The Benefits of Music Therapy
The benefits of music therapy – part two
Last week’s article talked about the effects of music and how it is effective in therapy. We dove into understanding how music therapy can be a holistic approach to rehabilitation and what it can do to your psyche and overall mental health. This week we are going to dive deeper into the effectiveness of music therapy and just how much it can help us when our physical and emotional health needs healing.
What exactly do the benefits of music therapy mean? If you like music, you know it can make an important difference in how you’re feeling. But you may be surprised to learn what a difference music can make for people who are depressed or anxious because they’re sick. For these people, music can be used to enhance their health.
Although music therapy is often used to promote mental and emotional health, it may also help improve the quality of life for people coping with physical health problems. A music therapy session may incorporate a number of different elements, such as making music, writing songs, or listening to music. The music therapist’s goal may be, for example, to encourage a patient to express emotion, to help relieve a patient’s stress or anxiety, to help improve a patient’s mood, and/or to enhance the quality of life if the patient’s coping with illness.
Research shows that patients don’t need any musical ability to benefit from music therapy. Here’s a look at some key findings from clinical studies in which music therapy’s effects on patients’ health were evaluated.
Depression. Music therapy may help some patients fight depression, according to a recent report. Researchers sized up data from five previously published studies; in four of them, participants receiving music therapy were more likely to see a decrease in depression symptoms compared to those who did not receive music therapy. According to the report’s authors, patients appeared to experience the greatest benefits when therapists used theory-based music therapy techniques, such as painting to music and improvised singing.
Stress. Music therapy may help ease stress in pregnancy as well. In a control group, participants who received music therapy showed significantly greater reductions in stress, anxiety, and depression. The music therapy involved listening to a half-hour of soothing music twice daily for two weeks.
Listening to music may also benefit patients who experience severe stress and anxiety because of having coronary heart disease. Listening to music has a beneficial effect on blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and pain in people with coronary heart disease.
Cancer. Research suggests that music therapy may offer a number of benefits for people coping with cancer. For instance, music therapy has been shown to reduce anxiety in patients receiving radiation therapy, and it has helped ease nausea and vomiting resulting from high-dose chemotherapy.
Music therapy can benefit everyone, not just people with emotional or physical issues. Music heals the soul as much as the mind. Not only listening to music but also learning how to play and read music can soothe and release many stresses. If you are considering learning an instrument, look into guitar lessons in Philadelphia.