THE HEALING EFFECTS OF SOUND & MUSIC: Enhancing Mood, Energy and Well-Being

Life in Focus Podcast Episode #18.
The doctor’s prescription in the future, inspired by medicine from the past, may involve 15 (or more) minutes of healing music, as needed per day. Sound and music are essentially a non-invasive, simple, and cost-effective healing intervention.

Whether we travel around the world or back in time, we will find music. Music has been known to capture a mood, punctuate an experience, stamp a time! To enjoy, neither formal training in theory nor practice is required.

While interest in music is universal, musical taste is an individual experience and tends to be heavily influenced by one's generation and culture. Depending on the type of music we are listening to, we can feel energized, mellow, happy, sad, nostalgic, aroused, loving, angry, powerful, peaceful and/or a combination of any of these emotions.

But, what is music, exactly? Music, simply stated, is a sequence of coordinated sounds.
As with language, music involves combining the perception and production of hierarchically arranged sequential information.

The good news is that the integration of music and sound therapy in our daily lives is a fairly easy way to instantly feel better. Although chronic stress and its debilitating effects will not be remedied by one simple intervention and require a holistic and functional analysis of our lives, incorporating a few minutes per day of music and/or sound therapy is an effortless step toward progress.

Feeling even a little better increases the likelihood we will attempt to tackle the more significant challenges in our lives. How much easier is it to have that difficult conversation, address a health issue, or change a habit when we feel relaxed as opposed to stressed?