Healing with Harmonies

Music is something that we interact with everyday, and is a lot more powerful than we give it credit for. Music has proven to have a multitude of health benefits such as reducing anxiety, stress, blood pressure, and pain as well as improving sleep quality, mood, mental alertness, and memory. Some of its most prevalent effects however, is the ability to evoke memories and emotions and improve our problem solving skills.

The classical music pathways in our brain are similar to the pathways we use for spatial reasoning. When we listen to classical music, the spatial pathways are “turned on” and ready to be used. This priming makes it easier to work a puzzle quickly. The fact that music can improve our thinking capabilities is impressive, but music can do even more.

A study conducted in 2006 by neuroscientist Kiminobu Sugaya and world-renowned violinist Ayako Yonetani sought to see the effects of music on patients of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. What they found was that music had tremendous effects on both, and has led to further studies on music as medicine. Music temporarily stops the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. For example, rhythmic music has been used to help Parkinson’s patients function, such as getting up and down and even walking because Parkinson’s patients need assistance in moving music that can help them,sort of like a cane. According to Sugaya, if you play someone’s favorite music, different parts of the brain light up. That means memories associated with music are emotional memories, which never fade out — even in Alzheimer’s patients.The effect lasts maybe 10 minutes or so even after you turn off the music

Music aids people that suffer from these diseases, and if we study it more it could help even more people. One of the ways we can help is through the Music as Medicine project. By spreading awareness and giving it more attention, music as medicine will become more popular, and we will be able to do a lot of good for people