Music is perhaps the most powerful external influence that shapes who you really are, how you feel, how you think, and what you become.
Music can be a powerful mood-alterіng agent. Music is one of the many artistic expressions of life. Music flows deeper within us than we realize. Music can be therapeutic to children with mental challenges, help children increase the development of a specific area of the brain, be used as an educational tool, especially for children with learning difficulties, and bring people together to celebrate and love each other. Essentially music is present in every culture in the world.
Music is naturally endowed with the ability to affect those who listen to it in a certain way. Every known society throughout history has had its form of music. Humans were already playing complex instruments such as bone flutes, jaw harps, and percussive instruments long ago in the earliest civilizations.
THE EFFECTS OF MUSIC
Stress Reduction
The modern use of music therapy in the hospital was developed in the 50s, in both Europe and the United States. Studies have shown that music is effective in decreasing stress preoperatively. One school of thought believes music may reduce stress because it can help patients relax and also lower blood pressure.
Mental health
In 1990 the National Association for Music Therapy conducted a survey showing that music therapists serve in a variety of positions with many populations including mental illness, elderly persons, addicted persons, the developmentally disabled, and those with multiple disabilities. The nature of music is to influence change as the tempo, pitch, and melody pattern influence one's mood and physical process.
Induces Sleep
Relaxing music is an easy way to beat insomnia. Research has shown that people suffering from insomnia sleep after just 45 minutes of relaxing music before bedtime. Relaxing music will reduce sympathetic nervous system activity, decreases anxiety, blood pressure, and heart and respiratory rate, and have positive effects on sleep through muscle relaxation and distraction from any form of thoughts.
Effective for Unborn Babies
Music is also effective in antenatal clinics. Hearing live performances of music will increase the number of accelerations in the fetal heartbeat; a great sign of good health. Even two-month-old babies incline their attention toward pleasant consonant sounds and away from unpleasant dissonant sounds.
Adolescent Behavior
Adolescents are most susceptible to the effects of music. The type of music adolescents listen to can be a predictor of their behavior. The majority of people that listen to heavy metal and rap have higher rates of delinquent activity, such as sexual activity, use of drugs and alcohol, poor school grades, arrest, theft at work, and behavioral problems than those who prefer listening to other types of music. They are also more likely to think suicidal thoughts, be depressed, inflict self-harm, and have dysfunctional families.
HOW MUSIC INFLUENCES OUR MOOD
Music is often used to express emotions such as joy, sorrow, anxiety, fear, desires, and the like. Music has been a tool of communication in everyday life by helping one man to understand another and providing a medium of interconnection between humans.
Music is a very powerful weapon because of its ability to heal the soul. Many people believe that music lifts their spirits. Modern research tends to confirm music's psychotherapeutic benefits.
Music is a valid therapy to potentially reduce depression and anxiety, as well as to improve mood, self-esteem, and quality of life. Music therapy can serve as an effective treatment for mood disorders related to neurological conditions - dementia, stroke, and multiple sclerosis.
Music is similar to math as it has obvious rhythm and organization. Research has shown that even sad music can lift one's mood, while other studies suggest music can boost happiness and reduce anxiety. Human beings naturally have the tendency to place learned emphasis on what they hear, mirroring their own emotions in the type of music heard.
Research has shown that people prefer to listen to sad music when they are experiencing a deep interpersonal loss, like the end of a relationship. Music lights up deep parts of our psyche and can stir up memories and buried emotions.
Several psychologists and authors have affirmed that children and adults with autism can immensely benefit from listening to certain types of music. Given their uncommon inclination towards music, music therapy will give them a chance to experience without coming in direct human contact.
Music can help those suffering from physical pain just as studies have shown that people who listen to music that is soothing have requested less pain medication after surgery and that relaxation music can also help them manage chronic pain.
Music has been proven as good for the heart. Some experts even say that it can work as a medicine for your heart. When you listen to your favorite music for a sufficient amount of time it produces 'happy' hormones, which make you happy. Music beats also help in improving your heart rate and in breathing a great deal.
However, not all music will affect a person in a positive way but a particular piece of music can affect different people in the same way. This mostly depends on the individual and what they find to be calming.
