Staying in tune with music - impact of music on mental & physical health - includes related article on music and appetite

Vibrant Life, July-August, 1992 by Mary A. VanDerWeele

Most people don't realize the vast impact music has on our lives every day.

Ugh, what a stressful day--and now all this traffic. Ah, there's the freeway. I'm heading home. With a flip of the switch the songs on my favorite cassette embrace my tired body and soul with soothing relaxing strains. Now I'm humming, the stress is easing--the tight grip on the steering wheel relaxes. Ummmm! It's just what the doctor ordered. I feel better already. Why? The music.

We are surrounded by music, yet most people don't realize the vast impact it has on our everyday mental, physical, and spiritual health. Modern researchers delving into why and how music affects our minds and bodies have come up with some startling facts. For instance, music creates changes in metabolism, circulation, blood volume, pulse, blood pressure, and our moods. Doris Soibelman, author of Therapeutic and Industrial Uses of Music, claims that nearly every organ in the body responds to music.

Music can compel us to laugh, to cry, to worship God. It can calm us or whip us into an emotional foot-stomping frenzy. Playing "our song" can trigger memories and nostalgic moods.

In the Bible, David calmed King Saul's moods by playing the harp. Egyptians used music to calm their insane, and their mighty pyramids. were built to the rhythmic beat of it.

Different uses for music. Today programmed music is used to make jogging, walking, and other exercises easier and more fun. In a recent newspaper interview with a top high school runner, the athlete attributed his running success partly to music. According to the article, the runner tunes out distractions and gets the correct mind-set by picking the right mood music and running with it.

Our 80-year-old neighbor claims she can walk for miles without getting tired when listening to a music-for-walking tape.

Today scientifically planned music greets us everywhere and is used in hospital labor rooms and dentist offices to help keep both doctor and patient calm.

Colleges and universities offer degrees in music therapy, and almost every mental hospital has a trained music therapist. Therapists say music often helps bridge the gap between reality and fantasy for mental patients and can be an effective tool in controlling moods. Even when minds are closed to all else, music will often break down barriers.

In his book Music for Your Health, Dr. Edward Podolsky lists several uses for music. For the nervous ulcer patient he advises a half hour a day spent alone just listening to music of the patient's choice. For tiredness he suggests listening to some Gershwin classics. If you're on edge and need to calm down, he recommends tunes like Schubert's "Ave Maria" or the tranquil Moonlight Sonata.

Researchers have also found that lively music can be effective in activating a slow pulse and that smoothing music can sometimes have a calming effect on an overactive heart. Dwight Eisenhower is said to have used Brahms and Bach to help him recover from a heart attack.

Why we react, Why do our systems react to music? Researchers believe that music gets to us because we are rhythmic beings, with rhythm in respiration, heartbeats, brain waves, gait, and speech. The impact of music appears to be in the way musical sounds reach and affect the brain.

In 1896 an Italian physician caring for a 13-year-old boy who had a healed skull wound through which brain pulsations could be observed experimented with music. He reported that it did indeed affect the pulsations of the brain. He noted that high notes seemed to produce bigger changes than those of lower pitch.

The late Dr. Ira N. Alschuler, a psychiatrist and one time director of musical therapy at Wayne County Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, reported that "the mental and spiritual drug of music enters the human being through the thalamus, a part of the brain that is the main relay station for all emotions, sensations, and feelings. Thus music affects moods."

Scientists who have studied programmed music have found that soft seductive music slows the circulation and reduces the volume of blood that reaches the brain. Australian music researcher Harry Cox says that driven or hyperactive individuals can sometimes be helped by tunes played at a faster tempo and pitch than their own emotional state. Once a person's attention is captured and he or she starts keeping time with the music, patterns can be subtly changed to slower tempos, thus giving a sedative effect. The opposite technique has been used with an apathetic individual. Music therapists have matched a patient's mood with music and then helped the person alter his or her mood by gradual changes in tempo. It is a slow process and must be administered by persons trained not only in music but also in human behavior.

Music in the workplace. In the everyday working world, scientifically planned background music has been found to increase production and cut down on boredom, fatigue, and tension. At a Midwestern university a group of students participating in a musical research project were assigned monotonous manual jobs that they did in silence. Then a soft background music was added, and production increased 17 percent.