Music is many things to many people; from just simple listening pleasure, to the magic of inducing love, to the soothing balm that heals a broken soul.
Case in point is what my colleague related to me what he read of someone comparing music with life.
That unknown writer in his musing pointed to the fact that people enjoy listening to music for the rhythm, the stream of melody, and NOT to hear it END. The writer alluded that life is the same. Life is to participate in the melody. He likened melodies to flowing streams. When there is a dam, the flow stops. When the flow in life stops, then that is the death of life.
Profound, or chim, as we would say. No matter what, music to some is integral in life. I, for one, and many my age, have grown up with music as part of our lives. That flow of melody becomes seamless with the flow in our lives that without music, the sound of silence is deafening.
While lost in this flow of melody, we may not realise the therapy we go through as music evokes emotional responses to relax or stimulate feelings or help people to heal in terms of emotions and feelings.
Heather Craig in her article “What are the Benefits of Music Therapy”, highlighted several findings by Jillian Levy (2017) about benefits of Music Therapy:
Music therapy reduces anxiety and physical effects of stress
Here, I attest to it. With music as a companion, I carry out tasks with ease. Anxiety and stress will recede to the background and I get into the flow of things, be it rushing out reports or writing an article. For your info, this is exactly what I am doing now and I must say, I am doing not badly.
Gaining from the therapeutic effects of music, I have also seen myself becoming increasingly effective as a multi-tasker.
What music helps me the most? When stressed with work, my top preference is music by Korean pianist and composer, Yiruma. His River Flows In You and Kiss The Rain are my favourite. For the rest of my time, Others in my playlist are love songs in various languages, mainly Mandarin, English, Malay and Korean.
Music therapy improves healing
It has been proven that music helps to reduce pain, relieve depression, and psychologically improve the sense of control over the pain. Admittedly, I don’t have first-hand experience in this but it is said that slowly, day-by-day, music helps to heal from psychologically to physically
Music therapy improves self-expression and communication
Here, I can vouch for it too. The melody, rhythm and lyrics combined speak a language which helps shape us by example and through influence to inevitably express and communicate well. Suffused, we get into the zone and that can be seen in our body language too.
Music, undoubtedly, are inspirational too. Inspiration is a strong learning tool and one is bound to over time hone skills to express better, either in language of the heart, body language or communicative language.
Heather Craig culled more interesting facts on music therapy from Ashley Blodgett (2015), and interesting are:-
Your heartbeat changes to mimic the music that you listen to
Listening to happy vs sad music can affect the way you perceive the world around you
Music triggers activity in the same part of the brain that releases Dopamine
When we aggregate all these, we will understand better the power of music and the impact it has or can have on our lives. How then to live life without music? I don’t know about you but I can’t.
This quote by Debasish Mridha sums it up:
“Music can heal the wounds that medicine cannot touch”
References:
https://positivepsychology.com/music-therapy-benefits/ (What are the Benefits of Music Therapy?, 1 Sept 2020)
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/how-music-can-help-you-heal (How music can help you heal)