Let the music play and discover its healing powers!

Viivas
Viivas
Jul 20, 2017 · 5 min read

It calms our anxiety, increases concentration, stimulates memory, facilitates learning, … music soothes the soul.

Music is an essential part of our lives. It is difficult to find yourself in a street where people are not listening to music. Human beings are above all “sonorous beings”. As incredible as it sounds, it has been demonstrated that the foetus perceives his surrounding world by hearing first. And it begins very early, starting from the third month of intra-uterine life.

In Florida, USA, it is mandatory that children at school listen to 30 minutes of classical music per day. This law is known as the “Beethoven’s Babies Bill” and its purpose is not only to help children fall asleep during nap time but also and most importantly, to stimulate their cerebral development and their imagination in a harmonious way.

As Plato said in The Republic,

“Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.”

Our body is a real orchestra: heart beats, cerebral rhythm, lungs breathing, speed of blood circulation, vibration of cells, nervous system pulsations, … if the rhythms and external frequencies are too fast, too aggressive, the interpreters of our inner orchestra are disturbed. They try to adapt themselves “following the movement”. Result: stress and tension rise. Conversely, if the music corresponds to our biological rhythms, harmony prevails.

We all know the pleasure that music provides at a hearing level but its benefits go much further. Actually, music is a wave, a vibration which resonates within our nervous system and gives rise to emotions, reactions of appeasement as well as stimulations. It positively alters our mood and helps in the relaxation process.

Scientifically speaking, the action of music reaches our limbic system, the keyboard of our emotions. The rhythm, the tone, and the intensity of the sounds stimulate our emotional reactions and offer us a feeling of wellbeing thus promoting calm, balance and improvement of our physical and psychological state. It has been also demonstrated that listening to soothing melodies coupled with a slow abdominal breathing can decrease blood pressure.

According to a study conducted in 2011 by Mitterschiffthaler, Fu, Dalton Andrew, and Williams, when it comes to sad emotions, lyrics are more impactful than music. However, instrumental cues have a greater significance in inducing happy emotions through music. They also noticed a difference between sad music with lyrics and sad music without lyrics. In fact, when sad music with lyric was played, they observed a higher activity within the limbic system, which means the emotion induced was more intense than when sad music without lyrics was played. In order to explain this result, they concluded that the content of lyrics can produce mental associations with negative emotional experiences. On the contrary, when comparing between happy music without lyrics and happy music with lyrics, the results revealed a higher activity within the limbic system only when happy instrumental music was played (without lyrics). It was then discovered that acoustic music, by acting on the nervous system, helps to relax and reduce tension. It lowers the level of cortisol, a hormone secreted by the cortex of the adrenal gland and responsible, among others, for stress.

Thus, the presence of lyrics in both happy and sad music leads to different reactions and emotions within people. After the study, lyrics became crucial when it came to define the sadness of a musical piece. On another hand, acoustic cues came to have a stronger role in determining the experience of happiness in music.

Now that you understand better how music can modify your emotional state, keep on reading to find our suggestions on what kind music to listen to depending on your mood.

Start playing!

  • Gregorian singing: based on the rhythms of breathing, it gives an impression of space. Excellent for working, concentrating, meditating. It is a brilliant stress reliever.
  • Baroque music: the slow and characteristic movements of Bach, Haendel or Corelli give a feeling of stability, order, security and create a stimulating environment for intellectual work.
  • Classical music: the transparency and clarity of compositors such as Haydn or Mozart improve concentration, memory, and spatial perception.
  • Jazz, blues: the many “classical” forms of jazz can evoke, as well as romantic music does, all human emotions, but the main effect of jazz music is on your organism, it energises your body.
  • Heavy metal, punk, grunge, …: this kind of music, generally listened to at a very high volume, directly affects the nervous system by excessively exerting the eardrums and the auditory nerves. This results in immediate physiological reactions such as increases in heartbeat, breathing, and tension. This type of music, including techno music, with pulsations and frequency of the rhythmic bass, evokes heartbeat. Immersed in this kind of atmosphere, our body is forced to get adapted to this rhythm, which leads to a modification of our brain frequencies. Experts explain that this kind of music disrupts our health in the long term.

Something you should know:

Many scientific studies confirm that specific music fragments can induce particular emotions. For instance, according to a study realised by Baumgartner et al. in 2006, Third Movement of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony induced happiness in a tested group of people.

Similarly, according to a study conducted in 2001 by Knight and Rickard, Canon in D from Pachelbel, induced a feeling of relaxation for the group of participants.

To finish, we recommend that you watch this TED talk showing the surprising power of classical music.

Music opens the doors of wellbeing. Create your own playlist and share it with along with your testimonials, opinions, suggestions, questions!

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Viivas

Written by

Viivas

One stop online wellbeing center delivering tools, products, activities, and experts to improve emotional wellbeing. www.viivas.com

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