How Does Music Affect Our Body and Brain?
abracad, · Categories: externally authored, self help
Music appears to be processed in the right hemisphere of the brain. The way we experience music also affects our nervous system.
There are different neurons that respond according to what kind of music is playing. Music can effect hormones, encourage the production of cortisol, testosterone, and oxytocin. Music can even trigger a release of endorphins.
Beyond the biology and the actual responses of your body, there are definite responses of the mind as well. You're aware of how you feel when you listen to music, but how do you know that it's actually having any sort of effect on you? There is scientific evidence of the way it can affect your mind! It's clearly more than just a suspicion -- it's fact!
The most famous experiment related to this is probably the one that was performed at the University of California at Irvine. College students were assigned to three different groups. The first group listened to Mozart's sonata for Two Pianos in D Major. The second group listened to a relaxation tape. The third group listened to nothing at all.
After listening, they took a Stanford-Beinet reasoning test. The results were clear -- those who had listened to Mozart had improved scores!
Many musical therapy experts recommend making music a part of your daily life, because its effects can improve with time. There is evidence that, over time, your language skills, creativity, happiness, and more, can improve with regular musical therapy.
The evidence is also stacked up strongly in favor of music's healing power! A positive link has been found for those suffering from things like autism, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Tourette's.
There are neuroscientists who are working to discover exactly why music has healing powers. After all, it's pretty amazing that it can stimulate certain areas of the brain, speed healing, and decrease anxiety and increase optimism.
There are different components to music that can have an effect. Pitch, harmony, frequency, melody, and rhythm all effect the brain in different ways. We know that some of the brain locations are involved in helping to heal and soothe the body as well.
The brain can be taught and stimulated to perform better -- and it seems that music is the perfect vehicle to do that.
However, there is science behind music and its healing power and Dr. Mike Miller of the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, set out to study this.
He used high-tech imaging to measure blood vessel size while listening to music. What he found was that the lining of the blood vessel relaxed and opened up. It also produced chemicals that help protect the heart.
Now when you add music with brainwave entrainment, you get something very special - Super Mind Music.
It can help:
* New neural pathway growth – increase in brain power
* Balancing of the brain’s electrical activity – whole brain functioning
* Improved memory
* Balancing of Emotions
* Mozart effect benefits multiplied
* Regulation of sleep cycles
* Positive brain chemical release such as DHEA and Serotonin
* Mood elevation
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