There is power in music, and it affects the brain.
Have you ever undergone being so helpless and how music lifted you out of grief, fear or pain? Or what about the case in point when you were so worn out from work and when you heard your old-time favorite music played over the radio, you began to feel peace and joy? That is the power of music, indisputably altering the way you feel!
It has been researched and concluded that emotionally, physiologically, mentally and spiritually, music has the ability to switch every facet of human feelings (Bhattacharya et al., 2001; Peretz and Zatorre, 2005; Sacks, 2006). Have you ever wondered why music is used in meditation? The straight-forward reason is that it can easily calm down the mind and help kiss goodbye the stress of everyday living (Cepeda et al., 2006). Music is for therapy tool (Belin et al., 1996; Thaut et al., 1997) — considered as one of the oldest therapy tools known to man. In ancient times, people beat round drums to generate music. The drums and the beats were representations of power over sickness for ancient medicine men. In some articles, music works wonders in the organization and flow of brain messages (Schellenberg et al., 2007).
When you eat your meals and listen at the same time to a slow-beat music, what do you notice? You eat slower than usual. Try to eat when the music is fast, and you eat like you haven’t eaten for weeks. Alright, I may have exaggerated the eating rate, but it is true. Weird? Not at all. The amount of food you consume, in this case, is the consequence of the music beat. It has been found that slow music mellows out the heartbeat and the breathing rate thus slowing down activities. Concurrently, faster music fires up body dynamism (Wansink, 2004; Bellisle et al., 2004).
To put everything in one sentence — music, undeniably, has a titanic power!
Now I am thinking…maybe the Philippines could put a little more emphasis on music education, knowing how music-minded most Filipinos are. Or maybe Filipinos do not need more education as they are born to love music, anyway. Anybody agreeing with me?
Napoleon said and I quote: “Give me control over he who shapes the music of a nation, and I care not who makes the laws”.
Ah, music!
References:
Belin P, Van Eeckhout P, Zilbovicius M, Remy P, Francois C, Guillaume S, et al. Recovery from nonfluent aphasia after melodic intonation therapy: a PET study. Neurology 1996;47:1504-11.
Bellisle F, Dalix AM, Slama G. Non food-related environmental stimuli induce increased meal intake in healthy women: Comparison of television viewing versus listening to a recorded story in laboratory settings. Appetite, 43, 2004:175–180.
Bhattacharya J, Petsche H, Pereda E. Interdependencies in the spontaneous EEG while listening to music. Int J Psychophysiol 2001;42:287-301.
Cepeda MS, Carr DB, Lau J, Alvarez H. Music for pain relief. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2006:004843.
Peretz I, Zatorre RJ. Brain organization for music processing. Annu Rev Psychol 2005;56:89-114.
Sacks O. The power of music. Brain 2006;129:2528-32.
Schellenberg EG, Nakata T, Hunter PG, Tamoto S. Exposure to music and cognitive performance: Tests of children and adults. Psychol Music 2007;35:5-19.
Thaut MH, Peterson DA, McIntosh GC. Temporal entrainment of cognitive functions: Musical mnemonics induce brain plasticity and oscillatory synchrony in neural networks underlying memory. Ann NY Acad Sci 2005; 1060:243-54.
Wansink B. Environmental factors that increase the food intake and consumption volume of unknowing consumers. Annual Review of Nutrition, 2004, pp. 455–479.
