Music & Health
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain - Bob Marley
image by: Garry Knight
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Scientists Find 15 Amazing Benefits Of Listening To Music
When I gave birth to my first-born, I listened to CDs of classical music in the hospital. I figured that music would help calm me and distract me from the pain.
You might use music to distract yourself from painful or stressful situations, too. Or perhaps you’ve listened to music while studying or working out, hoping to up your performance. Though you may sense that music helps you feel better somehow, only recently has science begun to figure out why that is.
Neuroscientists have discovered that listening to music heightens positive emotion through the reward centers of our brain, stimulating hits of dopamine that can make us feel good…
Resources
The science of songs: how does music affect your body chemistry?
Like many music lovers I’ve always had a fascination withthe emotional power. How can a combination of sounds make all the hairs on your arms stand on end, or make you cry? I’ve always enjoyed reading newspaper and magazine articles about the psychological effects of music, but apart from the general conclusion that “music is magical”, they rarely provide any scientific answers.
Yeah, good music kind of gets you high
Your favorite tunes activate the same brain systems that opioid drugs do.
Anxiety: a playlist to calm the mind from a music therapist
This list offers some suggestions of music that could be used to help people relax. A favourite of mine, which I haven’t included, is the slow movement from JS Bach’s Double Violin Concerto. It never fails to give me a sense of feeling safe and grounded, something that can be so important when we may be feeling anxious. It should be said, though, that many studies emphasise the importance of finding your own selection of music that works for you.
Can Music Be Used as Medicine?
Biometric trackers are helping scientists tap into the body's response to songs and sound.
Could Music Be A Game-Changer For The Future Of Digital Health?
The marriage of music and technology will take us beyond entertainment to boldly redefine the future of music as medicine. Music will become a game-changer for products and programs looking to win in the highly competitive digital health marketplace. Scientifically validated and emotionally engaging therapeutics using music and sound for the user’s wellbeing will be a new standard, available to anyone, anytime.
How Does Music Affect Your Brain? Every Imaginable Way
WAKING UP. WORKING out. Riding the bus. Music is an ever-present companion for many of us, and its impact is undeniable. You know music makes you move and triggers emotional responses, but how and why?
How Mary Gauthier Is Helping Soldiers Tell Their Stories Through Music
Gauthier considers Rifles & Rosary Beads to be the first of a series of albums she anticipates releasing from the Songwriting With Soldiers sessions, and she plans to continue working with the veterans and their families on more new material. And she's hoping other writers involved in the program, and others to come in the future, will also turn the material they create into albums.
How Sound Affects Our Health
Public officials and scientists are looking at what kinds of noise most annoy us—and what kinds can make us feel better.
The Dangers of Overestimating Music Therapy
It's comforting to believe that songs can help dementia patients recall their lost selves. But music can also harm as much as it helps, creating false memories, confusion, and distress.
The Healing Power of Music
Music therapy is increasingly used to help patients cope with stress and promote healing.
When Music Is the Best Medicine
Music therapists can meet the spiritual, psychological and aesthetic needs of the afflicted by producing sounds testifying to the fact that beauty continues to exist in the world.
The scientific mystery of why humans love music
It's a question that has puzzled scientists for decades: Why does something as abstract as music provoke such consistent emotions?
A Dose of Singing Does Stroke Patients Good
Clinical trial looks at how music therapy can help patients get better.
Healing through Music
Music therapy is a burgeoning field. Those who become certified music therapists are accomplished musicians who have deep knowledge of how music can evoke emotional responses to relax or stimulate people, or help them heal.
Music Therapy May Hold Promise For Treating Epilepsy
Can listening to Mozart help prevent seizures?
Music Therapy, More Powerful Than You Might Expect
While many ancient cultures considered music a form of medicine, modern music therapy has only been around for about 65 years. Yet it has since proven to be a remarkable evidenced-based modality.
The Health Benefits of Music
Given the current state of the research, it is not known if music is any better at healing than other alternatives. Music is not the only way to relieve pain or reduce stress. Music might work well for Person A while meditation is better for Person B and deep breathing or exercise help Person C. If nothing else, however, music is another tool at your disposal when you want to relieve pain, reduce stress, and promote healing.
'The Power Of Music' To Affect The Brain
Science all but confirms that humans are hard-wired to respond to music. Studies also suggest that someday music may even help patients heal from Parkinson's disease or a stroke.
A New Prescription: A Dose of Live Music for Hospital Patients
A professional violist is playing for neurology patients at a Chicago hospital to study music’s effect on their anxiety and isolation; ‘It’s very comforting for people when they’re sick.’
Art and music therapy seem to help with brain disorders. Scientists want to know why
"We know that when we receive music, even when we hear music, we're activating multiple parts of the brain," she says. And studies suggest that this strengthens brain circuits that help repair damage.
Does Listening to Music Improve Your Focus?
While tackling a work assignment or school homework, do you concentrate more if there is music in the background? A neurologist considers the ‘Mozart Effect.’
Healthy songs: the amazing power of music therapy
Music therapy has grown from relative obscurity to a practice that is becoming fairly mainstream, largely due to the advocacy of colleagues in the field, along with media coverage of the burgeoning profession.
How Can the Music Industry Fix Its Mental Health Problem?
We put Olly Alexander from Years & Years and the chairman of the leading British music charity on the phone together and got them to thrash it out.
How music can help relieve chronic pain
As the 17th-century English playwright William Congreve said: “Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.” It is known that listening to music can significantly enhance our health and general feelings of well-being.
How Music Helped Me Back from the Edge of Suicide
The bath, where my suicide attempt took place, was the only place I felt comfortable. I would perch my laptop on a chair, and replay the same song until the rest of me reached saturation point.
How personalised music can be used in health care
Using personalised music in therapy is cheap and can reap great rewards.
Music Therapy Brings Solace To COVID-19 Patients And Healers
Music therapy treatments, tailored to each patient's needs, can involve creating, singing, moving to and/or listening to music in ways that have been shown to promote physical and psychological healing. Research has shown the reduction in pain and stress from such treatments can be profound.
Scientists tune into the brain to uncover music’s healing power
The challenge: Harnessing music to do more than comfort the sick. Now, moving beyond programs like Georgetown’s, the National Institutes of Health is bringing together musicians, music therapists and neuroscientists to tap into the brain’s circuitry and figure out how.
The Benefits of Music: How the Science of Music Can Help You Read more at: https://www.scienceofpeople.com/benefits-music/
Did you know there are many benefits to listening to music? Crank up the tunes and blast those beats, because the results are in — music is good for you. We know the healing power of music. Bad breakup? Cue “We Are Never Getting Back Together” by Taylor Swift. Powering through a long run? Jam out to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”.
The healing power of hip hop
But while many people struggle to look past the profanity, materialism, and high-risk messages often celebrated within mainstream rap music, hip hop culture at its core, is built on values of social justice, peace, respect, self-worth, community, and having fun. And because of these values, it’s increasingly being used as a therapeutic tool when working with young people.
The scientific mystery of why humans love music
Studies have shown that when we listen to music, our brains release dopamine, which in turn makes us happy. In one study published in Nature Neuroscience, led by Zatorre, researchers found that dopamine release is strongest when a piece of music reaches an emotional peak and the listener feels "chills"— the spine-tingling sensation of excitement and awe.
Turning music into spiritual medicine
Music often provides answers that drugs and medical treatment can’t supply...
Whether Mozart or Madonna, music can help you recover from surgery
Using music to improve patients’ hospital experience has a long history, and its potential was recognised by Florence Nightingale. Music was first described being used to help patients during operations in a scientific paper more than 100 years ago.
Why listening to music is good for your health
After we arrived, my grandmother would typically begin playing a mix of classical music, folk songs and pop songs on her spinet piano—and I would watch my dad’s face transform: his jaw would slacken, while the lines between his eyebrows softened, lifting the intensity of thought that always seemed to burden him.
You Asked: Is Listening to Music Good For Your Health?
Music seems to “selectively activate” neurochemical systems and brain structures associated with positive mood, emotion regulation, attention and memory in ways that promote beneficial changes, says Kim Innes, a professor of epidemiology at West Virginia University’s School of Public Health.
Scientists Find 15 Amazing Benefits Of Listening To Music
Recent research shows that listening to music improves our mental well-being and boosts our physical health in surprising and astonishing ways. If we take a music lesson or two, that musical training can help raise our IQs and even keep us sharp in old age. Here are 15 amazing scientifically-proven benefits of being hooked on music...
20 Surprising, Science-Backed Health Benefits of Music
Research suggests that music not only helps us cope with pain — it can also benefit our physical and mental health in numerous other ways.
Five Ways Music Can Make You Healthier
New studies are suggesting that music can be more powerful than medication.
Chase the Music
The mission of Chase the Music is to have original music composed and performed for children battling critical illnesses.
Music & Memory
MUSIC & MEMORY℠ is a non-profit organization that brings personalized music into the lives of the elderly or infirm through digital music technology, vastly improving quality of life.
Music and Medicine
Music and Medicine is a new interdisciplinary journal that will be an integrative forum for clinical practice and research related to music interventions and applications of clinical music strategies in medicine. Each peer reviewed issue will offer original articles, case studies, editorial commentaries, and interviews from clinical medicine, the neurosciences, behavioral sciences, nursing, and social work that translate music, music psychology, music cognition, music neurology, and music therapy into scientifically valid clinical applications. Music and Medicine’s goal is to bring together information that is currently scattered across many disciplines throughout many publications.
Music Heals
We are a group of music enthusiasts and music lovers who have come together to help raise awareness of the healing powers of music. The Music Heals Charitable Foundation supports a wide range of music therapy services to communities in BC and across Canada. We fund increased access to music therapy for patients in children’s hospitals, senior’s centres, palliative care, AIDS & HIV programs, at-risk youth, rehabilitation, and bereavement support.
Music Therapy Maven
Feel free to explore this site for information on music therapy, developing a therapy practice, and my journey as a working woman in academia who moonlights as a full-time mommy.
Music Therapy Perspectives
For readers inside and outside the profession of music therapy, Music Therapy Perspectives seeks to promote the development of music therapy clinical practice through the dissemination of scholarly work.
Music Therapy Roundtable
A Podcast About All Things Music Therapy.
Musicians Health
Worried about your health? Think you may have a medical problem related to playing a musical instrument? Or want to avoid known repetative injuries? There are some excellent resources on the internet that provide all the information you could possibly need!!
Musicians without Borders
Musicians without Borders uses the power of music to bridge divides, connect communities, and heal the wounds of war. We work closely with local musicians and organizations to build sustainable projects in response to local needs.
The Mindful Music Therapist
Conversations about music therapy.
The Musician's Health Corner
The Musician's Health Corner is a website and blog dedicated to sharing knowledge on health-related topics for performing artists/musicians. It doesn't matter if you are just getting started playing Mary Had a Little Lamb, or if you are touring world-wide playing in sold-out stadiums. This information is FOR EVERYONE.
American Music Therapy Association
AMTA's purpose is the progressive development of the therapeutic use of music in rehabilitation, special education, and community settings.
Artists in Healthcare
Artists in Healthcare believe that music and the arts are essential for a healthy life. Artists in Healthcare brings live music and arts to patients receiving treatment in oncology, palliative care, rehabilitation and dialysis. On units throughout hospitals in Manitoba our unique programs provide important benefits for patients, families, and staff as an oasis from stress and anxiety often found in these environments.
Canadian Association for Music Therapy
The mission of the Canadian Association for Music Therapy is to promote excellence in music therapy practice, education, research and development; to increase access to high quality music therapy services; to further the awareness of music therapy in Canada and to serve as an organizational agency for its members.
Canadian Music Therapy Fund
We fund music therapy in Canada. Music moves us. We have all felt the power of music – all kinds of music – on some level. For those living with physical, developmental, or emotional challenges, music moves us in even more profound ways.
Institute for Music and Neurologic Function
Through the scientific exploration of music and the brain, The Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF) seeks to establish new knowledge and to develop more effective music therapy treatments to awaken, stimulate and heal through the extraordinary power of music.
International Association for Music & Medicine
The International Association for Music & Medicine was founded to promote an integrative perspective to applied music in health care. Pursuing an ambitious vision which has resulted in the dissemination of high level research through the IAMM journal Music and Medicine, gathering a worldwide membership base, and hosting international conferences every two years, IAMM offers immense capacity for directing attention towards the integration of a wide range of research initiatives and contemporary practices in the uses of music in the healthcare arena.
Journal of Music Therapy
A forum for authoritative articles of current music therapy research and theory, Journal of Music Therapy, seeks to advance research, theory, and practice in music therapy through the dissemination of scholarly work.
Snohomish County Music Project
The Snohomish County Music Project is a non-profit organization that uses the power of music to inspire people to do good things for their communities and for themselves...
World Federation of Music Therapy
Its aim is to promote music therapy throughout the world. Music therapy is the professional use of music and its elements as an intervention in medical, educational, and everyday environments with individuals, groups, families, or communities who seek to optimize their quality of life and improve their physical, social, communicative, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health and wellbeing.
DanceSafe
DanceSafe is a 501(c)(3) public health organization promoting health and safety within the nightlife and electronic music community. Founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1998 by Emanuel Sferios, DanceSafe quickly grew into a national organization with chapters in cities across North America.
Introducing Stitches!
Your Path to Meaningful Connections in the World of Health and Medicine
Connect, Collaborate, and Engage!
Coming Soon - Stitches, the innovative chat app from the creators of HWN. Join meaningful conversations on health and medical topics. Share text, images, and videos seamlessly. Connect directly within HWN's topic pages and articles.
