Music soothes the soul. Undoubtedly. And some researchers and healthcare providers are convinced that music can also be used to heal the mind and body.
In this book, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin shares evidence that listening to music can not only alter a person’s pulse and breathing rate, but also relieve anxiety, stress, and muscle tension. It can lead to better moods and it can relieve depression. It doesn’t work on every person or in every case, but it works for many and it is often therapeutically helpful.
“Engaging with music, whether as a listener or a player, facilitates entry into the brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN), a path to the subconscious that is instrumental to everything from problem-solving to relaxation, from creativity to immune system function. And for many, music can connect us to a sense of higher power, of great and enduring beauty, and listening to it or playing it can provide some of the most exhilarating and meaningful moments of our lives.”
Music apps like Spotify and Pandora are already helping users to regulate their moods with curated playlists, and at least one company is seeking regulatory approval for prescribed music therapy treatments for specific mental health conditions like generalized anxiety disorder.
“For decades, it was believed that music therapy was effective simply because it was pleasurable or distracting, taking our minds off our pain, both bodily and psychic,” Levitin points out. “We now understand that music is one of the few things that is present across all these different modes of attention, even sleep (many people hear music in their dreams). Music can then help to serve as a unifying source, a glue that connects our different modes of awareness with our internal narrative, our sense of self, where we’ve been, and, perhaps most important, where we want to go.”