The Transformative Power of Music: Healing and Impact on Mental Health

The Power of Music in Daily Life

As soon as I get up, I put Pandora or Spotify on as I am getting ready for the day. It helps me start my day on the right foot; it wakes me up, and my brain feels refreshed. As soon as I turn my car on, I either listen to the radio or plug in my phone and listen to it as I am either going to work, school or other miscellaneous activities. Then, when I come home and start on homework, I am then listening to instrumental and relaxing Music to help me focus. I personally cannot remember the last day that I went without listening to Music. Music is a big part of my life. I have been in band and choir, so my life was built around all sorts of Music.

However, even though Music may be a big part of our lives, we may not realize how much Music can impact us and how it can help others. Music helps all sorts of people in very different ways. Music is able to help the military and veterans overcome different scenarios that they have witnessed in their time of serving. It can help calm children as they are getting ready for rest time. It helps calm their bodies. Also, it helps people who have Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI); they also receive several benefits from music therapy. Also, it can help college students as they are cramming for a final.

Music Therapy: Healing for Military Veterans

So, what is music therapy? The American Music Therapy Association defines music therapy as the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional. This definition may sound unclear, but to put it into better terms, music therapy is just using Music to help people mentally and emotionally make it through complications in their lives. As mentioned before, music therapy can help the military and veterans through tough times. We all know that the military goes through some hard and difficult times when they are serving. It is even harder for them to recuperate whenever they come back from war.

When they come back, not only listening to Music but also playing Music can help them get through the hard memories, and they are able to recover from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, also known as PTSD. Staff Sergeant Paul Delacerda came back from Iraq with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and a Traumatic Brain Injury, which caused him to have anxiety, loss of sleep, and muscle pain. Before Delacerda went to war, he knew how to play the drums, but when he came back, he had forgotten how. As he was relearning how to play the drums, he did not only enjoy it, but it was therapeutic for him. Delacerda said, “Music was what drove me to where I’m at today. Actually, it’s the reason I’m still around.”

Music and relearning how to play again helped him get through his PTSD and TBI. According to the American Association of Music Therapy, Music helps to improve motor, language, and social skills; it creates better balance, helps with managing stress and pain, and provides breathing support. The impact of music therapy on the military and veterans has become more familiar over the past couple of years. Paul Delacerda started a music therapy charity for wounded veterans in Houston so he could show other veterans how Music can help them just like it helped him. Veterans can come to Houston, and they can do almost anything, anywhere from playing Music to managing a band.

Music Therapy’s Impact on Traumatic Brain Injuries

Music does not only help our military and veterans, but it also helps those with a Traumatic Brain Injury. People with Traumatic Brain Injury suffer from disabilities in the physical, mental, and social parts of their everyday lives. Even though music therapists and researchers still have a long way to go, music therapy is still able to help them significantly, and it is still able to make a difference in their lives. According to Dr. Shantala Hegde of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, “Music therapy helps with all three areas that people with traumatic brain injuries have trouble with.

Music therapy helps to rehabilitate sensorimotor functioning, which involves mobility, strength, and coordination. It also helps develop speech and language functioning. Cognitive functioning, which involves attention span, memory, and psychological skills, is also improved by music therapy.” After considering this, I wondered how Music helps with the development of their sensorimotor, speech, and cognitive functioning. Music helps these three functions through the different pitches and rhythms in Music; these involve attentional networks and executive functions when put together. Music is proven to involve all cognitive processes. In Magnetic Resonance Imaging or MRI, it is shown when listening to Music, the whole brain lights up.

The Soothing Effects of Music for Students and Stress Relief

After viewing how Music helps veterans and people who are suffering from traumatic brain injury, college students also benefit from Music. Even listening to Music for a short period of time helps reduce stress in students. There are positive effects on students who listen to Music for a short period, as little as six minutes. In this short time frame of listening to Music, serum hormone levels are lowered, and stress can be reduced, according to studies done by Rico Mockel, a scientist at the Institute of Neuroinformatics. For both college students and high school students who are stressed every day, listening to Music is a seamless way to relieve stress.

It is also one less stress because it is free and accessible to almost all of us. When I listen to instrumentals, it helps me feel more relaxed and less stressed. Music does not only help college and high school students but also those under stress. There was a study done by colleagues at the School of Kinesiology on rats that had increased corticosterone levels. This is a chemical that causes stress, and then the rats were exposed to Music. Once the rats heard the Music, their levels of corticosterone went back down to normal. If it helped lower the rat’s corticosterone levels, just think how much it can help a college or high school student or anyone with high stress levels.

Music therapy, or even just listening to Music, can have positive effects on the mind and body. While listening to Music, we now know that it helps veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and people who suffer from Traumatic Brain Injuries and how it helps them improve their everyday functions. We also know now how it can help college and high school students reduce stress levels and just people in general. So, the next time that you are listening to Music, whether that be when you are getting ready, in the car, or having a study session, just remember how much Music can really do.

References:

1. American Music Therapy Association. (n.d.). What is Music Therapy? Retrieved from https://www.musictherapy.org/about/musictherapy/
2. American Association of Music Therapy. (n.d.). Music Therapy and Military Populations: A Status Report and Recommendations on Music Therapy Treatment, Programs, Research, and Practice Policy. Retrieved from https://www.musictherapy.org/assets/1/7/Military_Status_Report_8-11.pdf
3. Borden, C. (2018). Music therapy provides an emotional outlet for veterans. The Post. Retrieved from https://thepostathens.com/article/2018/11/music-therapy-veterans
4. Hegde, S. (2014). Music-based cognitive rehabilitation for patients with traumatic brain injury. Frontiers in Neurology, 5, 34. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2014.00034