Saturday, April 30, 2011

Can Music Heal Us?

By Jack Wogan


True healing comes from within us; this is why people have different reactions to medicines and medical treatments. Recent researches have shown that people who are emotionally happy have bigger chances to recover from diseases than the ones who are physically healthy but morally down. Given the importance of this aspect, some theoreticians have set the foundations of a movement called the Quality Of Life according to which arts can cure people through the benefits they bring to the soul.

Nevertheless, music is the most powerful art as studies have shown it has the biggest impact on our emotional part. Neuroscientists have reached the conclusion that the stimulation of the brain through music might increase the efficiency of the medical treatments because many of our functions are located in our brain. The medical tests that have been performed so far have revealed important facts about the relation between our health and music.

Patients who have suffered severe speech damage as a consequence of a stroke have completely recovered through melodic intonation therapy. The idea of this course is to use the rhythm of the metronome and the musical sounds to teach students to talk again. The practice of singing songs has helped many stutters defeat their problems.

People with mental affections, such as, depressions have responded well to music therapy. Doctors have noticed that relaxing music can help their patients get rid of stress and thus, reduce the possibility of getting depressed. Studying piano is another method that therapists recommend to depressed people because this instrument requires a lot of attention and the patient is distracted from depressive thoughts.

Heart diseases and epilepsy may be treated with music, too. During the tests they have performed, doctors have noticed a remarkable improvement of the condition of the patients who suffer from these illnesses. The remedy consists in listening Mozart's music for twenty minutes per day.

Since memories are correlated with senses, doctors try to determine whether they can set connections between the memories of Alzheimer patients and the songs they hear. Their efforts have paid off as the effects of the Alzheimer disease have been noticeably reduced.

Many more discoveries will be made in the future about the relation between our health and music. However, you need not wait until doctors give you their consent; we all know that music is a blessing, so we should try to enjoy music as often as we can.




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