Do you think that music can have an effect on our health?

 

I posed this question in a survey, and the majority of the responses I received were along the lines of music being able to help people with mental disorders, but not necessarily completely cure them. Using music to help with mental disorders is actually a legit form of treatment. It is known as music therapy  and it is being used along with regular therapy to help people with mental health problems like Parkinsons. The earliest known music therapy was in 1789. According to a Canadian study music can also be used to help treat insomnia. When patients listened to specially tailored “brain music” created using special computer programs the researchers had created, they were able to fall asleep. In fact, listening to their favourite music helped too. Here is a video where you can see a man being transformed with music. He is normally unresponsive and has a hard time answering yes or no questions, but the music almost brings him back to life. Take a look!

You may think that the above video may show a one time event, but because music affects us physiologically, music therapy does have a scientific basis. Music has proven to reduce stress in a study in Tzu Chi university.  The group in the study who listened to the music had lower blood pressure, heart rate, and stress hormone levels. They also reported feeling less stressed. Research performed by music psychologist Alexandra Lamont has also shown that music makes competitive athletes more in the zone (read more).  Music even has the ability to affect physical health. Recently, research groups have been researching how different speeds of music affect the body. They found that music directly affects the heart and circulation, and realized that music would be useful in operations. This is because many complications caused by surgery are caused by problems with circulation. If they could use music to somewhat control circulation, some of the problems from surgery could be less severe or not happen to as many people. In fact, Damir Janigro, a neuroscientist tested giving patients undergoing brain surgery (who often had to be awake for surgical procedures that took several hours) music to ease anxiety because he’d seen it being done at the dentists. He gave them headphones with calming music, and the patients in his study closed their eyes and fell asleep, and some even started snoring. Janigro said that melodic music decreased the activity of individual neurons in the deep brain (read more). In hospitals, music is used to steady the breathing of premature babies and the heart rates of cardiac patients (The music instinct: 13:40).

Below is the response I received to the question: Can music cure diseases? It is on a scale of 1-5, where 1 means no, music can’t affect health at all, and 5 means yes, it can cure diseases. As you can see below, the majority of the respondents were somewhere in the middle. A very clear minority thought that music could completely cure diseases.

I gave the respondents the option of explaining their answer, and I received a number of reasons for why people thought (or didn’t think) music could have an effect on health. The answers were divided. I received a lot of definite nos, but there were also a lot of people who did think music could help treat diseases. The most recurring answers were along the lines that music can improve one’s mood and reduce stress. People used this as a basis for their argument that music could help with mental and stressed based illnesses, and in particular depression. One person wrote that they had suffered depression and music had helped them through many of the lows (spreadsheet). Another person suggested that music could improve health because it is a motivation for exercise. Very few people wrote that they thought that music could completely cure a disease. However, they said that music could help if it was combined with other forms of  treatment. Many people wrote that music had the power to inspire people or give them willpower, which could help with minor physical illnesses or psychological problems. In this way, some said, music could act as a placebo for these diseases. They meant it didn’t have any actual health benefits, but it can make people feel a lot better.

After reading this page, do you agree with the respondents of the survey?