“Why is music so pervasive and important to us?” asks a Scientific American article on music and healing. Music’s pervasiveness speaks not only to its infusion in our own daily lives (in restaurants, stores, at home, and almost everywhere we go), but it also nods to music’s existence in every known human culture.
When we think about elements of survival everyone quickly names off the three vital ones: shelter, food, water. Without surprise, these are each found in every studied human society. Yet, there’s music, too, always lurking about with man but never being grouped in as “essential to survival”; however, even without such credit, music still provides us with the oldest known artifact: a bone flute from 40,000 BCE. The question then presents itself: Is music more important to us than we recognize?
Numerous studies suggest music’s positive impact on and importance to our minds, our bodies, and our health. Music is a whole brain activity with brain’s cerebellum sparking activity in multiple areas simultaneously, which as several studies note, contributes to gains in memory, cognition, and brain activity. The auditory cortex located at the back of the brain is immediately engaged; the amygdala provides emotional responses to music, which are then presented by the prefrontal cortex in our facial expressions; the motor cortex tells us how to dance, kick our legs, shake our hips, clap our hands; the occipital lobe helps us see ourselves dancing and clapping and, if we are trained, read music; the cerebellum pulls all our emotions and movement together in synchronicity; and the hippocampus feeds us those music memories from oh-so-long-ago. There’s more, but you get the point. Music is a whole-brain activity, and that concept lends itself into understanding how it may impact other processes in our bodies, including those related to health.
If we take a moment and simply focus on the positive impacts of music with cancer patients, the results are impressive. Cancer therapy patients who engaged with music were found to experience less fatigue than control groups and showed reductions in pain medication usage with one study concluding that listening to music 2x day evidenced a “statistically significant” reduction in pain. Imagine a world where part of your recovery was simply, “Go home and push play!”
Positive outcomes also were shown when music was introduced in surgery units. A key study in the Florida Atlantic College of Nursing Journal uncovered significant post-surgery gains within the experimental, music group of patients undergoing knee and hip surgeries. For example, the control group was experiencing the same amount of pain on Day 3 of the study that the music group noted on Day 1, with the music group on Day 3 expressing 60% less pain overall. While pain can be subjective, the study also measured post-surgery ambulation. On Day 1, the music group ambled 40 feet vs. the control group’s 27 feet; and by Day 3, the music group achieved 67 feet against the control group’s 46. The primary difference between the two groups: music.
But wait there’s more! Music improves sleep, increases optimism, improves cognitive function and verbal memory, reduces pain, reduces stress and anxiety, and even improves venous access. But wait again, there’s more! These findings and more are included in the BioMatrix education program, Singing to Heal—one of our top booked programs of 2021. Singing to Heal is appropriate for both patient and provider audiences.
If you are interested in booking a program please contact us at: education@biomatrixsprx.com
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