Stress Management through Music

Stress Management through Music

“I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.” George Eliot

Music and Mood

Think about any scary movie that you have ever seen. Consider the most frightening part of that movie and everything about that extremely terrifying scene. Now consider this what would happen if you removed the music that is playing during the chilling sequence. What happens to the movie? Suddenly it becomes far less frightening. The dramatic music creates the mood of fear. see…

see films…Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (A Symphony of Horror) (1922)

Hangman (1964)

Silent Snow, Secret Snow (1996)

Music creates the mood for many settings. People who design the “feel” of an environment are very aware of the powerful effect of music. Music sets the tone for sporting events, parades, restaurants, shopping centers, television shows, advertisements, dances, and many other places and activities. The music selection is usually precise and purposeful. Those who are in charge of the music select specific types of music that help create an atmosphere appropriate for that setting. When you are shopping at a major department store, you may not be aware of the music that is playing, but the music has usually been specially selected for shoppers to encourage them to spend more time enjoying their experience shopping. If you go to an all-you-can-eat restaurant, you will observe different music than if you went to a very nice restaurant. In the all-you-can-eat place, the music is usually louder and peppier because the owner wants you to hurry up, eat, and get out of there. In the nice restaurant, the music is generally soft and peaceful encouraging you to stay and order more food because you don’t pay for it until you are finished.

The Effects of Music

Even though the term music therapy is fairly new, the practice of using music to heal can be traced back to antiquity. The healing power of music therapy is even recorded in the Bible: “And whenever the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand; so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.” (1 Samuel, 16:23).

Another interesting example, in our earlier history is written about the Russian Envoy Count Kayserling. The Count suffered with miserable insomnia. To deal with the problem, he asked Johann Goldberg, a local musician to play for him at night. Goldberg seized his harpsichord and played a piece of music written especially for the Count by Johann Sebastian Bach. The Count had informed Bach about his terrible problems with sleeplessness. He asked Bach to compose some music that might help him relax and get to sleep.

Soon Goldberg was playing the music that Bach had composed for the Count’s problem every time the count was having one of his sleepless nights. The Count had Goldberg installed in a room nearby ready to play at the Count’s beckon call. The Count was so happy with the positive effects of this music that he gave Bach a lavish gift of gold. We know this relaxing composition by Bach today as the Goldberg Variations.

Music therapy has been used throughout history as a way of coping with difficult situations. One such example is that of the people who were forced into Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. People being separated from family and friends, being forced into slave labor, watching many people around them executed and waiting for their turn to die created an extremely stressful situation. The people in these camps seemed to have little to live for, yet many remained strong, and endured the trial. When asked what kept them going many would respond that music was one source of strength. It seemed to bind the prisoners together. There is a story of a group that was in the changing room for the gas chamber, and they were heard singing the Czechoslovakian national anthem and then a Hebrew song, “Hatikvah,” as a way to give each other strength for what was ahead of them. Music was a way for them to find peace, even in war and death.

Don Campbell, teacher and researcher in the fields of music, sound, health, and learning and founder and former director of the Institute for Music, Health, and Education in Boulder, Colorado writes of others throughout history who have shown evidence of the importance and power of music:

Early Greeks thought there was a clear connection between music and mathematics. Over the entrance to Plato’s Academy at Athens there was an inscription that could be translated: “No one may enter who does not know earth’s rhythm.” . . . in the belief that what held all things together was music.
Hindus believe there is a seed sound at the heart of creation, the Nada Braham, the tone from which God made the world, “which continues to sound at the bottom of creation, and which sounds through everything.”
A passage in the Tibetan Book of the Dead describes the essence of reality as “reverberating like a thousand distant thunders.”
Pythagoras’s asserted in the fifth century B.C. that, “There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacings of the spheres.”
Plotinus: “All music, based upon melody and rhythm, is the earthly representative of heavenly music.”
Lao-tzu spoke of the Great Tone that is “the tone that goes beyond all unusual imagination.”
Ancient writings are filled with testimonies to music’s power to perform miracles of healing or transformation, whether in ancient Greece or Rome, in the Bible, or other ancient texts.
Rumi, thirteenth century Islamic master, wrote:
We have heard these melodies in Paradise;
But while we are thus shrouded by gross earthly veils,
How can the tones of the dancing spheres reach us?
To get in touch with music that allows access to the unconscious and inner depths, one must listen to the masterpieces of baroque, classical, romantic and impressionist composers who have encoded many of their works with messages of divine inspiration and unity. Great compositions offer those who listen, keys to personal transformation and the understanding of wholeness.

David Tame, another musicologist, spoke of music in his book the Secret Power of Music in these ways:

To the question, “Does music affect man’s physical body?” modern research replies in the clear affirmative. There is scarcely a single function of the body that cannot be affected by musical tones. The roots of the auditory nerves are more widely distributed and possess more extensive connections than those of any other nerves in the body. Investigation has shown that music affects digestion, internal secretions, circulation, nutrition and respiration. Even the neural networks of the brain have been found to be sensitive to harmonic principles.

. . . Music affects the body in two distinct ways: directly, as the effect of sound upon the cells and organs, and indirectly, by affecting the emotions, which then in turn influence numerous bodily processes.

Dr. T. C. Singh, head of the Botany Department at Annamalia University, India, has conducted research into the effects of music on plants. He discovered not only that constant exposure to classical music caused plants to grow at twice their normal speed, but also went on to find what seemed to be one of the main causes of this accelerated growth. In his experiments, the violin was found to be one of the most life-enhancing instruments of all.

Yet, perhaps the most interesting and significant of all of Dr. Singh’s findings was that later generations of the seeds of musically stimulated plants carried on the improved traits of greater size, more leaves, and other characteristics. Music had changed the plants’ chromosomes!

To listen to Handel’s Messiah is not to debate intellectually about religion; it is to feel and become one with that surging inner flame of devotion. . . . It is the essence of this state that enters into us, tending to mold and shape our own consciousness into conformity with itself.

Several additional studies reflect the interesting and powerful effect of music. One study done by Dorothy Retallack looked to see if plants responded to music similarly to how they respond to light. Plants respond to light in an interesting way. If a plant is place on a window sill where direct sunlight will shine, its flowers, after a period of time, will turn in the direction of the window and toward the sunlight. If the plant is turned so the flowers face away from the window, after a time, the flowers will again turn in the direction of the sun. Certainly many things are involved here, but one thing is certain, the plant seems to have a preference for sunlight. They respond positively to the light. Dr. Retellack wanted to see if the plants would respond in a similar way to types of music.

Six separate chambers were used with music speakers and similar plants in each chamber. Each plant received the same amount of water, light, and nourishment. The only difference for each plant was the type of music that was played in each of the chambers.

The first plant chamber had country & western music playing for a period of time. The plants exposed to this type of music didn’t appear to respond at all. The second chamber of plants had the music of Claude Debussy playing continuously. The plants in this chamber responded by leaning away from the speakers by about 30%. The plants didn’t appear to have a preference for this type of music. The plants in the third chamber were exposed to Jazz music. They responded by leaning toward the speakers by about 10%. The fourth chamber had Indian Sitar music playing. The plants in this chamber were reported to respond by leaning toward the speakers by about 75%. These plants appeared to show a great preference for this type of music. The next chamber had adagio movements of baroque music continuously playing. The plants in this chamber responded the same was as those exposed to the Indian Sitar music. Dr. Retellack reported that those plants that were closest to the speakers actually wrapped some of their branches around the speakers. The final chamber of plants was exposed to the music of Led Zeppelin, a rock and roll group from the 1970’s. The results showed that these plants, after a short period of time withered and died.

What can music do for humans? According to Sari Harrar, “Clinical studies and anecdotal evidence from music therapists suggest that the sound of music helps to …

manage pain
improve mood and mobility
reduce the need of pain relievers and sedatives accompanied with surgery
relieve anxiety
lower blood pressure
ease depression
enhance concentration and creativity

He continues by suggesting that “music has the power to soothe the savage–stressed out–beast.”

Dr. Gaynor says, “Listening to music is proven to reduce stress.” According to a Japanese study, stress hormone levels (ACTH and cortisol) were measured in surgical patients just before anesthesia was administered. Patients who listened to soothing music immediately before, showed a drop in stress hormones by more than 50 percent. The opposite happened to those who did not listen to music. Their hormone levels showed a rise of more than 50 percent. They concluded that any music a patient finds pleasurable will reduce levels of stress.”

In a Chicago newspaper, Ronald Kotulak writes,” What is it that touches us so deeply when we listen to the music we love? It could be that we are listening to an inner voice attached to one of humankind’s earliest languages. Whatever the solution to the mystery, this Chicago musician and songwriter finds nothing calms a screaming infant better than the songs he and his wife present to their child”

Kotulak’s article later continued, “Almost everybody enjoys a beautiful melody. It takes root into the brain, priming the imagination, arousing passions, sedating anxieties and inspiring the body to move in rhythm. A person who is born deaf and never has heard a note can still learn to dance by feeling the vibrations music makes”

Further studies show that music has measurable physical effects on the body. Certain kinds of music have been found to lower heart rates, respiratory rates, blood pressure, and increase tranquil mood states; regulate heart and breathing rate and increase oxygen levels in the blood. For individuals with hypertension and related conditions, music can be included with other therapies to promote health. One study with individuals in surgery showed that patients exposed to music reported significantly lower pain intensity and required less morphine compared to a control group. Subjects with osteoarthritis reported less arthritic pain when music was played compared to a control group who simply sat quietly. People undergoing surgery have been shown to require fewer anesthesias, awaken from anesthesia more quickly and with fewer side effects, and heal more rapidly when healing music is played before, during and after the surgical procedure.

Individuals suffering from depression need less medication and have more success in psychotherapy when music is added to their course of treatment. Grief, loneliness, even anger; are all managed much better when appropriate music is added to therapy. Music may be used to reduce anxiety before and during surgery. Autistic children and children diagnosed with brain damage all react positively to music therapy.

Medical Resonance Therapy Music

One of the developments in the use of music therapy is Medical Resonance Therapy Music, or MRT-Music. This music was composed by a German Musicologist named Peter Huebner. (MRT-Music) is based on the principle of resonance, which means that the precise harmony contained in a particular musical structure resonates inside the human organism, from the ears to the brain and from the brain to the various organs. The harmony inside the music stimulates the re-setting of the biological order and it harmonizes and regenerates the whole body, bringing it gradually towards regeneration. In this way it also becomes an important tool for prevention of disease.

For years now there have been studies on Medical Resonance Therapy Music. These studies have been done on people who have cancer, skin diseases, high-risk pregnancies; it has been studied on people in crisis situations, and people going through surgery.

One study looking at skin disease had 68 patients – 28 with neurodermatitis and 20 psoriasis patients in experimental groups, and 10 neurodermatitis and 10 psoriasis patients in control groups. Each of the patients ranged in age from 18 to 60 years old. They all stayed in the hospital and received the conventional treatments for their afflictions. None of these patients had received MRT-Music prior to the study.

The members of the experimental group received three 30-minute treatments of MRT-Music each day divided into morning, noon, and night, while the members of the control group were simply asked to find a way to relax (i.e. read, walk, and paint) during those times. At the beginning of the study all members had similar blood pressure and heart rates.

The researchers found that those who were receiving the MRT-Music had a lowering of blood pressure, and heart rate, while those in the control group showed no great change in those areas. The psoriasis patients in the experimental group showed an 86% average decrease in their stimulus to scratch. Those in the control group only reduced their desire to scratch by an average of 29% in the same time frame. In the overall degree of the sickness those who had psoriasis in the experimental group had a reduction of the sickness by 65%, and those in the control group only 20%. Those in the experimental neurodermatitis group had a reduction in the degree of sickness by 41%; those in the control group only went down 12%.

They concluded that the effects of the MRT-Music compared to that of the control group had a greater reduction in sickness, that the stimulus to scratch was reduced and there was a greater reduction in heart rate and blood pressure. Finally, they reported that with continued use of MRT-Music the conditions also continued to improve.

Another study was done in Minsk on MRT-Music done on women with high risk pregnancies. In the course of five years, 140 women with high-risk pregnancy were individually studied. Women were studied at the following stages of pregnancy: up to 12 weeks, 18 to 20 weeks, 28 to 30 weeks and 37 to 38 weeks of pregnancy and for pre-labor preparation when the first symptoms of labor appear. The different MRT-Music courses contained approximately eight treatments of about 40 to 60 minutes each.

These researchers found that with continued use of MRT-Music, the anxiety levels of each woman decreased. The women also had an increased threshold of pain sensitivity in labor, and a reduced labor time. The heart activity of the fetus was increased. The number of interrupted pregnancies was reduced by about half, and there were no harmful side effects observed in the study.

Which music is best for Stress Management?

What is the best type of music for reducing stress or for helping create a relaxing environment? Of prime importance is that you enjoy the music that is playing. If you are listening to a nice composition by Vivaldi and you don’t find it enjoyable in the least, it probably won’t have any positive relaxing effects. There are several genres of music that can be ideal for relaxation. Classical music is one of the best types of music for relaxation and meditation. One type of early classical music that seems to be the most effective in reducing the stress response is music from the Baroque musical period. Some common composers of the baroque period include Bach, Haydn, Handel, Corelli, Albinoni, Telemann, Brahms, Vivaldi, and Mozart. Composers of the Baroque period seemed to know something special about the human body and the positive effect music has on it.

Researchers who have studied the effects of classical music have found that when people are connected to an EEG machine, which records brainwave activity, and listening to this music, they had similar brain wave activity to those commonly found in meditators. They specifically looked at the adagio movements of the Baroque compositions and found that these portions of the baroque music, that had beats of about 60 beats per minute, appeared to be the most relaxing and produced heightened levels of alpha brainwave activity similar to what occurs during deep relaxation, hypnosis, and meditation. The music of Mozart has become such a popular healing tool that the treatment has become known as the Mozart Effect.

A very well-known example of an adagio speed of baroque music is Pachelbel’s Canon in D. This beautiful piece of music is commonly used at weddings and other special occasions. Whether it is Pachelbel’s Canon, Mozart’s Baroque compositions or something by Brahms, classical music, with its slow measured pace or brisk staccato rhythm, lends itself well to relaxation. Whether played on the piano, violin, and harp or with a full orchestra, it’s well worth the time to listen and absorb its vibrations.

New Age music is another genre that has grown into a well-accepted and effective type of music for stress management. There are sub-classifications of new age music including New Instrumental, Space Music, Music for Meditation, Ambient Music, Jazz, Fantasy, World Fusion, Celtic Music, and Acoustic Guitar, among others. Commonly, these types of music use a wide variety of instruments and are usually done without vocals. Music labels like Windham Hill and Narada started the big movement of quiet, meditative music, officially called New Age Music. Other labels like Real Music, Oreade Music, New Earth Records, Sattva Music, Hearts Of Space, Meistersinger Music, Chacra Alternative Music, Oasis Productions, Miramar, and Earthtone Records distribute this type of music.

Steven Halpern, one of the first official New Age music composers, described New Age music as music which does not mainly build on the principle of tension and release (like most music in general) but rather functions like wall paper, which can create a positive, even healing atmosphere. Since Halpern, a very long list of excellent composers is now available for every type of relaxing activity from yoga and deep meditation to increasing energy after a draining day. The following is a short list of both classical and new age authors whose works you could add to your music library for the purpose of relaxation.

Music affects us profoundly. Finding music that is appealing and relaxing can be a very powerful part of any personal stress management program.

http://faculty.weber.edu/molpin/healthclasses/1110/bookchapters/musicchapter.htm