Music Therapy,Healing and Relaxation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGCXn-svShw
If you have ever been in the hospital or visited a doctor’s office or been put on hold while you are trying to fix a major problem with your computer, you may have noticed that rather annoying music playing in the background. You know, you sit there listening and can’t for the life of you figure out how they slowed down Metallica that much that it sounds like a cross between lounge music and contemporary soft rock? Disturbing? Yes, but isn’t it amazing that a few notes of a rock tune can be tweaked enough to cause an emotion of disdain and utter vexation? Why is it, or what is it about music that has the ability to stir up so many different emotions and in so many different ways in so many different people and personalities? Music, since the beginning of time has always been a form of communication or language. It has been used not only as a means of language through rituals and battle cries, but it has also been a great source of comfort and healing. Take for instance the use of music in 1 Samuel 16:23, NKV; Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him. Even in Biblical times, they knew music had healing properties. Today we are finding Science to back up these ideas that music can in fact heal. In a Coronary Care Unit 80 patients were randomly assigned to a relaxation, music therapy, or control group. “The patients that received the MT (music therapy) revealed that lowering apical heart rates and raising peripheral temperatures were more successful in the relaxation and music therapy groups than in the control group.” (Guzzetta, 1989). There are medical journals filled with clinical information about how music is used in the neurological sciences to speed up recovery and induce healing. (Baker & Roth, 2004). In the medical journal Active Music Therapy in Parkinson’s Disease: An Integrative Method for Motor and Emotional Rehabilitation, the findings are very clear, “MT is effective on motor, affective, and behavioral functions. We propose active MT as a new method for inclusion in PD rehabilitation programs.”( Pacchetti, Mancini, Aglieri, Cira, Martignoni, Nappi, 1999). Music is in fact a great tool for healing and relaxation, and in the words of Olivea Dewhurst-Maddock, Sound Therapy ” Healing relies on an openness to the whole; a willingness to relinquish whatever frustrates or delays — mistaken ideas, negative feelings, poor diet, inadvisable lifestyle — and to accept a wider spectrum of responses with new ideas, experience, and priorities. Healing is communication; and music, in its universal nature, is total communication. In the deepest mysteries of music are the inspirations, the pathways, and the healing which lead to one-ness and unity.”
References:
Baker, Falicity, and Edward A. Roth. “Neuroplasticity and Functional Recovery: Training Models and Compensatory Strategies in Music Therapy Neuroplasticity and Functional Recovery: Training Models and Compensatory Strategies in Music Therapy.” Nordic Journal of Music Therapy 13.1 (2004): 20-32. Print.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08098130409478095#.UkNUY9Ksim4
Guzetta, CE. “Effects of relaxation and music therapy on patients in a coronary care unit with presumptive acute myocardial infarction..” Heart & lung : the journal of critical care 18 (1989): 6. Print.http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/2684920/reload=0;jsessionid=POGwDEZE9U9qgpTIVqR8.14
Pacchetti, Claudio , Francesca Mancini, Roberto Aglieri, Cira Fundarò, Emilia Martignoni, and Giuseppe Nappi. “Active Music Therapy in Parkinson’s Disease: An Integrative Method for Motor and Emotional Rehabilitation.” Guzetta, CE. “Effects of relaxation and music therapy on patients in a coronary care unit with presumptive acute myocardial infarction..” Heart & lung : the journal of critical care 18 (1989): 6. Print. 62 (2000): 3. Print.http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/62/3/386.short
100 Cups of Compassion 