Dr. Stephen Sinatra is a cardiologist and author who has been incorporating music in his practice for decades. He states ‘that music can have a positive impact on heart rate. It tones down the sympathetic nervous system and balances it with the parasympathetic nervous system which relieves panic and anxiety.’

Dr. Joanne Loewy says we can use music in building cardiac strength and resilience.

There were some interesting things on a Gaia video titled, “Music and the Heart.” Did you know that researchers have found that listening to music can lessen anxiety and pain after major heart surgery? The researchers said that listening to music post-surgery has many benefits of the normal medications prescribed to aid in post-surgery recovery but none of the side effects. Other studies show that music modulates blood pressure, heart rate and respiration and can lower the rate of death after a heart attack or stroke. I can recall after one of my knee surgeries, I was singing in the recovery room and I remember feeling really joyful.

Barry Goldstein, an award winning composer, producer and author says music has the ability to create heart and brain coherence which means smooth orderly heart rhythms which then set the rhythm of the rest of the body

But, for example, when someone is severely stressed, experts say you don’t want to immediately play relaxing music. That can be jarring. I have witnessed when my parents have anxiety, they play Baroque and Classical music and that calms them down.

If you liked this article, check out some of my other articles on healing and music. 

Enjoy your music. 

As I mentioned in a previous article, music can help us to heal from traumatic events. Karla Hawley tells how for years she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her step-father. One night, she was awakened in the middle of the night by some beautiful music, and she crept downstairs and discovered her mother playing the piano. She had no idea that her mother knew how to play. As she listened, she describes how she could envision angels singing and got lost in the beauty of the melody. After her mother finished playing, Karla snuck back up to her bedroom and went to sleep.

Soon after, one day Karla went to the piano and found the piece that her mother had played that night. When she looked over the sheet music, she was overwhelmed by all the notes on the pages, but there was one section of music that looked doable to her. She had some piano experience, so she sat down and began to play those four measures.

As she played that music, she started to feel calmer. Karla explains that when a victim of trauma plays the music themselves, they are able to strategically target what they need and therefore have some control over the outcome. She said there were times when she would play angry but then she would get in trouble with her mother because she was pounding on the keys so she would play sadness because it was quieter and more acceptable. Alone in her pain and torment, the only refuge she found was when she was able to play that song on the piano and even though she was only able to play four measures over and over again, those four measures were her saving grace.

When Karla got older, she finally told someone about the abuse, and her family fell apart. Her mother disowned her, but she held onto that piece of music and to this day, she still plays those four measures as a source of comfort and strength.

If you know someone who is a victim of trauma, you might suggest taking up an instrument. They don’t need to be an artist or interested in being a musician to learn and play the basic instrument level. They can do what Karla did, play music to help them calm down. Playing music can help someone improve their lives dramatically.

Another idea is to work with a music therapist. They are trained to find the right music that can help someone in their specific situations.
If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy some of my other articles at EmpoweringHumanityTV.com.

Enjoy your Music.

As I mentioned in a previous article, neurologists have found that music activates the brain in unique ways. According to Kathleen M. Howland, a Speech and Music Therapist, babies and newborns can detect the beats in music and sea chanties were used to bring sailors together to complete a universal task. People with Parkinson’s Disease can walk normally to music and children with autism respond well to it. In his book, “This is Your Brain on Music,” Dr. Daniel J. Levitin tells how he had patients who were unable to read a newspaper, but were able to read music. People who have had strokes may not be able to speak, but they can communicate through song and people who stutter, do not do so when they sing.

In the book, “Music and Autism, Speaking for Ourselves” Michael B. Bakan explains that ‘the strong identification with music that many autistic people have, sometimes in tandem with exceptional musical abilities, has been observed frequently since the advent of autism studies in the 1940’s.’ Autistic people are able to express themselves through music or the playing of music when they can’t talk to communicate.

Dr. Daniel J. Levitin goes on to say in his book, “This is Your Brain on Music,” ‘that musical activity involves nearly every region of the brain that we know about, and nearly every neural subsystem.’ In other words, nearly all five parts of the brain; the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe and the cerebellum are all affected by music in some way.

Let’s review what the different areas of the brain do. ‘The frontal lobe is associated with planning and self-control.’ For purposes of music, ‘trying to follow along with music that you know… recruits additional regions of the brain, including the hippocampus-our memory center-and subsections of the frontal lobe.’ ‘The temporal lobe is associated with hearing and memory. Listening to or recalling lyrics involves language centers… in the temporal and frontal lobes. The posterior part of the frontal lobe is associated with motor movements and spatial skill. The occipital lobe with vision.’

‘The cerebellum is involved in emotion and the planning of movements. Tapping along with music involves the cerebellum’s timing circuits. And ‘the emotions we experience in response to music involve structures deep in the primitive, reptilian regions of the cerebellar vermis, and the amygdala-the heart of emotional processing in the cortex.’

If you would like a more in-depth look at the brain and how it functions, I highly recommend Dr. Levitin’s book. He goes into intricate detail which I found fascinating but for purposes of this article, were not necessary.

If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy some of my other articles at EmpoweringHumanityTV.com.

Enjoy your Music.