Music Matters

Dr. Philip Maffetone

Do you want to know a secret? Like exercise, nutrition, and other healthy lifestyle factors, music can play an eloquent role in improving your quality of life. There's nothing like listening to Mozart, the Beatles, Joni, or Cat Stevens to reduce stress or meditatively ponder life. There's a place for Chopin, Joplin, and Dylan. Match the music with your mood, or use it to create one, and you're on your way.

Music may not always be a magical mystery tour, but it sure can do something unique. Scientists have shown beneficial effects of music on controlling stress, reducing pain, and improving immune and overall brain function. Music around mealtime can help digestion, too. After a hard day's night , or if you’ve been working eight days a week, relaxing and listening to some good tunes can help recovery. Everything seems to come together, emotionally, in a healthy, therapeutic way.

Music uniquely helps make more connections between brain cells — literally expanding the mind.

Music as therapy is thousands of years old. Perhaps the first therapeutic use came from Chinese medicine about 5,000 years ago. Around 2500 B.C., followers of Pythagoras developed a science of musical psychotherapy. Today, the long and winding road of music includes treatment for many types of patients, including those with depression, autism, learning disabilities, Alzheimer’s and others. But virtually everyone can enjoy music’s many health benefits.

It’s not necessary to know anything about the theory as the particular music that is most therapeutic are simply the songs you love. Most likely, the music you find most comforting includes tunes from yesterday — those associated with good memories, typically from your youth, when first falling in love, or associated with other powerful experiences. 

An even greater benefit of music comes from the surprise — those a-ha moments the brain loves to feel. This happens while listening to songs you’ve never heard. It’s a great way to discover some new favorites. 

Listening to both old and new songs is the foundation of music therapy. Whether it’s for better learning and memory or brain disorders — ask your doctor if music is right for you (if the answer’s not positive, find another doctor!). 

Music matters in many ways:

• Stimulating our auditory sense is just one way to promote mental and emotional benefits. 
• Another is visual — so watching a music video or being at a concert can be more potent. 
• Applying the kinesthetic sense — in this case the act of playing music — can even be more powerful. 
• Add some dancing (you can even twist and shout) and now you've brought in aerobic brain-body benefits.

Directed at consumers, music equals money: studies show that background music can bring increased sales. This subliminal use of music has been used for centuries. And many successful radio and TV commercials, like in movies, use music to capture people’s attention. 

However, listen to music’s pure sound — without the chatter and with great speakers, headphones or earbuds while relaxing to make the mind wander. 

Just as we can use a healthy snack in place of junk food, so too can music rescue us from the stress of life. So pull those old records out of storage, tune up your turntable (my favorite way), or just listen to more music any way you can — think of it like you’re buying organic lettuce or grass-fed beef. 

I almost forgot a key component: Music is also fun! Dig it.

The End.

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Did you notice the Beatles' song titles? There are more than a dozen!

Philip Maffetone is a singer-songwriter, recording artist, producer, clinical researcher, and author of the book “B Sharp.” Find him at MaffetoneMusic.com