Music Therapy: An Answer to Your Spiritual Health

What is music therapy?

Music therapy is an evidence-based allied health service comparable to physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology, which uses music as a clinical method to treat physical, cognitive, social, mental, psychological, spiritual, and behavioral needs.

There is a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research literature available for music therapy.[1] Music therapy is different from Musopathy, which focuses on a more generic and non-cultural approach focused on neural, physical therapy. And other responses to the fundamental aspects of sound.

According to Dr. Daniel Levitin, “Singing and instrumental activities may have helped our species to strengthen their motor abilities, paving the way for the production of the exquisitely delicate muscle coordination required for vocal or signed speech.

Evidence shows that music therapy is helpful to all people, both physically and psychologically. Music therapy advantages include increased heart rate, decreased anxiety, brain stimulation, and improved learning. Music therapists use their methods to support their patients in many ways, from pre-and post-operative stress relief to neuropathologies such as Alzheimer’s disease. One research found that children who listened to music while having an IV implanted in their arms experienced less discomfort and less pain than children who did not listen to music while having an IV inserted. Studies in patients diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia have shown visible improvement in their mental health after music therapy.

A brief history of music therapy

To develop a greater understanding of music therapy theory and its evolution over the years, you first need to understand where it comes from. The origins of music and its bond with humanity go back to the dawn of time; as civilizations have grown, so has the use of music in their people’s lives. Ancient cultures, such as early native Americans, used music to communicate with their gods and nature and a healing tool and a way to socialize within their community.

Music is holding its position as a therapy in the United States since the Second World War. At this time, clinicians and physicians have witnessed first-hand how people respond to music as a means to deal with the physical and mental distress created by their time of war. The influence of music is a therapeutic process, there was also a movement to set up an educational program for individuals to perform music safely in a hospital setting; this was the beginning of music therapy.

How does music affect your spirituality?

Music is part of all ancient sacred traditions: also used as an essential element in mystical ceremonies and rituals to reconcile communities with one another and the divine, to focus one ‘s mind, to seek deeper realities, and to overcome the boundaries in ordinary existence.

How does music therapy affect the body?

Music can affect your body by changing your pulse rhythm and decreasing your blood pressure, body temperature, and breathing rate. Help enhance the quality of living, reduce the feeling of loneliness, and increase the sense of power. The old repressed (bottled up) feelings will release now.

What are some of the effects of music?

Music affects an individual in numerous ways. Music can:

• Help enhance the quality of living, reduce the feeling of loneliness, and increase the sense of power.
• Physically activate conscious or unconscious body motions, such as toe-tap or large body movements, and enhance walking and speech.
• Put people together socially, not only at large events. Such as festivals, weddings, or funerals but also at more casual, personal group interactions.
• The deep feelings sitting the body for long (bottled out) can become free.
• Please open the door emotionally to encourage patients and families to pursue their own spiritual beliefs.
• Affect your body by adjusting your heart rate and decreasing your blood pressure, body temperature, and breathing rate.

Is Scientific Evidence for Music Therapy?

“Researchers also observed that patients who have been listening to soothing music while taking IV had registered substantially less pain. Additionally, some have experienced substantially less anxiety than others who have not been listening to music. Music therapy is truly a miracle therapy.

Science has proven that music activates mood-enhancing chemicals into our bloodstream. Therefore, music therapists can capitalize on to support medical care patients. Below you will see two of these chemicals, dopamine, and endorphins, and how they contribute to people’s emotional well-being

• Dopamine: This hormone is known as the ‘feel-good’ chemical, and when released, it enhances the pleasure receptor. It’s certain from these studies that this chemical activates a reward feeling for fulfilling our body’s needs. Similar to the fulfillment after eating and sleeping, it releases when listening to music. It helps make us feel comfortable and encourages us to check out certain things to make us feel good.
• Endorphins: Endorphins are hormones released into the body, giving a person a positive state of mind and a feeling of euphoria. Additionally, it relates to “high runners”. But scientists have discovered that music can also produce this sensation of pleasure by releasing this natural chemical. Endorphins are also related to being a great pain reliever, but more so in the next segment.

Some downside of music therapy

Sure enough, music therapy has a lot of benefits. Via music, you may attain a level of calm and harmony that was previously difficult to achieve. Due to all the worrying and overthinking that you thought you wanted to do.

• One downside to the use of music for relaxation is the ability or potential to raise anxiety levels. Music isn’t a one-size-fits-all experience. Not everyone loves the album. And so few people like every kind of song. Hearing the music, artist, or genre — even in an open public space — may negatively affect both physiologically and emotionally. These negative reactions are what we call anxiety.

• Another downside to music as therapy is that music activates memories, and those memories will not be as successful or as nice as you would want them to be. Music is second only to smell, and it’s the power to evoke emotions. This is partially due to a long evolutionary history that connects the need to interpret sound rapidly to survive. Clinically, there are situations where this can be extremely strong, like in situations where dementia is involved, where a well-known song provides a moment of lucidity. Yet it can be unexpected and ignored, too.

• The third downside to the use of music for therapeutic purposes is the risk of hearing loss. With the use of earphones and headphones, there is a temptation to use music to ‘drop-out’ everything else in the outside world to reassure yourself that everything is fine in your co-opted life. The problem with this, though, is that you will not be able to control the amount of what you’re listening to, making your issues greater than ever.