music is vital in your healing process

We all love music…or let’s say everyone loves listening to some kind of music   and what differs is only the taste.

Music makes one feel relaxed and reduces stress levels. Some people use music to stimulate their feelings towards something.

It is usual to see a student with headphones on while studying …that is what makes her concentrate whereas you could see the same at many offices during working hours.

Scientific research proves that music is a treatment towards many psychiatric related diseases.

Recent studies show how people coping with Parkinson’s can learn to walk more easily when rhythms assist their gait.

Music also helps people with a wide variety of conditions, ranging from learning disabilities to schizophrenia and dementia.

Other researchers suggest autistic children find social interactions easier when accompanied by music and that less anesthesia is required when music is played to spinal surgery patients.

The therapy builds on traditional counseling practice by incorporating depending on the patient’s needs and interest, things like instruments playing, singing and listening to music, helping to unleash creativity, reduce discomfort and enhance the overall experience of being in hospital.

Music helps people who are unable to speak to do so. The World Health Organisation estimates that 6.7 million people died from stroke in 2012 and 2015 whereas speech difficulties are one of the common outcomes but through music, ‘melodic intonation’ therapy using melodies and singing to help the stroke victims regain speech has been helpful. This is also how young children learn alphabet through songs.

Thanks to devices like the smart phone and iPod, music has become part of our daily lives.

 It is used by medical practitioners to help patients relax; even retailers use music to uplift their spirit while selling their merchandise.

Music therapy provided by certified therapists is different and has more impact…of healing.

In her 2010 study on ‘Music therapy in the context of palliative care in Tanzania’ as published in the International Journal of Palliative Nursing, Rebecca Hartwig writes that the goal of music is to decrease pain and anxiety, and promote emotional and spiritual well-being.

She adds that therapeutic music can be categorised as being intended for merriment, or to energise, to express joy, hope or sadness, to comfort when one is resting, induce reminiscence or during meditation. Her study had therefore found that music (in Tanzania) was traditionally very powerful in comforting the ailing  or during burial ceremonies. Societies used drums or animal horns to comfort or heal the sick.

“Others used singing to comfort, ease pain and bring joy,” she writes in a section of her findings adding that music was also used by some for exorcising evil spirits from the sick.

Although music therapy is hardly found in health centres, such services are provided by massaging centres as part of packages during the service.

Lusajo Kajula, a local socio-psychologist says that, the fact that many diseases are as a result of stress, sometimes patients get worse due to stress, music can be used to alleviate the pain.   She says that the human body produces ‘feeling good’ hormones that when are produced they feel good….and one of the things that help in producing such hormones is music.

“Everyone has a taste of music they like, that makes them feel good…there are those who love music that soothes…there’re also those who want to listen to loud music in nightclubs. They share the sole purpose of feeling good.

“Therefore, even for a patient who is unconscious, music helps the brain to relax and enable that person to recover slowly,” she notes.

Neuroscientists acknowledge that music helps people lost for words or the ability to speak again. US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head in 2011 during an assassination attempt, she credited music therapy for helping her gain the ability to learn, write and speak.

Gifford suffered from aphasia, but she trained her brain until she managed to speak again by using the musical side of her brain. Music also helps premature children, studies show that singing lullabies helps soothing pre-term improve their sleeping, eating patterns and increase opportunities to parent-child bonding.

In an article published in the Huffington post ‘How music helps premies’ based on several music therapy studies done by Catherine Pearson showed that slow music helps improve premature babies’ vital signs, sleep patterns and feeding.

Music reduces stress

The soothing power of music is well-established. It has a unique link to our emotions, so it can be an extremely effective stress management tool, writes Jane Colingwood in her psychcentral.com website.

She writes that listening to music can have a tremendously relaxation effect on mind and bodies, especially slow, quite classical music.

 “This type of music can have a benefit on our psychological function, slowing the pulse and heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and decreasing the level of stress hormones,” she explains in her ‘Power of Music to reduce stress” article.

Trisa Chilambo loves slow music because it creates a certain feelings that she love.

“Slow music works best when I am stressed, it sometimes takes me to the world I feel comfortable a bit,” she says.

From a sociologist’s point of view, music therapy has been used for ages. A Dodoma based psycho-sociologist Modesta Kimonga says even the past generation used music as stress management tool.

She says, they were playing drums after harvest time to celebrate and reduce stress after the agricultural season.

“There are still people who go to places to listen to music after long working hours…it helps calm the mind and start afresh the next day.

“Even patients in psychiatric centres uses music therapy as one part of their treatment,” she explains.