Blog 14: The Healing Powers of Music

Hello everyone and welcome back! Last week, I touched upon the mental health benefits of Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response or known by its other name, ASMR. It is a collection of subtle movements or sounds recorded to induce a relaxed state. ASMR can act as another form of meditation that can greatly help with stress reduction and insomnia relief. I hope you can use ASMR as a way to relax when you need to. Today, we are going to talk about another mental health strategy known as music therapy that can also act as a form of stress reduction, in addition to other calming elements that will benefit the mind and body. In my personal experience, I have used music to influence my feelings on any given day, whether it is to build up my confidence levels before a presentation, to boost my mood, to give me motivation when working on a homework assignment, to accompany me while exercising, etc. According to the American Music Therapy Association, music therapy is a type of health profession that allows for the individual to incorporate any form of music to be used therapeutically to help with the physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of the individual (American Music Therapy Association, n.d.). Music therapy is shown to be effective towards “. . . overall physical rehabilitation and facilitating movement, increasing people’s motivation to become engaged in their treatment, providing emotional support for clients and their families, and providing an outlet for expression of feelings” (American Music Therapy Association, n.d.). The concept of music is quite broad as it entails multiple genres, various instruments, different singing types, beats, languages, and the list goes on. Therefore, “. . . music engages a variety of brain areas involved in emotion, motivation, cognition, and motor functions, musical interventions have been used to increase socialization and cognitive, emotional, and neuromotor functioning” (Raglio, Attardo, Gontero, Rollino, Groppo, & Granieri, 2015, p. 70). In addition, music therapy is said to be effective in mental recovery of the individual, “. . . especially in the reduction of the depressive and anxiety’s component, and in the improvement of the emotional expression, communication and interpersonal skills, self esteem and quality of life” (Raglio, Attardo, Gontero, Rollino, Groppo, & Granieri, 2015, p. 75). In conclusion, if you are having one of those days that requires you to be on your “A” game, then I would recommend using music as a technique to help assist you and see if it helps. Stay tuned and stay healthy!!

#Thehealingpowersofmusic #musictherapy

Please reach out or comment below on any personal experiences that you feel comfortable sharing!

References:

American Music Therapy Association (n.d.). What is music therapy. American Music Therapy Association. https://www.musictherapy.org/about/musictherapy/

Raglio, A., Attardo, L., Gontero, G., Rollino, S., Groppo, E., & Granieri, E. (2015). Effects of music and music therapy on mood in neurological patients. World Journal of Psychiatry, 5(1), 68-78. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4369551/pdf/WJP-5-68.pdf