Music As Medication
Tags: Mental Health, Songs, Writing, Music, Health

Music is a widely known genre and people spend hours listening or creating music. Billions of dollars are spent every year on music. yet mainstream social-personality psychology has hardly given any attention to this phenomenon.

In 2009 archaeologists found a flute carved from vulture’s wing bone dating approx 40,000 years. This indicates the existence of music for over 40,000 years in the past.

What is music?

Music is an art of sound in time that expresses emotions or certain ideas in a significant form through elements of melody, rhythm, harmony, or sound employed using voice or instrument or sometimes both.

There are multiple forms and types of music. Some popular ones are jazz, hip-hop, pop, etc. Music is not limited to be created just by an artificial instrument instead it’s part of our day-to-day routine. Humming of birds, Mother singing lullaby, etc. All these are music in their own definitive way.

What are the benefits of music?

Music helps us in several ways, such as it can boost memory, build task endurance, lighten our mood, improve our response to pain, reduce anxiety, and surprisingly music is also found to be helpful in reducing fatigue.

Music can be implemented in our day-to-day life like listening to music while doing something silly can help us to boost our mood and make it relatively less boring. It is been observed in many cases that listening to our favorites beats before heading to bed improves the quality of sleep it helps in better and quickly falling asleep so less time is spent lying awake and more time in getting proper rest.

Not only humans but other living organisms too benefit from music. As music is certain vibrations produce by an instrument that causes disturbance in the air in a control orderly manner. Different plants and animals showed a positive response when exposed to it.

It helps in order to fight/cure disease

The researchers found that listening to and playing music increase the body production of the antibody immunoglobulin A and natural killer cells. A very common and helpful effect of music is found out to be helpful in cases of depression, stress, or mental unease.

In a meta-analysis of 400 studies Levitin and his research fellow, Mona Lisa Chanda found that music improves the body’s immune system function and reduces the body’s stress in fact listening to music turned out to be more beneficial than prescription drugs in reducing anxiety before various surgeries.

According to Johns Hopkins otolaryngologist if someone wants to keep the brain engaged throughout the aging process, listening or playing music is a great tool as it provides total brain workout.

Effect of music on infants/children.

Music has a wide range of positive effects on small children, it helps brain development at an early stage. One study found an increase in white matter in the corpus callosum which results in increased brain connectivity. Einstein learned to play the violin as a young child, and a study of his brain showed unusually strong connections.

Often times a mother sings a lullaby to her child and that soothing music makes the child fall asleep that’s a response towards music. A Behavior to be noticed is children don’t just enjoy listening to music they clap, tap, bounce dance to either create music or to show their appreciation toward music. Over time such activities will help them develop fine and large motor control.

Zoomusicology

Zoomusicology is the study of musical aspects of sound or communication produced and received by animals. As this field suggests other species too actively benefit from music just like humans.

The most well-known form of music found in non-human animals is bird-song. It is different from the normal call. For instance, a bird call is a direct attention that a predator is near or it could be a way to attract potential mates. Often times it is also used to mark or defends one’s territory. Dolphins and whales communicate using an intricate form of sounds like burst-pulsed sounds, clicks, and whistles. Whistles are mainly used for communication in an orderly produced manner whereas clicks are used for echolocation.

In 2012, in a study published in the journal of veterinary behavior, researchers from Colorado state university monitored the behavior of 117 kenneled dogs by playing various types of music. The results showed that listening to classical music helped dogs to sleep more and showed signs of more relaxing behavior of dogs.

Music for plants!!

Plants cant hear things right? Or at least that’s what we thought. Surprisingly, plants do respond to music and several studies proved the positive effect of music on plants. Like an increase in production rate, having more biomass, and other positive effects.

In 1962, Indian botanist Dr. T. C. Singh discovered that the Balsam plant grew an extra 20% in height and 72% in biomass when exposed to Indian classical music. In 1973 Dorothy Retallack a music student at Colorado woman’s college carried out a series of experiments that showed the positive effect of music on plants and it also proved that the total time period for which plants are exposed to sound also makes the difference.

Every coin has 2 sides and so does the music

Listening to loud music for an extended period of time can be really bad for one’s eardrums. As attractive and soothing music is listening to it while doing something important can definitely distract someone, this is especially common in young students who often listen to music while doing homework and end up not practicing their studies properly.

Music often brings back memories that we have experienced in past and sometimes music can bring back bad memories perhaps an accident or something scary which potentially can lead to depression.

Final thoughts

Listening or playing Music is really beneficial if practiced properly as not only humans but the overall environment benefits from it. And it is been proven by multiple researches and studies. So I’d rather plug in a song when I have nothing to do as not only it’ll help me from getting bored but it’ll also provide some mental calmness, How good is that!