Music and
Your Body: How Music Affects Us and Why Music Therapy Promotes Health
Research has shown that music has a profound effect
on your body and psyche. In fact, there’s a growing field of health care known
as music therapy, which uses music to heal. Those who practice music
therapy are finding a benefit in using music to help cancer patients, children
with ADD, and others, and even hospitals are beginning to use music and music
therapy to help with pain management, to help ward off depression, to promote
movement, to calm patients, to ease muscle tension, and for many other benefits
that music and music therapy can bring. This is not surprising, as music
affects the body and mind in many powerful ways. The following are some of
effects of music, which help to explain the effectiveness of music therapy:
·
Brain Waves: Research has shown that music with
a strong beat can stimulate brainwaves to resonate in sync with the beat, with
faster beats bringing sharper concentration and more alert thinking, and a
slower tempo promoting a calm, meditative state. Also, research has found that the change
in brainwave activity levels that music can bring can also enable the brain to
shift speeds more easily on its own as needed, which means that music can bring
lasting benefits to your state of mind, even after you’ve stopped listening.
·
Breathing and Heart Rate: With alterations
in brainwaves comes changes in other bodily functions. Those governed by the
autonomic nervous system, such as breathing and heart rate can also be altered
by the changes music can bring. This can mean slower breathing, slower heart
rate, and an activation of the relaxation
response, among other things. This is why
music and music therapy can help counteract or prevent the damaging effects
of chronic stress, greatly promoting not only relaxation, but health.
·
State of Mind: Music can also
be used to bring a more positive state of mind,
helping to keep depression and anxiety at bay. This can help prevent the stress
response from wreaking havoc on the
body, and can help keep creativity and optimism levels higher, bringing many other benefits.
·
Other Benefits: Music has also
been found to bring many other benefits, such as lowering
blood pressure (which can also reduce the risk of stroke and other health
problems over time), boost immunity, ease muscle tension, and more. With so
many benefits and such profound physical effects, it’s no surprise that so many
are seeing music as an important tool to help the body in staying (or becoming)
healthy.
Using Music Therapy:
With
all these benefits that music can carry, it's no surprise that music therapy is
growing in popularity. Many hospitals are using music therapists for pain
management and other uses. Music therapists help with several other issues as
well, including stress.
Using Music On Your Own:
While
music therapy is an important discipline, you can also achieve many benefits
from music on your own. Music can be used in daily life for relaxation, to gain
energy when feeling drained, for catharsis when dealing with emotional stress,
and in other ways as well. This article on music, relaxation
and stress management can explain more
of how music can be an especially effective tool for stress management, and can
be used in dailly life.
2 comments:
very informative :)
thank you so much for showing interest :)
much more is there for you...keep visiting :)
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