Music is apparent all around us. Whether someone is walking at the park, driving to work, or laying on their bed, music can listened to anywhere and everywhere. It helps motivate, provides comfort, and improves the mood of anyone who listens to a form of music. As much as it is an enjoyment, it also can improve someone’s health mentally and physically. This essay will discuss and analyze the results of many studies that discuss how music increases the health of many individuals. People of any age should listen to or learn music because it can help with the overall development of the brain, ease stress levels, and combat diseases or conditions.
Infants recognize the melody of a song way before they understand the words and meaning of it. Studies have proven that music has increased development of the brain whether an individual is young or old. “Researchers speculated that listening to music helps organize the firing of nerve cells in the right half of the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain responsible for higher functions. According to this construct, music — or at least some forms of music — acts as an "exercise" that warms up selected brain cells, allowing them to process information more efficiently.” (Harvard) From this quote it is shown how music can act as a way to enhance one’s ability to carry out tasks that would be normally done on an everyday basis. There is a reason to why athletes listen to music before game time and why students listen to music while doing homework. Music allows for an increase of concentration on the task one is completing. Children who listen to music, mostly nursery rhymes, classical, and repetitive songs, have an increased ability to organize sounds and identify beats faster than children who do not listen to music. It is said that music is like a second language. Humans process sounds in the same manner as they process speech. With this knowledge, connections between children and the partake in music lessons show improvement in future processing of language. With an increased ability to process language, it can eventually result in the improvement in literacy.
As a child reaches their second year in life, 80% of their brain is equivalent to an adult brain. This is when most of the brain development occurs. Listening to music, specifically classical music, can utilize the most of these crucial years. Ever seen a child that never could sit down or could never stop crying? Chances are that if classical music is played, the child will become more focused and calm. Learning and playing music has even more benefits that help a child in the future. When given musical training, children can recognize sounds and patterns that can’t be found without this training. In low-income neighborhoods, education is one of major problems for children living there. Music programs subsidized by the government in these neighborhoods can allow for lower income children to become more literate. Music education increases the rate of brain development in children, and can eventually allow them to be more prosperous in the future.
Depression is labeled as the most common mental illness in America. Depression can be caused by many factors and one of them is stress. In this century, more and more young adults grow up with a tremendous amount of stress. This increasing factor can explain why Americans are spending more time listening to music than ever before. “Listening to certain types of music is believed by several musicologists to enhance the mind’s receptivity to new ideas by accessing the less dominant right-brain thought processes. More specifically, music is thought to enhance creativity through spontaneous mental imagery. In many ways, music soothes the “savage beast” of us all.” (Seaward, 416) Every so and then, our minds get cluttered with thoughts and we don’t know what to focus on first. We hear from many people that one should take a step back and take a break before tackling the problems. The problem is how do we do this? Many individuals start doing other tasks and eventually find themselves under more pressure which then leads to stress. However, more and more people are taking a step back by listening to music. As the quote from Mr. Seaward, a renowned international expert on the fields of stress management, stated that music enhances creativity and allows an individual to be more receptive to new ideas, it can be inferred that listening to music can be an effective way to take a step back from our working lives. If we look at the type of genres that would decrease the most stress, it would be classical, R&B, and other slow moving songs. Music really impacts the mind emotionally because of this way proper brain circuits are wired to react to music. This intimacy and bonding moments that go through this secretion, oxytocin. When listening to music touches us emotionally, it is because there is a neurotransmitter produced in the brain, called dopamine, that helps feel the pleasure and connection of music. If one is ever stressed, they should try sitting in a quiet spot, pop in some headphones and play some of their favorites.
Along with the listening aspect, there is also the learning and playing side. Research has given us results that show a connection between adults who play an instrument and lower blood pressures, lower stress levels, and a decrease in anxiety and depression. How does playing an instrument allows for the decrease in stress? There are many answers to this questions. For one, playing an instrument allows the musician to be more mindful of the moment they are in. Mindfulness is when one is aware of a situation they are in and devote themselves to that moment. It’s just you and your instrument when you take the time to play one. All your attention is directed to playing music and all the problems that were spinning through the mind is now whisked off into oblivion. Those few minutes, or even hours, allow for one to enjoy a moment of peace in their busy lives. Another way learning an instrument can help with stress, and even depression, is by making music. It doesn’t have to be an extensive paged sonata, it can be the simplest rhythm. While making music, an individual learns how to connect sounds and bring them together to make a unique melody special to them. This can be reflected in one’s environment as the brain makes these same connections in everyday tasks. Things not connecting can cause a sense of dystopia with one’s self. It creates a cloud in the mind that doesn’t allow one to understand who they are. With all these cluttered thoughts, taking some time to play or make music would positively impact a busy life with a little bit of comfort.
Music has been proven to help treat and improve recovery from diseases and conditions. Examples include Alzheimer's, heart attacks, strokes, etc. “Music has a dramatic effect on people with the degenerative neurologic disorder Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s patients freeze and have trouble starting to move. Michael Thaut, director of the Center for Biomedical Research at Colorado State University, is a pioneer in the use of music for people with movement disorders, including Parkinson’s. Thaut has shown how he helps patients improve the velocity and stride of their gait by practicing movements in time to rhythmic music.” (Mannes, 182) This quote summarized the effect that music had on Parkinson’s. We can see that music not only helps with stress or brain development, but also diseases and conditions that have taken many people’s lives away. Not only has music helped with Parkinson’s, but also Alzheimer’s. People diagnosed with Alzheimer’s can recollect memories through music. Musical memories are preserved even when Alzheimer’s is evident. This is because key brain areas linked to musical memory are not damaged through this disease. This fact is quite extraordinary, because memories of music stay in our head instead of the memories of close friends and family. This shows how much music can be an essential part of human lives.
Music has also been proven to have decreased rates of heart attack and lowered the chances of strokes. This kind of field is called music therapy. Music therapy is usually done by talented musicians who understand how to bring out emotional responses to allow people to relax in order for them to heal. Listening to music and even playing it has allowed patients to have lower blood pressures, hence, decreasing the chances of heart attacks or strokes in the future. In old age, we can see that playing or listening to music increase chances of survival and higher survival rates.
There is no solid info that music can cure diseases, however, with the amount of resources we have, music can be the closest therapy we have in our hands that is affordable and most effective. People may say that today’s music has no coherence, but if the music today allows the youth or the elderly to express their happiness or pain, then it doesn’t matter what the public says about it. As long as music is a positive in someone’s life, it has done its job. There are no negatives when choosing to listen to are play music. The positives outweigh them.
While it may be evident that music affects one physically, understanding how music and the mind interact requires intense learning and the ability to examine the secrets of the human brain. The result is a fascinating picture of the character music will play in brain development, education, feeling, and even the well-being. Plunge into cognitive works, and read on to see just how music impacts the brain. People of any age should listen to or learn music because it can help with the overall development of the brain, ease stress levels, and combat diseases or conditions.