self-reports of subjective experiences gave us insights into the personal impact of each piece of music, including the timeframe of thoughts (past, present, or future), their focus (self or others), their form (images or words), and their emotional content. Categorising these thoughts and emotions, and analysing their correlation with brain data, can provide valuable information for future therapeutic interventions.

Our preliminary data reveals that happy music sparks present and future-oriented thoughts, positive emotions, and an outward focus on others. These thoughts were associated with heightened frontal brain activity and reduced posterior brain activity. In contrast, sad tunes caused self-focused reflection on past events, aligning with increased neural activity in brain areas tied to introspection and memory retrieval.

So why does sad music have the power to impact psychological wellbeing? The immersive experience of sombre melodies provides a platform for emotional release and processing. By evoking deep emotions, sad music allows listeners to find solace, introspect, and effectively navigate their emotional states.

This understanding forms the basis for developing future targeted music therapy interventions that cater to people facing difficulties with emotional regulation, rumination and even depression. In other words, even sad music can be a tool for personal growth and reflection.

What music therapy can offer in the future

While not a panacea, music listening offers substantial therapeutic effects, potentially leading to increased adoption of music therapy sessions alongside traditional talk therapy. Integrating technology into music therapy, notably through emerging app-based services, is poised to transform how people access personalised, on-demand therapeutic music interventions, providing a convenient and effective avenue for self-improvement and wellbeing.

And looking even further ahead, artificial intelligence (AI) integration holds the potential to revolutionise music therapy. AI can dynamically adapt therapy interventions based on a person’s evolving emotional responses. Imagine a therapy session that uses AI to select and adjust music in real-time, precisely tailored to the patient’s emotional needs, creating a highly personalised and effective therapeutic experience. These innovations are poised to reshape the field of music therapy , unlocking its full therapeutic potential.

In addition, an emerging technology called neurofeedback has shown promise. Neurofeedback involves observing a person’s EEG in real-time and teaching them how to regulate and improve their neural patterns. Combining this technology with music therapy could enable people to “map” the musical characteristics that are most beneficial for them, and thus understand how best to help themselves.

In each music therapy session, learning occurs while participants get feedback regarding the status of their brain activity. Optimal brain activity associated with wellbeing and also specific musical qualities – such as a piece’s rhythm, tempo or melody – is learned over time. This innovative approach is being developed in our lab and elsewhere .

As with any form of therapy, recognising the limitations and individual differences is paramount. However, there are compelling reasons to believe music therapy can lead to new breakthroughs. Recent strides in research methodologies , driven partly by our lab’s contributions, have significantly deepened our understanding of how music can facilitate healing.

We are beginning to identify two core elements: emotional regulation, and the powerful link to personal autobiographical memories. Our ongoing research is concentrated on unravelling the intricate interactions between these essential elements and the specific brain regions responsible for the observed effects.

Of course, the impact of music therapy extends beyond these new developments in the neurosciences. The sheer pleasure of listening to music, the emotional connection it fosters, and the comfort it provides are qualities that go beyond what can be solely measured by scientific methods. Music deeply influences our basic emotions and experiences, transcending scientific measurement. It speaks to the core of our human experience, offering impacts that cannot easily be defined or documented.

Or, as one of our study participants so perfectly put it:

Music is like that reliable friend who never lets me down. When I’m low, it lifts me up with its sweet melody. In chaos, it calms with a soothing rhythm. It’s not just in my head; it’s a soul-stirring [magic]. Music has no boundaries – one day it will effortlessly pick me up from the bottom, and the next it can enhance every single moment of the activity I’m engaged in.

For you: more from our Insights series :

How to solve our mental health crisis

Unlocking new clues to how dementia and Alzheimer’s work in the brain – Uncharted Brain podcast series

The artist formerly known as Camille – Prince’s lost album ‘comes out’

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Essay on Healing Power Of Music

Students are often asked to write an essay on Healing Power Of Music in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Healing Power Of Music

Introduction.

Music is a universal language that has the ability to touch hearts. It can make us feel happy, sad, relaxed, or energized. But did you know that music also has healing powers? It’s true! Music can help us heal both physically and emotionally.

The Science Behind Music Healing

Scientists have found that listening to music can lower stress levels. It can slow down our heart rate and make us feel calm. When we are less stressed, our bodies can heal faster. This is why music is often used in hospitals and therapy centers.

Music Therapy

Music therapy is a special kind of treatment where music is used to help people heal. It can help people who are sick, injured, or dealing with emotional problems. Music therapists use different kinds of music to help people feel better.

Music and Emotions

Music can also help us deal with our feelings. When we listen to happy music, we feel happier. When we listen to sad music, it can help us understand our own sadness. This can be very healing, especially when we are going through tough times.

250 Words Essay on Healing Power Of Music

Music is a universal language that speaks to the soul. It has the power to lift our spirits, soothe our minds, and heal our hearts. This essay explores the healing power of music.

The Healing Power of Music

Music can make a big difference in our mood. When we are sad, a cheerful song can help us feel better. This is because music can change the way our brain works. It can increase the release of happy hormones, like dopamine, in our brain.

Music therapy is a special type of treatment where music is used to help people heal. It can help people who are sick, stressed, or have mental health problems. Music therapy can include listening to music, singing, or playing a musical instrument.

Music and Stress

Listening to calm and soothing music can reduce stress. It slows down our heart rate and makes us feel relaxed. This is why many people listen to music before they go to sleep.

In conclusion, music is a powerful tool for healing. It can help us feel better when we are sad, reduce stress, and even help in treating certain health problems. So, the next time you are feeling down, try listening to your favorite song. It might just be the medicine you need.

500 Words Essay on Healing Power Of Music

The power of music on the mind.

Music has a strong impact on our mind. It can change our mood in an instant. When we are feeling sad or upset, a cheerful song can lift our spirits. On the other hand, a soft and slow tune can help us relax when we are feeling stressed. Studies have shown that music can even improve our memory and attention. It can help students do better in school. That’s why many people listen to music while studying.

Music and the Body

Music doesn’t only affect our mind, but also our body. It can change our heart rate and breathing. Fast music can make our heart beat faster, and slow music can slow it down. This can be very helpful for people with heart problems. Music can also help reduce pain. Doctors often play soothing music in hospitals to help patients feel less pain.

Because of the healing power of music, some professionals use it as a form of therapy. This is called music therapy. In music therapy, therapists use music to help people improve their health. They might use it to help people with mental health problems, like depression or anxiety. Or, they might use it to help people with physical health problems, like stroke or cancer.

In conclusion, music is a powerful tool for healing. It can heal our mind, body, and soul. It can change our mood, help us express our emotions, improve our memory, reduce pain, and even help us recover from serious health problems. So, the next time you listen to your favorite song, remember that you are not just enjoying the tune. You are also healing yourself with the power of music.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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March 1, 2015

12 min read

Music Can Heal the Brain

New therapies are using rhythm, beat and melody to help patients recover language, hearing, motion and emotion

By William Forde Thompson & Gottfried Schlaug

One day when Laurel was 11, she began to feel dizzy while playing with her twin sister and some friends in a park on Cape Cod. She sat down, and one of her friends asked her if she was okay. And then Laurel's memory went blank. A sudden blockage in a key blood vessel leading to the brain had caused a massive stroke. Blood could no longer reach regions crucial for language and communication, resulting in permanent damage. Laurel was still able to understand language, but she struggled to vocalize even a single word, and what she managed to say was often garbled or not what she had intended. Except when she  sang .

Through a type of treatment called melodic intonation therapy, Laurel learned to draw on undamaged brain regions that moderate the rhythmic and tonal aspects of language, bypassing the speech pathways on the left side of her brain that were destroyed. In other words, she found her way back to language through music.

The therapeutic program that helped Laurel—like the others we focus on in our work as scientists and clinicians—is one of a new class of music-based treatments based directly on the biology of neurological impairment and recovery. These treatments aim to restore functions lost to injury or neurological disorders by enlisting healthy areas of the brain and sometimes even by reviving dysfunctional circuitry. As evidence accumulates about the effectiveness of these techniques, clinicians and therapists from a variety of fields have begun to incorporate them into their practices, most notably music therapists, who are at the intersection of music and health and important mediators of these interventions, as well as speech therapists and physical therapists. And among the beneficiaries are people diagnosed with stroke, autism, tinnitus, Parkinson's disease and dementia.

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As scientists learn more about the effect of music on cognitive and motor functions and mental states, they can tailor these therapies for each disorder, targeting specific brain injuries or dysfunctions. In Laurel's case, the treatments were designed to trigger, over time, the development of alternative neural pathways in healthy parts of the brain that would compensate for the lost pathways in the damaged language centers. But the ultimate aim was to help her recapture as much as she could of the world that had collapsed around her that day in the park.

Music as medicine

Across cultures and throughout history, music listening and music making have played a role in treating disorders of the mind and body. Egyptian frescoes from the fourth millennium b.c. appear to depict the use of music to enhance fertility in women. Shamans in the highland tropical forests of Peru use chanting as their primary tool for healing, and the Ashanti people of Ghana accompany healing ceremonies with drumming.

Much of the power of music-based treatment lies in its ability to meld numerous subtle benefits in a single, engaging package. Music is perhaps unrivaled by any other form of human expression in the range of its defining characteristics, from its melody and rhythm to its emotional and social nature. The treatments that take advantage of these attributes are rewarding, motivating, accessible and inexpensive, and basically free of side effects, too. The attractive quality of music also encourages patients to continue therapy over many weeks and months, improving the chance of lasting gains.

The view that music can be useful in treating neurological impairment gained some scientific heft in a landmark study published in 2008. Psychologist Teppo Särkämö of the University of Helsinki and his team recruited 60 patients who had suffered a stroke in the middle cerebral artery of one hemisphere. They split the patients into three groups: the first participated in daily sessions of music listening, the second listened to audiobooks every day and the third received no auditory treatment. Researchers observed the patients over two months. Those in the group that listened to music exhibited the greatest recovery in verbal memory and attention. And because listening to music appears to improve memory, the hope now is that active music making—singing, moving and synchronizing to a beat—might help restore additional skills, including speech and motor functions in stroke patients.

The singing cure

The variety of music-based treatment that Laurel received springs from a remarkable observation about people who have had a stroke. When a stroke affects areas of the brain that control speech, it can leave patients with a condition known as nonfluent aphasia, or an inability to speak fluently. And yet, as therapists over the years have noted, people with nonfluent aphasia can sometimes sing words they cannot otherwise say.

In the 1970s neurologist Martin Albert and speech pathologists Robert Sparks and Nancy Helm (now Helm-Estabrooks), then at a Veterans Administration hospital in Boston, recognized the therapeutic implications of this ability and developed a treatment called melodic intonation therapy in which singing is a central element. During a typical session, patients will sing words and short phrases set to a simple melody while tapping out each syllable with their left hand. The melody usually involves two notes, perhaps separated by a minor third (such as the first two notes of “Greensleeves”). For example, patients might sing the phrase “How are you?” in a simple up-and-down pattern, with the stressed syllable (“are”) assigned a higher pitch than the others. As the treatment progresses, the phrases get longer and the frequency of the vocalizations increases, perhaps from one syllable per second to two.

Each element of the treatment contributes to fluency by recruiting undamaged areas of the brain. The slow changes in the pitch of the voice engage areas associated with perception in the right hemisphere, which integrates sensory information over a longer interval than the left hemisphere does; as a consequence, it is particularly sensitive to slowly modulated sounds. The rhythmic tapping with the left hand, in turn, invokes a network in the right hemisphere that controls movements associated with the vocal apparatus. Benefits are often evident after even a single treatment session. But when performed intensively over months, melodic intonation therapy also produces long-term gains that appear to arise from changes in neural circuitry—the creation of alternative pathways or the strengthening of rudimentary ones in the brain. In effect, for patients with severe aphasia, singing trains structures and connections in the brain's right hemisphere to assume permanent responsibility for a task usually handled mostly by the left.

This theory has gained support in the past two decades from studies of stroke patients with nonfluent aphasia conducted by researchers around the world. In a study published in September 2014 by one of us (Schlaug) and his group at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 11 patients received melodic intonation therapy; nine received no treatment. The patients who received therapy were able to string together more than twice as many appropriate words per minute in response to a question. That same group also showed structural changes, assessed through MRI, in a right-hemisphere network associated with vocalization. The laboratory is now conducting studies to compare the benefits of melodic intonation therapy with other forms of therapy for patients with aphasia.

Because melodic intonation therapy seemed to work by engaging the right hemisphere, researchers then surmised that electrical or magnetic stimulation of the region might boost the therapy's power. In two recent studies that we conducted with our collaborators—one in 2011 at Beth Israel Deaconess and Harvard and the other in 2014 at the ARC Center of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders in Sydney, Australia—researchers stimulated an area in the right hemisphere called the inferior frontal gyrus, which helps to connect sounds with the oral, facial and vocal movements that produce them. For many participants, combining melodic intonation therapy with noninvasive brain stimulation yielded improvements in speech fluency after only a few sessions.

The benefits of melodic intonation therapy were dramatic for Laurel (who was part of a study led by Schlaug). The stroke had destroyed much of her left hemisphere, including a region crucial for language production known as Broca's area. When she began therapy in 2008, she could not string together more than two or three words, and her speech was often ungrammatical, leaving her frustrated whenever she tried to communicate. Her treatment plan was intensive—an hour and a half a day for up to five days a week, with 75 sessions in all. By the end of the 15-week treatment period, she could speak in sentences of five to eight words, sometimes more. Over the next several years she treated herself at home using the techniques she learned during the sessions. Today, eight years after her stroke, Laurel spends some of her time as a motivational speaker, giving hope and support to fellow stroke survivors. Her speech is not quite perfect but remarkable nonetheless for someone whose stroke damaged so much of her left brain. Evaluation of the long-term benefits of combination therapy is next on researchers' agenda.

Music and motion

Music making can also help stroke survivors living with impaired motor skills. In a study published in 2007 neuropsychologist and music educator Sabine Schneider and neurologist Eckard Altenmueller, both then at the Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media in Germany, asked patients to use their movement-impaired hand to play melodies on the piano or tap out a rhythm on pitch-producing drum pads. Patients who engaged in this intervention, called music-supported training, showed greater improvement in the timing, precision and smoothness of fine motor skills than did patients who relied on conventional therapy. The researchers postulated that the gains resulted from an increase in connections between neurons of the sensorimotor and auditory regions.

Rhythm is the key to treatment of people with Parkinson's, which affects roughly one in 100 older than 60. Parkinson's arises from degeneration of cells in the midbrain that feed dopamine to the basal ganglia, an area involved in the initiation and smoothness of movements. The dopamine shortage in the region results in motor problems ranging from tremors and stiffness to difficulties in timing the movements associated with walking, facial expressions and speech.

Music with a strong beat can allay some of these symptoms by providing an audible rhythmic sequence that people can use to initiate and time their movements. Treatments include so-called rhythmic entrainment, which involves playing a stimulus like a metronome. In neurologist Oliver Sacks's 1973 book  Awakenings , musical rhythm sometimes released individuals from their immobility, letting them dance or sing out unexpectedly.

The use of rhythm in motor therapy gained momentum in the 1990s, when musician, music therapist and neuroscientist Michael Thaut of Colorado State University and other researchers around the world demonstrated a technique called rhythmic auditory stimulation, or RAS, for people who had trouble walking, such as stroke and Parkinson's patients. A therapist will first ask patients to walk at a comfortable speed and then to an audible rhythm. Tempos that pushed patients slightly past their comfort zone yielded the greatest improvementsin velocity, cadence and stride length.

Despite these encouraging outcomes, the neural mechanisms that trigger improvements have been difficult to pin down. Imaging work suggests that during rhythmic auditory stimulation, neural control of motor behavior is rerouted around the basal ganglia; instead the brain stem serves as a relay station that sends auditory input to motor networks in the cerebellum, which governs coordination, and to other cortical regions that could help synchronize sound and motion.

Recovered memory

Fewer neurological disorders inspire greater fear than dementia, one of the most common diseases of the elderly. According to some estimates, 44 million people worldwide are living with dementia, a number expectedto reach 135 million by 2050. Alzheimer's disease, a neurodegenerative condition, accounts for more than 60 percent of the cases; multiple strokes can also cause so-called vascular dementia.

Music may be ideally suited to stimulating memory in people with dementia, helping them maintain a sense of self. Because music activates neural areas and pathways in several parts of the brain, the odds are greater that memories associated with music will survive disease. Music also stimulates normal emotional responses even in the face of general cognitive decline. In a 2009 study psychologist Lise Gagnon of the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec and her colleagues asked 12 individuals with Alzheimer's and 12 without it to judge the emotional connotations of various pieces of music. The Alzheimer's participants were just as accurate as the others despite significant impairments in different areas of judgment. Other research suggests that taking part in musical activities throughout life keeps the mind young and may even decrease the risk of developing dementia [see “ Everyone Can Gain from Making Music ”]; the continuous engagement of the parts of the brain that integrate senses and motion with the systems for emotions and rewards might prevent loss of neurons and synapses.

The type of therapy that individual dementia patients receive will vary, from receptive (listening) to active (dancing, singing, clapping). Music that the patient selects is most effective because the choice represents a connection to memory and self. The benefits vary, too, and tend to be short-term. But when the treatment does work, it reduces the feelings of agitation that lead to wandering and vocal outbursts and encourages cooperation and interaction with others. Music therapy can also help patients with dementia sleep better and can enhance their emotional well-being.

These emotional and social benefits are clear in the case of June, an 89-year-old woman from New Hampshire. June has severe, irreversible dementia and is cared for at home by her daughter (who described her mother's circumstances to a clinician in Thompson's lab). Throughout the day, June is mainly nonresponsive and sits with her head hanging low. She cannot talk or walk, and she is incontinent. Yet when her daughter sings to her, June comes alive. She bangs her hands on her legs, smiles widely and begins to laugh. June especially loves Christmas songs and may even blurt out a word or two. When listening to music, she can bang her leg in time with the beat.

Music on the spectrum

Perhaps the most fascinating interplay between music and the brain lies in the case files of people with autism spectrum disorder, a neurodevelopmental syndrome that occurs in 1 to 2 percent of children, most of whom are boys. Hallmarks of autism include impaired social interactions, repetitive behaviors and difficulties in communication. Indeed, up to 30 percent of people with autism cannot make the sounds of speech at all; many have limited vocabulary of any kind, including gesture.

One of the peculiarities of the neurobiology of autism is the overdevelopment of short-range brain connections. As an apparent consequence, children with autism tend to focus intensely on the fine details of sensory experience, such as the varying textures of different fabrics or the precise sound qualities emitted by appliances such as a refrigerator or an air conditioner. And this fascination with sound may account for the many anecdotal reports of children with autism who thoroughly enjoy making and learning music. A disproportionate number of children with autism spectrum disorder are musical savants, with extraordinary abilities in specialized areas, such as absolute pitch.

The positive response to music opens the way to treatments that can help children with autism engage in activities with other people, acquiring social, language and motor skills as they do. Music also activates areas of the brain that relate to social ways of thinking. When we listen to music, we often get a sense of the emotional states of the people who created it and those who are playing it. By encouraging children with autism to imagine these emotions, therapists can help them learn to think about other people and what they might be feeling.

Recently the Music and Neuroimaging Laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess and Harvard (which Schlaug directs) developed a new technique called auditory-motor mapping training, or AMMT, for children whose autism has left them unable to speak. The treatments have two main components: intonation of words and phrases (changing the melodic pitch of one's voice) and tapping alternately with each hand on pitch-producing drums while singing or speaking words and phrases. In a proof-of-principle study, six completely nonverbal children took part in 40 sessions of this training over eight weeks. By the end, all were able to produce some speech sounds, and some were even able to voice meaningful and appropriate words during tasks that the therapy sessions had not covered. Most important, the children were still able to demonstrate their new skills eight weeks after the training sessions ended.

Quiet, please

Music-based treatments can also train the brain to tune out the phantom strains of tinnitus—the experience of noise or ringing in the ear in the absence of sound that affects roughly 20 percent of adults. Age-related hearing loss, exposure to loud sounds and circulatory system disorders can all bring on the condition, with symptoms ranging from buzzing or hissing in the ears to a continuous tone with a definable pitch. The sensation can cause serious distress and interfere with the ability to concentrate on other sounds and activities. There is no cure.

The past decade has seen a surge in understanding of the neurological basis of the disorder. In one view, cochlear damage (most likely caused by exposure to loud sounds) reduces the transmission of particular sound frequencies to the brain. To compensate for the loss, neuronal activity in the central auditory system changes, creating neural “noise,” perhaps by throwing off the balance between inhibition and excitation in the auditory cortex, leading to the perception of sounds that are not there. Also at play might be dysfunctional feedback to auditory brain regions from the limbic system, which is thought to serve as a noise-cancellation apparatus that identifies and inhibits irrelevant signals.

Music treatment seeks to counteract this dysfunction by inducing changes in the neural circuitry. For those with tonal tinnitus, one treatment involves listening to “notched music,” generated by digitally removing the frequency band that matches the tinnitus frequency. The notching—pioneered and proved effective by neurophysiologist Christo Pantev and his group at the University of Münster in Germany—might help reverse the imbalance in the auditory cortex, strenghtening the inhibition of the frequency band that might be the source of the phantom sound in the first place. Another approach involves playing a series of pitches to patients and then asking them to imitate the sequence vocally. As the patients refine their accuracy, they learn to disregard irrelevant auditory signals and focus on what they want to hear. In time, the stimulus of effortful attention might help the auditory cortex return to its normal physiological state.

For any novel therapy, enthusiasm can sometimes outpace the evidence, and researchers have rightly pointed out that the new music-based treatments must prove their efficacy against the more established therapies. But of all the techniques for addressing neurological disorders, music-based therapies seem unique in their capacity to tap into emotions, to help the brain find lost memories, to let patients resume their place in the world. We are only now beginning to understand the science behind the belief in the power of music to heal.

William Forde Thompson  is a professor of psychology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and a chief investigator at the ARC Center of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders there.

Gottfried Schlaug  is an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and is a leading researcher on plasticity in brain disorders and music-based treatments for neurological impairments.

• Speech Topics For Kids

Speech on Music

Music could be stated as the language of the spirit. How boring our lives would be if there is no music? Music is a very important part of our lives. Human souls require music to rejuvenate. It brings peace and harmony to their lives. Without any doubt, we can call music ‘the magic of god’, and it is this magic that transforms a mere series of sounds to soulful music.

Table of Contents

Speech on music has the power to heal, two-minute speech on music, one-minute speech about music, top 10 quotes to use in a speech on music, frequently asked questions on music, sample speeches on music.

A few sample speeches on music are given below. Go through these speeches and utilise them to expand your wisdom.

Music could be defined as the form of sound with the power to develop emotions within the minds of the listener. According to Colbie Caillat, “A great song should lift your heart, warm the soul and make you feel good.” With the support of music, an individual constructs an imaginary world within them. Melodious voices soothe our bodies and make us feel refreshed. By hearing music, a person can relax both the body and the mind at the same time.

Music helps us get rid of all unwanted thoughts, anxieties, and stress from our lives. Without any doubt, music is a great medicine for healing the wounds of our minds. More and more people worldwide are realising and accepting the healing power of music. According to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 2020 conference, by listening to music for 30 minutes a day, the pain and anxiety levels were lowered in the patients who had survived heart attacks. Music has the power to slow people’s heart rates and decrease blood pressure.

The connection between human health and music is so strong. Music has the power to bring back old memories of individuals. There are multiple centres worldwide that use music to help treat Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, and Parkinson’s disease. It is definitely a great medicine for our souls.

Music is a global language that is produced by the rhythmic arrangement of sounds. It has no boundaries, and it connects people from various political, geographical, and cultural backgrounds. Without the requirement of any actions or words, music helps individuals to express themselves. For many people, music is the greatest discovery of human beings, and it is considered the closest thing to god. There exist numerous styles of music in our society. And in today’s world, every individual has multiple options available to choose the music based on the feeling that they are experiencing. Music has a great influence on our lives. Music is a powerful tool to unite people. National anthems, hymns recited during worship and songs of various other themes are all examples to prove the uniting power of music.

Do you know why parents sing songs when their babies cry? Because by hearing the soothing sound of the parent, the baby experiences calmness and stops crying. Such lullabies enable parents to develop a deep attachment with their babies.

“Music is everywhere. It’s in the air between us, waiting to be sung.” These are the words told by David Levithan. Some of the greatest music is produced by nature. For example, the sounds made by birds, waves hitting the seashore, waterfalls, flowing water in a stream, rain and so on. How beautiful are those, right? Music produced by nature is highly connected with human emotions. Just like humans have a strong interconnection with nature, the emotions developed within humans are having strong bonding with the music. And that is the reason why many composers, poets, and musicians consider the music of nature as the foundation of their art. Composers throughout many generations and from all over the world have managed to inspire emotions in the listener’s mind through the portrayal of nature in music.

• “Where words fail, music speaks.” – Hans Christian Andersen.
• “Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can’t.” – Johnny Depp.
• “Music is the strongest form of magic.” – Marilyn Manson.
• “When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.” – Henry David Thoreau.
• “Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts.” – Billy Joel.
• “Music is an outburst of the soul.” – Frederick Delius.
• “For me, there is something primitively soothing about this music, and it went straight to my nervous system, making me feel ten feet tall.” – Eric Clapton.
• “Music is the moonlight in the gloomy night of life.” – Jean Paul Friedrich Richter.
• “Once again, she was free. Once again, she found peace. It was music that freed her soul from the dungeon of her mind.” – Wiss Auguste, The Illusions of Hope.
• “Without music, life would be a blank to me.” – Jane Austen.

Why is music important in our lives?

Music soothes our bodies and makes us feel refreshed. By hearing music, a person can relax both the body and mind simultaneously. Music helps us get rid of all unwanted thoughts, anxieties, and stress from our lives. Without any doubt, music is a great medicine for healing the wounds of our minds.

Why is music called a global language?

Music is a global language that is produced by the rhythmic arrangement of sounds. It has no boundaries, and it connects people from various geographical and cultural backgrounds. Without the requirement of any actions or word usages, music helps individuals to express themselves.

List some top quotes to use in a speech on music.

• “Where words fail, music speaks.” – Hans Christian Andersen.
• “Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can’t.” – Johnny Depp.
• “Music is the strongest form of magic.” – Marilyn Manson.
• “When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.” – Henry David Thoreau.

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How Music Heals and Inspires Us in Challenging Times

Making or listening to music, especially with others, helps keep us going..

Posted July 19, 2021 | Reviewed by Devon Frye

• What Is Resilience?
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• Research shows that music, especially singing collectively, has positive social benefits.
• Music has been shown to reduce depression and anxiety, even in high-stress jobs.
• Music can help us to be resilient by reinterpreting difficult experiences to be less threatening.

Do you have a certain song that helps you weather your life’s storms? Whose lyrics capture your feelings, or whose beat shakes you out of your rumination? Do you listen to music to reflect your mood? Or maybe even to change your mood?

Think about how, during the dark depths of the early pandemic in 2020, people across Italy , Canada , and the United States would open their windows each evening and sing together. And how those in other countries also found ways to share music—including people singing together virtually online.

Their collective music-making was a remarkable testament to the human drive for survival. It was also a powerful reminder that our individual survival is linked to the solidarity we find in our shared humanity. Openly participating together in expressing the hope that keeps us going feels natural in the midst of a scary situation affecting everyone.

What the Research Shows

Research suggests that singing together fosters both individual health and social bonds among those who join in. Put simply, the endorphins it releases in our brains make us feel good. They also increase our ability to tolerate pain—including emotional pain, like that we experienced seeing such disturbing pandemic images as the tractor-trailers used as overflow morgues in New York City because so many people were dying of COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic.

A group of scientists who met back in 2006 at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics noted that research has demonstrated that music with a strong beat stimulates the brain and ultimately causes brainwaves to resonate in time with the rhythm. On the other hand, low beats encourage the slow brainwaves that are associated with hypnotic or meditative states. Faster beats may encourage more alert and concentrated thinking.

Listening to music has been found to reduce stress and anxiety even in critically ill hospital patients . One study found that even front-line nurses—a profession already high in stress and higher than ever in the pandemic—can reduce their stress by taking a break and listening to soothing music. In the study, one group of nurses listened to soothing music of their choice for 30 minutes while the other group simply rested quietly in a chair for 30 minutes. Researchers found after the 30-minute rest the nurses who listened to music had lower levels of cortisol, the stress hormone , than those who had simply rested.

Recent research demonstrates that adding music to standard therapeutic tools made a difference for people with depression and anxiety compared with therapy without music.

Singing and Making Music Together Supports Resilience

Music, especially vocal music, has always been important to me. Ever since I was a boy, I have had an ear for human voices, able to recognize and distinguish individual singers by the unique tone of their voice. I’ve also had a knack for remembering song lyrics, meaning I can sing along with a lot of songs. Best of all, I have been blessed with a pretty good tenor voice, and I love to sing.

Add these things together, and you can understand why I have always had a song for every event, mood and occasion. I have used my mental jukebox and singing voice to vocalize my emotions. I have songs to motivate me when I need to recharge my energy, and other songs to give voice to loneliness and sadness. My repertoire includes plenty of songs to express joy and celebrate life. They are all part of why music has always been central to my own resilience .

I’ve thought about these things—and wrote this piece—after recently reading Harriett Beecher Stowe’s famous nation-changing 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin . Stowe evokes powerful images of the enslaved women and men who labored under the hot southern sun, picking cotton. They often sang spirituals together as they worked. “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” was one of the popular tunes included in the 1867 collection Slave Songs of the United States , the first-ever collection of African American music. Singing together was a way to ease each other’s pain and sorrow, and to provide strength to get through another day of bondage .

Another cultural reference: In the 1956 movie adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I,” Deborah Kerr in “I Whistle a Happy Tune" sings:

While shivering in my shoes I strike a careless pose And whistle a happy tune And no one ever knows I'm afraid The result of this deception Is very strange to tell For when I fool the people I fear I fool myself as well

Her whistling is a version of “fake it until you make it.” The cheerful music diverts her mind from her fear so she can act instead with courage. It helps her manage her emotions and act from a more centered position.

Clearly, as research shows and as the pandemic singing and slave songs of old remind us, music can help us deal with whatever life may bring (or throw at) us—whether we whistle, sing, or simply listen, especially if it’s shared with others.

John-Manuel Andriote is an award-winning author, journalist, speaker, and communication consultant.

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Music Therapy — How Music Affects Mental Health

How Music Affects Mental Health

• Categories: Mental Health Music Therapy

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Words: 704 |

Published: Jun 13, 2024

Words: 704 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, music as a therapeutic tool, music as an emotional outlet, music and social connectivity.

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The Transformative Power of Music in Mental Well-Being

• August 01, 2023
• Healthy living for mental well-being, Patients and Families, Treatment

Music has always held a special place in our lives, forming an integral part of human culture for centuries. Whether we passively listen to our favorite songs or actively engage in music-making by singing or playing instruments, music can have a profound influence on our socio-emotional development and overall well-being.

Recent research suggests that music engagement not only shapes our personal and cultural identities but also plays a role in mood regulation. 1 A 2022 review and meta-analysis of music therapy found an overall beneficial effect on stress-related outcomes. Moreover, music can be used to help in addressing serious mental health and substance use disorders. 2 In addition to its healing potential, music can magnify the message of diversity and inclusion by introducing people to new cultures and amplifying the voice of marginalized communities, thereby enhancing our understanding and appreciation for diverse communities.

Healing Trauma and Building Resilience

Many historically excluded groups, such as racial/ethnic and sexual minorities and people with disabilities, face systemic injustices and traumatic experiences that can deeply impact their mental health. Research supports the idea that discrimination, a type of trauma, increases risk for mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. 3

Music therapy has shown promise in providing a safe and supportive environment for healing trauma and building resilience while decreasing anxiety levels and improving the functioning of depressed individuals. 4 Music therapy is an evidence-based therapeutic intervention using music to accomplish health and education goals, such as improving mental wellness, reducing stress and alleviating pain. Music therapy is offered in settings such as schools and hospitals. 1 Research supports that engaging in music-making activities, such as drumming circles, songwriting, or group singing, can facilitate emotional release, promote self-reflection, and create a sense of community. 5

Empowerment, Advocacy and Social Change

Music has a rich history of being used as a tool for social advocacy and change. Artists from marginalized communities often use music to shed light on social issues (.pdf) , challenge injustices, and inspire collective action. By addressing topics such as racial inequality, gender discrimination, and LGBTQ+ rights, music becomes a powerful medium for advocating for social justice and promoting inclusivity. Through music, individuals can express their unique experiences, struggles, and triumphs, forging connections with others who share similar backgrounds. Research has shown that exposure to diverse musical genres and artists can broaden perspectives, challenge stereotypes, and foster empathy among listeners especially when dancing together. 7

Genres such as hip-hop, reggae, jazz, blues, rhythm & blues and folk have historically served as platforms for marginalized voices, enabling them to reclaim their narratives and challenge societal norms. The impact of socially conscious music has been observed in movements such as civil rights, feminism, and LGBTQ+ rights, where songs have played a pivotal role in mobilizing communities and effecting change. Music artists who engage in activism can reach new supporters and help their fans feel more connected to issues and motivated to participate. 6

Fostering Social Connection and Support

Music can also serve as a catalyst for social connection and support, breaking down barriers and bridging divides. Emerging evidence indicates that music has the potential to enhance prosocial behavior, promote social connectedness, and develop emotional competence. 2 Communities can leverage music’s innate ability to connect people and foster a sense of belonging through music programs, choirs, and music education initiatives. These activities can create inclusive spaces where people from diverse backgrounds can come together, collaborate, and build relationships based on shared musical interests. These experiences promote social cohesion, combat loneliness, and provide a support network that can positively impact overall well-being.

Musicians and Normalizing Mental Health

Considering the healing effects of music, it may seem paradoxical that musicians may be at a higher risk of mental health disorders. 8 A recent survey of 1,500 independent musicians found that 73% have symptoms of mental illness. This could be due in part to the physical and psychological challenges of the profession. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Germany found that musically active people have, on average, a higher genetic risk for depression and bipolar disorder.

Commendably, many artists such as Adele, Alanis Morrisette, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Kid Cudi and Demi Lovato have spoken out about their mental health battles, from postpartum depression to suicidal ideation. Having high-profile artists and celebrities share their lived experiences has opened the conversation about the importance of mental wellness. This can help battle the stigma associated with seeking treatment and support.

Dr. Regina James (APA’s Chief of the Division of Diversity and Health Equity and Deputy Medical Director) notes “Share your story…share your song and let's help each other normalize the conversation around mental wellness through the influence of music. My go-to artist for relaxation is jazz saxophonist, “Grover Washington Jr” …what’s yours?” Submit to [email protected] to get featured!

More on Music Therapy

• Music Therapy Fact Sheets from the American Music Therapy Association
• Music Therapy Resources for Parents and Caregivers from Music Therapy Works

By Fátima Reynolds DJ and Music Producer Senior Program Manager, Division of Diversity and Health Equity American Psychiatric Association

• Gustavson, D.E., et al. Mental health and music engagement: review, framework, and guidelines for future studies. Transl Psychiatry 11, 370 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01483-8
• Golden, T. L., et al. (2021). The use of music in the treatment and management of serious mental illness: A global scoping review of the literature. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.649840
• Schouler-Ocak, M., et al. (2021). Racism and mental health and the role of Mental Health Professionals. European Psychiatry, 64(1). https://doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2021.2216
•  Aalbers, S., et al. (2017). Music therapy for Depression. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2017(11). https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd004517.pub3
• Dingle, G. A., et al. (2021). How do music activities affect health and well-being? A scoping review of studies examining Psychosocial Mechanisms. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.713818
• Americans for the Arts. (n.d.). A Working Guide to the Landscape of Arts for Change. Animating Democracy. http://animatingdemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Potts%20Trend%20Paper.pdf
• Stupacher, J., Mikkelsen, J., Vuust, P. (2021). Higher empathy is associated with stronger social bonding when moving together with music. Psychology of Music, 50(5), 1511–1526. https://doi.org/10.1177/03057356211050681
• Wesseldijk, L.W., Ullén, F. & Mosing, M.A. The effects of playing music on mental health outcomes. Sci Rep 9, 12606 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-49099-9

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May 22, 2019

The healing power of music

Madison, Wis. — It’s been called many things – the universal language, a great healer, even a reflection of the divine. While there’s little doubt about the power of music, research now shows us just how powerful it can be.

“Across the history of time, music has been used in all cultures for healing and medicine,” said health psychologist Shilagh Mirgain , PhD. “Every culture has found the importance of creating and listening to music. Even Hippocrates believed music was deeply intertwined with the medical arts.”

Scientific evidence suggests that music can have a profound effect on individuals – from helping improve the recovery of motor and cognitive function in stroke patients, reducing symptoms of depression in patients suffering from dementia, even helping patients undergoing surgery to experience less pain and heal faster. And, of course, it can be therapeutic.

“Music therapy is an established form of therapy to help individuals address physical, emotional, cognitive and social needs,” said Mirgain. “Music helps reduce heart rate, lower blood pressure and cortisol in the body. It eases anxiety and can help improve mood."

Music is often in the background just about anywhere we go – whether at a restaurant or the store. But Mirgain offers some tips to help use music intentionally to relax, ease stress and even boost moods:

Be aware of the sound environment

Some restaurants use music as a way of subtly encouraging people to eat faster so there is greater turnover. If you’re looking for a location to have a meeting, or even a personal discussion that could be stressful, keep in mind that noisy environments featuring lively music can actually increase stress and tension.

Use it to boost your energy

On the other hand, when you need energy levels to be up – like when exercising, cleaning or even giving a presentation – upbeat music can give you the lift you need. Consider using music when you’re getting ready in the morning as a way to get your day off on the right beat.

Improve sleep

Listening to classical or relaxing music an hour before bedtime can help create a sense of relaxation and lead to improved sleep.

Calm road rage

Listening to music you enjoy can help you feel less frustrated with traffic and could even make you a safer driver.

Improve your mental game

Playing an instrument can actually help your brain function better. Faster reaction times, better long-term memory, even improved alertness are just a few of the ways playing music can help. Studies have also shown that children who learn to play music do better at math and have improved language skills.

Reduce medical anxiety

Feeling stressed about an upcoming medical procedure? Consider using music to calm those jitters. Put your ear buds in and listening to your favorite tunes while sitting in the waiting room can ease anticipatory anxiety before a medical procedure, such as a dental procedure, MRI or injection. Ask your health care provider if music is available to be played in the room during certain procedures, like a colonoscopy, mammogram or even a cavity filling. Using music in these situations distracts your mind, provides a positive experience and can improve your medical outcome.

Inside the effort to make music that heals

Mike Cerre Mike Cerre

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/inside-the-effort-to-make-music-that-heals

The power of music to heal—or at the least, promote well-being—is acknowledged in many cultures. But only in the past two decades have the medical and scientific communities joined together in an effort to prove its efficacy — and explore the possibilities of making music part of actual medical protocols. Special Correspondent Mike Cerre reports on a unique musical experiment that brought together several renowned musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Hari Sreenivasan:

It's no secret that music can evoke emotion and influence someone's mood…but musicians and scientists are advancing studies on how it can help with healing.

During the pandemic, one diverse set of musicians added their creative talents to the study of therapeutic music–teaming up as a 'drone ensemble' to make music for healing.

NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Mike Cerre has the story.

Mike Cerre:

What do you get when you cross opera star Renee Fleming with rock star Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead and Indian classical music virtuoso Zakir Hussain making music for healing in the middle of a pandemic?

It's called drone music, and embraces ancient healing and meditation traditions.

Mickey Hart:

Music and medicine goes back as far as history goes back, you know, shamanism, people lived by that.

Zakir Hussain:

We are taught that when somebody got sick in the house, we were told to play our Tambour, which is the drone instrument.

Renee Fleming:

When you think about these types of therapies and interventions, they're non pharmaceutical, they're very low cost, and they really are working.

The power of music to heal, or at the very least promote well being, is well documented in most cultures. But it's only been in the past two decades that the scientific and medical communities have come together in an effort to prove its efficacy and possibilities of including it in medical protocols.

Charles Limb:

Suddenly these things that were simply left to speculation, into theory, we now have measurements on it, we have data, we have the ability to actually observe the human brain doing these remarkable music and artistic tasks.

Dr. Charles Limb is the co-director of the Sound Health Network at the University of California San Francisco. It's a collaboration with scientists from the National Institutes of Health, and artists from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

So one thing I've noticed in all of the musical experiments I've done is that when you listen to a musical stimulus and you look at the brain while that's being listened to, the entire brain is really engaged. The music is a robust stimulus for the brain.

Advances in MRI technology has allowed researchers to scan musicians' brains while playing music to observe how music affects different brain functions.

It surprised the scientists as well, not just me, that the most powerful effect on my brain in this experiment, which had me singing, imagining singing and speaking, was imagining singing.

Renee Fleming spent much of the past year working with scientists and medical experts on how best to advance the music and healing connection with her series of podcasts called "Music & Mind."

The discovery, for instance, that there's a music room in the brain, that it's distinct from speech was really key, very important.

Daniel Levitin, the McGill & Stanford Universities neuroscientist, music composer and bestselling author of "This Is Your Brain On Music," believes the most likely therapeutic uses of music will be for treating the less functioning cognitive parts of the brain caused by Alzheimers and other brain diseases.

Daniel Levitin:

In Parkinson's disease, music is helpful because it sets a pace or a tempo and often Parkinson's patients can't walk because they're frozen. And the music gives them a pulse that causes neurons in their brain in the basal ganglia, the cerebellum, the motor action centers, to synchronize with the tempo. And that helps them to start walking and to keep walking. You can't repair broken neural connections, but you can make new ones. Any time you learn something new, those are new neural pathways. Practicing an instrument, learning an instrument, develops these pathways.

My grandmother who had Alzheimer's, and she was fading and she hadn't spoken about three or four years, and I started playing the drum and she was smiling, you know, as best she could. And then she said my name. It was a startling discovery and it kind of lit my light.

Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart has been working with UCSF neurologist Dr. Adam Gazzaley to determine which rhythms might be more effective than others for treating damaged parts of the brain.

My brain, you know, rhythm central. So seeing how how it reacted to certain beats, loud, soft, fast or slow was a revelation.

Perhaps one of Renee's most revealing music therapy experiences was with Army Capt. Luis Avila, who lost his ability to speak after an IED explosion in Afghanistan. Intensive music therapy helped him regain his voice and eventually his speech.

And to see that that was such an extraordinary gift to him through melodic intonation therapy, which is the name of this particular therapy, to regain some speech, to regain his ability to communicate. That's an incredible gift.

The one thing that I've noticed about making music in the time of this pandemic, when you are isolated, that there's that much more deeper connection with what you're trying to achieve.

Zakir Hussain, Mickey Hart and Renee Fleming's "Pandemic Drone Ensemble" of sorts was one of the 10 pieces of drone music recorded remotely for meditation and healing practices. The music was recently released on Commune, an online well being and healing network, accompanied by Mickey Hart's paintings with rhythm.

So they call it vibrational expressionism, whereas it is vibrated into existence. I use a bass speaker and I control it with the beam, with the monochord and things rise that you had never suspected from underneath the many layers of paint.

I think if we think about the things that make us feel calm and relaxed, any kind of folk music very often has a drone involved. It has been shown actually at MIT to clean up amyloid plaques and tangles in the brain.

Mickey Hart has intuitively been discovering music's power to heal the past half century, performing the Grateful Dead's version of music therapy in concert to tens of thousands at a time. The lifting of COVID restrictions is allowing him to tour again this summer with Dead & Company and take his music therapy back out on the road.

So, "Dr. Hart," do you take Medicare payments at your performances for all of us?

Oh, yeah. Well, you know, hey, in many states, doctors can write a script for music therapy, so it's not far off with music that can be prescribed.

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Music as Medicine: The Healing Power of Music

The late neurologist, Oliver Sacks in his book “ Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain ,” argued that music is essential to being human in ways that we’ve only begun to understand. Music stimulates the brain centers that register reward and pleasure, which is why listening to a favorite song can make you happy.  There is in fact no single musical center in the brain, but rather multiple brain networks that analyze music when it plays, thereby giving music the power to influence everything from our mood to memory.

For cancer patients, music can be a powerful therapeutic tool in coping with a cancer diagnosis and treatment.   “Music was so important to me, “says breast density and cancer patient advocate, Siobhan Feeney ( @BreastDense ), “because my concentration was so poor I really struggled with reading books and watching movies through chemo.  I walked a lot and plugged into lots of beautiful music along the way.”

The Evidence Base for Music Therapy

Music therapy (the clinical use of music as a tool to help achieve treatment goals) is an evidence-based practice that harnesses the power of music to improve quality of life in people dealing with illness.  References to music therapy in the clinical setting dates back to a series of letters, published in The Lancet , in 1891, which discussed the approach of a group of musicians providing live music to patients in London hospitals. [1] From that point, music therapy established itself as a recognized health profession in the clinical context.

Research findings have supported a wide range of music therapy benefits from changing brain waves to lowering heart rate and blood pressure.  While clinical trials, to date, have been small, the results are promising.   Music therapy has been shown to boost the effects of anti-nausea medications in patients receiving chemotherapy and reduce pain perception.

In a study of patients who underwent surgery for lung cancer , the patients who received music therapy before and after surgery, reported less pain and had lower blood pressure, heart rate and anxiety. In addition, the dose and frequency of pain medication given after the surgery was reduced in the group who received music therapy. [2]

In 2013, a small Turkish study of 40 people found that using music therapy and guided visual imagery greatly reduced anxiety levels for patients undergoing chemotherapy. [3] The patients also had less frequent and less severe nausea and vomiting. Similarly, a study, conducted in 2017, found that music therapy could help reduce anxiety in patients having radiotherapy simulation. [4]

The benefits of music therapy are not confined to the clinical setting.  You can tap into your own self-directed music therapy session anytime by simply listening to some favorite songs or pieces of music. If you’re looking for some inspiration, check out the following suggestions crowdsourced online.

Although I’ve categorized these music choices according to genre, take a tip from breast cancer survivor and classically trained professional harpist, Amy Camie, who challenged herself to listen consciously to her sons’ heavy metal music. In doing so, Amy discovered music “can be a profound step in the exploration of self, in the conscious act of honest reflection that goes by many names–mindfulness, meditation, self-discovery, self-empowerment, and enlightenment.” [5]

Music Playlist

Both Blanca ( @BlancaUsoz ), who is caring for someone with cancer, and John ( @walls2 ) choose a piece of music sung by their favorite choirs.  For Blanca, listening to Leioa Kantika – Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (D. Modugno), sung by the choir of her hometown, lifts her mood.   “Music has played a pivotal role in helping me live with a terminal diagnosis,” says John. “I’ve been privileged to have gotten to know the amazing @mountsionchoir , who sang “Don’t Give Up” by @andygrammer for me at #ChoirsForCancer . It’s now my anthem.”

Jennifer ( @vitalfrequencies ) opts for a classical piece from Beethoven; his opera Fidelio, or his 5th,  6th and 9th Symphonies being particular favorites.

Sally ( @sally_crowe ) finds Christine and The Queens’ song “Tilted” to be uplifting.

While Chris ( @christheeagle1 ), who says he “fell back in love with his music collection through cancer”, chooses “Under The Bridge” by Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Ronny ( @RonnyAllan1 ) suggests Oasis, “Don’t Look Back In Anger”.

Both Eva (@EvaAlloza) and Teresa ( @tbaupuig) recommend listening to Spanish rock band  Jarabe de Palo. Lead singer, Pau Dones, recently died from colon cancer, but his songs, say Eva, “are full of vital energy.”

Wrapping Up

Music is a universal language. It can open the doors to empathy and understanding. In the words of Camie,”In a world full of separation, anger, prejudice, fear, judgment, and pain, perhaps by expanding our familiar musical tastes we could slowly develop a listening ear for others who may not fit into our comfortable genres. Perhaps listening to music that expresses life experiences from different perspectives will naturally nurture more tolerance and empathy for our brothers and sisters around the globe.”

[1] Boyde C, Linden U, Boehm K, Ostermann T. The Use of Music Therapy During the Treatment of Cancer Patients: A Collection of Evidence. Glob Adv Health Med. 2012;1(5):24-29.

[2] Wang Y, Tang H, Guo Q, et al. Effects of Intravenous Patient-Controlled Sufentanil Analgesia and Music Therapy on Pain and Hemodynamics After Surgery for Lung Cancer: A Randomized Parallel Study. J Altern Complement Med. 2015;21(11):667-672.

[3] Karagozoglu S, Tekyasar F, Yilmaz FA. Effects of music therapy and guided visual imagery on chemotherapy-induced anxiety and nausea-vomiting.  J Clin Nurs . 2013;22(1-2):39-50.

[4] Rossetti A, Chadha M, Torres BN, et al. The Impact of Music Therapy on Anxiety in Cancer Patients Undergoing Simulation for Radiation Therapy.  Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys . 2017;99(1):103-110.

[5] https://upliftconnect.com/building-tolerance-and-empathy-through-music/

A Stanford Medicine X e-Patient scholar, Marie Ennis O’Connor is an internationally recognized keynote speaker, writer, and consultant on global trends in patient engagement, digital health and participatory medicine. Marie’s work is informed by her passion for embedding the patient voice at the heart of healthcare values. She writes about the experience of transitioning from breast cancer patient to advocate on her award-winning blog Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer.

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Essay Papers Writing Online

The power of melodic tunes to enhance focus and creativity during the essay writing process.

When it comes to the realm of crafty penmanship, the significance of tune harmonizing with writing is often underestimated. However, by unlocking the potential of a melodious backdrop, authors can tap into a wholly different level of creativity. The amalgamation of mind-wandering melodies and thought-provoking words provides an unparalleled medium for unleashing one’s inner writer.

By marrying the artistry of music with the finesse of essay composition, a symphony of inspiration is born. As the rhythm flows from ear to mind, it ignites a fire within, setting ablaze the dormant embers of imagination. The harmonious duet of music and writing has the uncanny ability to transport us to seemingly distant realms, where ideas unfurl like unfathomable constellations, waiting to be explored.

Music has the incredible capability to influence our mood, thoughts, and emotions. With every beat, a gateway to new possibilities is unveiled. A propelling anthem can uplift the spirits and propel the writer forward on a wave of determination. Conversely, a gentle melody can provide solace and serenity, setting the stage for introspection and bringing forth the depths of one’s introspective musings.

The Science Behind the Connection: How Music Affects the Brain

Understanding how music affects the brain is a fascinating area of study that delves into the intricate workings of our minds. The connection between music and the brain has been explored by scientists for decades, revealing the profound impact that music can have on our emotions, cognitive abilities, and overall well-being.

When we listen to music, our brains are activated in various ways. Neurologists have discovered that different regions of the brain are engaged, depending on the type of music being listened to. For instance, upbeat and fast-paced music stimulates the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and motivation. This explains why listening to energetic music can make us feel more invigorated and motivated to take action.

Moreover, studies have shown that music has the power to evoke strong emotions and memories. Certain melodies or lyrics can trigger a flood of emotions, reminding us of past experiences or even transporting us to a different time and place. This emotional connection to music is facilitated by the limbic system, a part of the brain that controls emotions and memory. By activating this system, music has the ability to evoke powerful feelings and create lasting memories.

Additionally, music has a profound impact on our cognitive abilities. Research has demonstrated that listening to certain types of music can enhance our focus, concentration, and creativity. Classical music, in particular, has been found to stimulate brain activity and improve cognitive performance. This phenomenon, known as the “Mozart effect,” suggests that music can enhance our cognitive abilities, making us more alert and receptive to information.

Furthermore, the therapeutic benefits of music cannot be overlooked. Studies have shown that music therapy can be beneficial for individuals suffering from various mental health conditions, such as anxiety, depression, and stress. Listening to calming and soothing music has been found to reduce stress hormones, lower blood pressure, and promote relaxation. The rhythmic and melodic elements of music have a profound effect on our physiological state, helping to regulate our emotions and promote overall well-being.

In conclusion, the science behind the connection between music and the brain is a captivating field of research that highlights the profound impact of music on our emotions, cognitive abilities, and overall well-being. By understanding how music affects the brain, we can harness its power to boost productivity and enhance our essay writing experience.

Finding the Right Genre for Focus and Creativity

Exploring different genres of music can be a powerful way to enhance focus and creativity while writing. By selecting the right genre, you can create an atmosphere that nurtures concentration and stimulates your cognitive processes. The right choice of genre can inspire imagination, boost productivity, and help you tap into your creative potential.

Genre for Focus:

When it comes to finding a genre that promotes focus, instrumental music often takes the lead. With its absence of lyrics, instrumental genres such as classical, ambient, or electronic music can provide a background that minimizes distractions. The soothing melodies and repetitive patterns can help you maintain concentration for extended periods, allowing you to immerse yourself in the writing process.

Alternatively, you might find that low-tempo genres, like downtempo or chill-hop, can also facilitate a focus-oriented mindset. The relaxed beats and atmospheric textures often associated with these genres can create a tranquil ambiance, fostering a sense of calmness and enabling you to concentrate on the task at hand.

Genre for Creativity:

If your goal is to enhance your creative thinking and encourage inspiration, exploring diverse genres can be beneficial. Upbeat and energetic music, like pop, rock, or hip-hop, can elicit strong emotions and make you feel more motivated and enthusiastic. This genre choice can help break through writer’s block and generate fresh ideas.

On the other hand, genres that focus on introspection and introspection, like folk, indie, or singer-songwriter, can evoke a sense of introspection and deep thought. The raw emotions and personal narratives found in these genres can lead to a reflective and introspective state of mind, allowing you to explore and express your thoughts and emotions in a more profound and meaningful way.

Experimenting with Different Genres:

Everyone’s preferences and writing processes are unique, so it’s essential to experiment with different genres to find what works best for you. Depending on the task at hand, you may find that a combination of genres or even genre-specific playlists can be more effective in enhancing your focus and creativity.

Remember, the aim is to find the right balance that helps you stay engaged, motivated, and inspired. By exploring a variety of genres, you can create a personalized soundtrack that harnesses the power of music to enhance your essay writing and boost productivity.

Using Music as a Motivational Tool: Creating a Playlist that Energizes

When it comes to finding the perfect playlist to boost motivation and productivity, music can be a powerful tool. The right selection of songs can energize and inspire, helping you to stay focused and motivated while writing your essay. However, creating a playlist that truly energizes and motivates is not as simple as adding a few upbeat tracks. It requires careful consideration of the tempo, lyrics, and overall mood of the music.

To start off, consider the tempo of the songs you choose for your playlist. Upbeat and fast-paced songs with a high tempo can help increase your energy levels and keep you engaged. Look for tracks with a strong rhythm and lively beat that will get your heart rate up and your feet tapping. These types of songs can help you maintain a steady pace while writing, preventing any potential lulls in your productivity.

Lyrics also play an important role in creating a motivational playlist. Look for songs with inspiring and positive lyrics that resonate with you personally. The right lyrics can help instill a sense of confidence and determination as you tackle your essay. Whether it’s motivational anthems or personal empowerment songs, find tracks that make you feel uplifted and ready to conquer any challenges that come your way.

In addition to the tempo and lyrics, consider the overall mood of the music. While fast-paced and upbeat songs can be beneficial for maintaining energy levels, it’s also important to include moments of relaxation and calm. Including a variety of musical genres and styles in your playlist can help create a balanced atmosphere that keeps you engaged without overwhelming your senses. From uplifting pop songs to soothing instrumental tracks, a mix of different moods can help you stay focused and motivated throughout your writing process.

Remember that creating a motivational playlist is a personal endeavor. Experiment with different songs and genres to find what works best for you. Pay attention to how certain songs make you feel and make adjustments as needed. The power of music lies in its ability to evoke emotions and enhance your mood, so choose songs that align with your personal preferences and goals.

In conclusion, music can serve as a powerful motivator when it comes to essay writing. By creating a playlist that energizes and inspires, you can boost your productivity and stay focused throughout the writing process. Consider the tempo, lyrics, and overall mood of the music to create a playlist that resonates with you personally. Harness the power of music and let it fuel your essay writing journey!

The Impact of Lyrics on Writing: Choosing Songs with Inspiring Words

When it comes to the influence of music on our writing, we often think about melodies, rhythms, and harmonies. However, the impact of lyrics should not be underestimated. The words in a song can have a profound effect on our creative output and productivity. By carefully selecting songs with inspiring and meaningful lyrics, we can enhance our writing experience and tap into new ideas and perspectives.

Words have the power to evoke emotions, stimulate our imagination, and convey complex thoughts and ideas. When we listen to songs with lyrics that resonate with us, it can trigger a range of emotions that can fuel our writing process. Whether it’s a heartfelt ballad that touches our soul or an empowering anthem that fills us with motivation, the right lyrics can provide the emotional backdrop we need to dive deep into our writing and express ourselves fully.

In addition to emotional impact, lyrics can also influence the way we think and inspire us to explore different topics and themes in our writing. Songs with thought-provoking lyrics can challenge our perspectives and push us beyond our comfort zones. They can introduce us to new ideas and expand our horizons, allowing us to approach our writing from fresh and unique angles. By actively seeking out songs with inspiring words, we can invite a broader range of thoughts and concepts into our writing and enrich our overall message.

It’s important to note that the impact of lyrics on writing is a highly personal experience. What resonates with one writer may not have the same effect on another. It’s essential to be in tune with our own preferences and emotions when choosing the songs we write to. Some writers may find solace in introspective and introspective lyrics, while others may thrive on uplifting and motivational messages. By curating a personalized playlist of songs with lyrics that align with our writing intentions, we can create an atmosphere of inspiration and creativity that supports our unique style and voice.

In conclusion, lyrics play a significant role in the impact of music on our writing. By selecting songs with inspiring words, we can tap into the emotional, intellectual, and creative aspects of our writing process. The right lyrics have the power to fuel our imagination, challenge our thinking, and elevate our writing to new heights.

Creating a Distraction-Free Environment: Tips for Using Music Effectively

When it comes to essay writing, having a distraction-free environment is essential for focusing and improving productivity. Music can be a powerful tool in creating such an environment, helping to boost concentration and inspire creativity. By carefully selecting the right music and following a few key tips, you can maximize the benefits of using music while minimizing potential distractions.

• Choose instrumental music: Instead of lyrics that may compete for your attention, opt for instrumental music. This type of music provides a soothing ambiance and eliminates the potential distraction of following along with lyrics.
• Experiment with different genres: Various genres of music can evoke different emotions and moods. By exploring different genres, you can find the right music that complements your writing style and helps you get into the flow.
• Create a playlist: Curating a playlist specifically for writing purposes can help set the tone and provide a consistent background noise. Start by selecting a few essential tracks that promote focus, and gradually expand your playlist based on what works best for you.
• Use ambient sounds: In addition to music, ambient sounds can also be effective in creating a distraction-free environment. Rainfall, nature sounds, or white noise can help block out external noises and increase your concentration.
• Adjust the volume: Finding the right volume is crucial for using music effectively. Too loud, and it can become distracting; too low, and it may not be effective in creating a productive environment. Experiment with different volumes to find the perfect balance.
• Minimize interruptions: Ensure that your music setup doesn’t interrupt your writing process. Choose a music streaming platform or app that allows for seamless playback without ads or interruptions. This way, you can maintain focus without being interrupted by unrelated content.
• Match the music to the task: Different writing tasks may require varying levels of focus and energy. Consider selecting music that aligns with the specific task at hand. For brainstorming or creative writing, choose upbeat or uplifting music, while for editing or proofreading, opt for more relaxed and calming tunes.

By following these tips, you can create a distraction-free environment that harnesses the power of music to enhance your essay writing experience. Experiment, adapt, and find the perfect music that helps you stay focused, motivated, and creative throughout the writing process.

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The Power of Music: To Feel, Heal, and Connect

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Posted in: You & Your Family

Topics: Healthy Living

“The best music is essentially something to provide you to face the world with.”                                     Bruce Springsteen “Music doesn’t lie. If there’s something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”                                     Jimi Hendrix

I dropped out of medical school to be a musician. Well, at least I tried.

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In retrospect, I was not ready to become a doctor, and I avoided class by playing music with a sitarist. He told me about an opening in the Philosophy Department where he was a junior professor. It seemed like a great opportunity, even though I only took two philosophy courses in college.

So, I tried to drop out of medical school. My Dean refused to let me withdraw, told me to take my time, and put me in a dual-degree program so that I could take time to study philosophy and then return to my medical education. Reluctantly, I agreed. It turned out to be the best decision I ever made, and I’m forever grateful to him.

After just two years, I re-entered medical school. But those two years gave me the time and chance to hang out and play with other musicians – not for money, but for fun. Those hours and hours of just making music changed my life.

I learned to listen. I learned to play what came to me in the moment. I learned not to be scared to play the wrong note. And most of all, I learned how to connect with others and help them sound good in the process.

Fast forward about 15 years. I became a doctor and had four kids. And what’s most precious to my family is sitting in a living room around the piano singing with a bunch of friends. It’s a holiday tradition. There would be no Thanksgiving or any other celebration without our getting out the guitars and any other available instruments.

Mind you, it’s not always pretty. Our harmonies are usually off. Our timing is generally poor. But we get wrapped up in it and go on most of the night. Everyone feels great – and we’re feeling it together. That’s the power of music. That’s the magic of music.

Music Has a Human Effect, Across Cultures

There’s something universal about the creative arts that’s good for health, and mental health in particular. Visual arts , drama, literature , music, despite their differences, all have some things in common – they make us feel, provide meaning, stimulate reflection, and bring us together.

Let’s focus on music.

Our brains are wired for music, and this is likely one of the major reasons for its universality. Research has shown that the pentatonic scale, in all cultures, is a means of coordinating infant and maternal communication . The pentatonic scale is commonly used in traditional music around the globe .

This has led many scientists to postulate that the way our brains are constructed is receptive to this particular scale. Studies show that we are attracted to and utilize scales, like the pentatonic scale, that are built upon the natural harmonic series of notes.

There is more evidence. Researchers have found that we are drawn to certain intervals of notes (two notes played together or in sequence) because it resembles speech. For example, the minor third which has been known to convey sadness. Studies have shown that the very same interval is one in which sadness is perceived in human verbal communication . If the minor third is universally evocative of sadness, it not only suggests how our brains are wired, but also reinforces the fact that music causes us to feel certain emotions.

The bottom line is that in all cultures, all over the world, music has a special place among humans (and other animals as well), and it affects us in characteristic ways. We’ve all felt it, in some way. We don’t need science to tell us this!

Music Makes Us Feel

The fact that music evokes emotion is obvious. And not only does it make us feel happy, sad, or want to get up and dance, but certain melodies are embedded in our memories.

So, when you hear a tune from a scene in one of your favorite movies, it immediately takes you back to the same feeling you had watching that scene. I bet you can come up with one immediately.

Or when you’re driving in your car and an old song comes on that you heard with your first teenage love, it brings you back. That song – maybe even “your song” – still has meaning, long after the relationship faded. You still feel the feelings. Even though he or she broke up with you and you were devastated, you might smile because when you were in the car together you felt good. Or maybe it’s sadness you feel in hearing the song again, in a nostalgic way.

Or think about how you feel when you’re in the ballpark and are singing the national anthem, and tears come to your eyes; or in the seventh inning stretch when you chime in to “Take me out to the Ball Game,” and your tears well up, because you remember singing it with your dad.

Or consider when Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was first played in Paris and it sparked a riot.

You get the point.

Music Helps Us Heal

Music is the best studied of art therapy , and helps to lower anxiety, depression, trauma, psychosis and stress. Important components of music therapy are the meaning of lyrics, improvisational music playing, active listening, and songwriting.

But it’s not just in psychotherapy.

While many of us cringe at the horrors of “elevator music” or the awful music we hear waiting on the phone after all the prompts, music has been shown to have a soothing effect.

For example, it is frequently used in dentist’s offices and in operating rooms. Music has also been shown to reduce pain, and even have a positive effect on symptoms of stroke and dementia . And for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, its benefits may well be that singing and listening to music improves mood, helps retrieve old memories, and could even improve general thought processes.

Music Fosters Change, Especially When We Start Young

Music has a unique ability to inspire changes in individuals and society.

For kids, teens, and young adults, music promotes positive development.

• Studies show that music helps with learning and attention . The ABCs are a great example – combining a song with the letters of the alphabet enhances memorization. And TV shows such as Sesame Street have long used music to help children learn colors, numbers, and other important material. For older kids, combining musical rhythm and pitch enhances focus and memory.
• In addition to enhancing learning, teens identify with music as an integral part of their growth and developmental changes . It embodies who they are, capturing individual and group identity. Whether its rap, hip hop, heavy metal, pop, country, or bluegrass – it earmarks an important phase in their development. Every parent knows better than to comment on or, God forbid, criticize a teen’s musical preference.
• Kids of all ages developmentally need an outlet for self-expression – yet another key place for music in their lives. While many will drop music lessons, if they take them (it’s not easy to have the discipline to really learn an instrument), most regret giving up their mastery of an instrument later as adults. However, many schools offer opportunities for kids to be involved in a chorus, or drum circle, as a class or as an extracurricular activity, which can be another outlet for both self-expression and community involvement.

Beyond the individual, music plays a vital role in society, and in social change.

What movement in history is without an anthem – a theme song. Whether we’re going to war (Yankee Doodle, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary) or whether we’re fighting our own battles at home (Union Maid, That’s What Friend Are For), music serves as our foundation.

And think about how we use songs in our own lives to mark major changes – births, deaths, anniversaries. It’s why the first dance at a wedding is so important.

The power and the ability to change ourselves and change the world is almost always coupled with a soundtrack of one kind or another.

Music Connects

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So, back to family holidays, or remembering young love, or being in the ballpark. In these scenarios, the music is about feeling connected.

The euphoria of a concert is not just that great music is playing. In fact, the last time I went to a concert in a large venue, I could hardly hear the music – certainly not as well as I could with my headphones. Concerts like this create unity.

The same is true in church, temple or in most spiritual communities. There’s something really special about the way the music sounds. It’s not just the acoustics of the cathedral. It’s the power of music to make us feel communal. And it may be that which unites us through music also connects us with something bigger than ourselves –that helps us feel a part of something beyond this planet.

As a musician, let me close with one request.

Encourage your kids to make and experience music with others. And if they’ll let you, make music with your kids.

I don’t care how good or bad you or your kids are at it. Join in. Become a part of the music.

Making music will make you feel your humanity. It will ease your pain. It will make you feel alive.

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Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Gene Beresin, MD, MA  is executive director of The MGH Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds, and a staff child and adolescent psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also...

To learn more about Gene, or to contact him directly, please see Our Team .

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