AN APPLE A DAY – 365 DAYS TO A HEALTHIER LIFESTYLE - PUTTING A SONG IN YOUR HEART

DAY 24 – GOOD MUSIC CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Did you realize that music has a variety of health benefits?  

Have you ever been feeling really bad or sad and then heard a snappy tune on the radio that somehow cheered you up and made you feel better?  There might just be more to that than you realize.  Music definitely has an effect on our health and well being. 

Scientist today have good evidence and  proof that listening to relaxing music helps to soothe chronic back pain. 

Listening to music seems to work on the autonomic nervous system – the part of the nervous system responsible for controlling blood pressure, heartbeat and brain functions. 

Music is also known to help the limbic system – the part of the brain that controls our feelings and emotions. When slow rhythms are played, blood pressure and heartbeat slow down (which helps one to breathe slower)   This slower breathing then reduces muscle tension in the neck, shoulders, stomach and back. 

So; next time you have a huge amount of back pain, go lay down for a few minutes and listen to some of your favorite tunes.  Let me know what the results are; I’ll bet your pain will be less, if not completely gone in a matter of minutes.

 

Relaxing with music just seems to reduce physical tensions as well as mental tensions. 

Counselors working with mental health patients say  that listening to music helps their patients to feel better and they often recommend this after long intense therapy sessions.  Psychiatric patients often have to struggle with deeply buried emotions and anxiety.  Their sessions can take a toll on their physical health just because of the emotional responses that these sessions sometimes bring about.  When they are advised to listen to music after such heavy and intensely emotional  therapy, their anxiety seems to become less and less and they do not get as depressed afterward, as do other patients who do not use musical help after their more emotional sessions. 

It is interesting to note how music helps to remove people’s inhibitions.  People who cannot laugh or cry or show emotions might chose to seek help for this unnatural state.  These patients seem to respond better to therapy and receive more healing after listening to music before their sessions. People who are very shy and do not  tend to speak up when necessary, will sometimes express their feelings in lyrics to songs and through dance, if they are encouraged with music.

For many people suffering with memory loss, the ordinary spoken language simply becomes meaningless to them; but the language of music can help these patients remember tunes or songs and maybe begin to open up a path to help them remember other things about their own personal history. This happens because the part of the brain which processes music is located next to the part of the brain that gives us memory.  

Have you ever noticed when you have trouble remembering something, that it is easier to remember the facts in the tune of a song?  That is why we teach children to sing their alphabet and that is why we have little songs and jingles to remind us of the basics of learning.  Nursery rhymes that are difficult for young children to remember become easy as pie when they are sung to them.    

 Researchers from Norway's Sogn Og Fjordane College compared the effects of live, taped and no music with three different groups of people who were suffering from post traumatic amnesia - or memory loss. The patients were exposed to all three conditions of musical sound, twice over six consecutive days. Test results showed that when patients listened to live or taped music, two thirds of them showed significantly reduced symptoms of anxiety and enhanced orientation, and they fared much better than the group that didn't listen to music at all.

It is not really surprising to most people to learn that music is an important part of our physical well being, as we have all actually been self-medicating for years without really understanding what we were doing

Music just seems to be an instinct built into our bodies to help us stay healthy.  This is probably why some pregnant women have chosen to listen to certain types of music while they are in labor.  They claim the music distracts them from the pain and soothes their nerves and keeps them from being so anxious.  

Other people put on certain music and songs when they exercise or work out.  They claim that a certain beat or tempo inspires them to exercise harder and better.  Many of these people actually claim that listening to music helps to improve and enhance their levels of strength and endurance.  

Joggers have often been seen running down the street with music being piped into their ears from ear buds as their feet are pounding the pavement.  They say they run faster and longer when they are inspired by the music they listen to as they jog.

Have you ever noticed when you are feeling moody how you tend to select and listen to certain types of music, and how you sometimes just want to sit alone with a certain type of music and listen uninterrupted for awhile?  

Music seems to provide an escape from the normal routine boredom in our days.  The music seems to help us to be able to  re-group and find our own special place in the world again.  This instinctive seeking of music by all of us seems to help our brains to wake up to our present circumstances, whatever they might be; and  the music just seems to encourage and inspire us to keep going and keep trying inspite of sometimes hard circumstances.  Somehow the presence of music in our days just seems to make us feel like an essential part of the big picture and it unifies us with others inside our hearts; even though we might find ourselves on a long and lonely road and just singing to ourselves.  

It turns out that all of this is logical because of the fact that the reward center of our brain which produces dopamine responds to the sounds of music.  Studies have shown that listening to music actually heightens every area of our brain.  In some cases and/or illnesses (such as Alzheimer’s disease) the use of music has proven to be even more helpful than medications.

One of the biological markers of stress is cortisol.  It seems that the relaxing effects of music can reduce the amount of the release of cortisol into the body.  Over a period of time excess cortisol builds up and causes us to gain weight.  It would be an interesting task to find out who listens to the most music; your friends who are over-weight; or your thinner friends.  More than likely you would find out that even though they both love music and use it in some ways in their lives, the over-weight group would be more visually inclined and spending more time watching tv and browsing the internet, while the thinner crowd might be more hearing-inclined and they would be at the bars and pubs and music halls listening to the local talent in night clubs, or busy singing in the church choir, or posibly pursuing a career in dance or theatre or radio.  

In one study 272 premature babies were exposed to different kinds of music for a course of three weeks while recovering in the neonatal ICU.  Different types of music and different deliveries of music were played and sang for them during that time.  The babies responded better when the music they heard was the sound of their own parent’s voices singing.  This sound seemed to reduce their stress tremendously.  Also, the parents who were asked to sing to their babies felt stress and anxiety relief too.  It was a win/win situation.  The next time your baby is crying endlessly try singing to them.  It doesn’t matter what song you sing; just the sound of your voice singing will probably help them to settle down and be comforted. 

In another study 60 people diagnosed with fibromyalgia listened to music for a four week period at random times during the day.  They experienced less pain and fewer symptoms than another group who did not incorporate music into their day at all. 

It is interesting to note how our bodies respond and how they release antibodies  in the presence of music.  In a random test given to volunteers certain sounds and their response was measured in scientific ways, counting the antibodies released in each situation.  One sound was a simple tone.  One sound was a radio broadcast.  One sound was not actually a sound but the absence of sound – that of total silence, and the other sound was a relaxing musical composition.  The soothing musical composition made the test show greater immunity and less reaction by releasing antibodies than any of the other sounds. 

While patients in a mental hospital are found to be clinically ill, and their stress hormones are extremely high; they have been exposed to studies that involved listening to  Motzart.  Afterward, upon hearing the music for some time, their hormone levels took a dive and gravitated back toward more normal levels. 

One group of patients with dementia were given voice lessons and asked to listen to music randomly for ten weeks.  Tests at the end of that time showed improved mood, orientation and memory.   It was also found by accident that their caregivers also benefited from taking the voice lessons with them.  It reduced the stress that they were constantly living under from dealing with those in their care.    

Some innovative employers have now taken to playing music in the background at their businesses.  They usually state that after making this change in the workplaces, they have found that the music helps their employees to feel more inspired and motivated, and that it helps the employees to feel physically healthier and more cheerful during the work day.  There also seems to be indications that human relations among employees have improved with the implementation of music into the work place.    

We read in the scriptures that King Saul would call for David to play his harp in order to soothe his mental health and well being.  Perhaps it would not be a bad idea for all of us to take time in our day-to-day lives to listen to soothing and inspirational music.  Psalms 95:1 says “Come let us sing for  joy unto the LORD, let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation.”

Ephesians 5:19  also advises us to “speak to one another with psalms, hymns and songs of the Spirit.”  

Perhaps we would all feel much healthier and live much happier lives if we would just remember to always keep a song in our hearts.