Mental Health Benefits of Music

Posted on July 10, 2015

The idea that music has healing abilities is not a recent one. We have long known how music can soothe an agitated person or a send a baby off to sleep. Mental health professionals have discovered that music has enormous benefits to people’s mental and physical health. They have also noted that our need for music is very organic, much like how we need the vitamins that naturally occurring substances provide. Music is quite literally a medicine to us, physically and mentally. Some of the specific benefits we derive from music are as follows:

• Calm. Music has a calming effect on us because it is purely sensory and requires no mental organization to listen to. The mind takes pleasure from music because it does not have to do any work to experience it. The mind rests while it receives music.
• Clarity. Music is capable of opening up the mind and allowing a free flow of thoughts. It can affect the mind in a way that makes it highly productive and able to resolve challenges and piece many elements of life together in a logical way.
• Stimulation. Music is able to give people an appetite for creativity, fresh ideas, new experiences and other stimulating ventures. It gets a great many mental and even physical processes moving and flowing.
• Inspiration. The way that music inspires people is very unique. It has been found that playing music uses more of the human brain than any other endeavor that people go about. There is something about music that serves as our most perfect form of creative expression, and the inspiration we get from listening to it and creating it is overwhelming.
• Lowered blood pressure. One of the physical benefits of music is lowered blood pressure. This goes hand in hand with the calming effect it has on people. Music help keeps your blood pressure regular and at a healthy rate.
• Steady heart rate. Studies have shown that our heart rates actually fall in sync with the beat of the music we are listening to. Calming music is able to slow our heart rates down to a healthy, steady pace.

Posted on July 10, 2015

Treating cases of addiction and mental disorder is tricky business, but not all of it involves cognitive work on the self. Some therapies for addictions and disorders are merely sensory, such as music therapy. Applying the healing powers of music to addictions and mental disorders has proven to be a highly effective and accessible treatment option. Music has shown to relax, invigorate and balance people who are struggling with mental problems, alleviating a number of their symptoms. Music alone is not a fix for addictions and disorders, but it can be a strong component in recovery.

The process of listening to music is highly rewarding without being at all strenuous. Addicts and people with disorders are often given soothing music to listen to in treatment to help calm them and act as a therapeutic activity. Listening to music is a very sensory experience that offers the receiver a great deal of reward. They are free to let their imaginations wander, let their minds piece together a solution they have been grappling with, express emotion through tears or singing along, analyze the music to understand how it works or use it to enhance another activity.

For those addicts and people with mental disorders who are musicians themselves (which is not uncommon among musicians), the opportunity to write music is also readily available. Musicians who are struggling with addiction or disorder can greatly enhance their recovery by turning to their creative expression of choice to process what they are going through. Mental struggles have frequently spawned some of the best songs ever written because music can express what words cannot about a heavy mental struggle. Turning the devastation of addiction and disorder into a musical creation is one of the best ways to channel the energy that is generated by the mental struggle. Those who suffer from a co-occurring disorder of an addiction a mental disorder would benefit most from a dual diagnosis rehabilitation, but supplementing treatment with music therapy is always recommended.

There are many methods of enjoying the benefits of music. Whether you are receiving music or creating music, you will certainly discover mental benefits of it. If you are struggling with addiction or a mental disorder, it is important that you reach out to mental health professionals for treatment, but do not neglect the healing powers of music in your journey of recovery.