MUSIC HAS HEALTH BENEFITS ON YOUR BODY
Music has had the ability to help stroke victims learn to talk again. Soothing tunes help relax tensed muscles, while also helping to pace your breathing rate (and slowing it down). Music has the potential to decrease anxiety, reduce depression, decreases agitation in dementia patients, and decrease agitation in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
More specifically, music has major impacts on reducing stress in the body. A study done Wisconsin measured the results that music had on patients that had experienced heart attacks within the past 72 hours. They were told to listened to classical music while in recovery and were closely monitored for 20 minutes at a time. Almost as soon as the music began, patients experienced a drop in their heart rates, breathing rates, and hearts oxygen demands.
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Think of an instance in which you are traveling on a train. To your left, someone is sitting quietly listening to music that is blaring out of their headphones. Their music is playing so loud that you cannot necessarily hear the song, but the sound is perceived through fragmented sounds. This can come across as more agitated to you, as you cannot hear the music to the full extent as the other person listening, so it is not as well received by you. Becoming agitated then takes a physical toll on your body, such as: increased blood pressure, redness of the face, holding your breath, and/or elevated heart rate. These are all due to the feeling of being agitated, so when music is not perceived in the right context, it could affect your body negatively.
Music, in general, can also have effects on your body. According to musical philosopher Nietzsche, he claims that music is perceived through all of our muscles; this can occur through tapping our feet, singing along to the melodies, and/or changing our facial expressions exactly in time with the musical rises and falls throughout a song. While all or some of these side effects might be intentional, they can also occur within our subconscious and without our direct doing.
COMMENTS
How is it feasible for someone to know whether or not it is actually the music that is improving these mental diseases rather than the medication or procedures? Is there direct scientific evidence related to the effects that music can have on benefitting the side effects that can occur from mental illnesses? For instance, people who experience trauma could have negative effects towards music. When they hear a song that is supposed to be uplifting, but happened to have heard it around the time they experienced trauma, it could be a negative reminder of that experience. Therefore, it could negatively impact your body by reminding you of how that trauma impacted you not only mentally but physically.