Music: Mind Medicine, with No Side Effects

Music%3A+Mind+Medicine%2C+with+No+Side+Effects

Stephani Padilla, Author

Do you ever feel like your head is spinning? Do you wish there were a medicine that could help? Well, there might be — your headphones.

According to thebestbrainpossible.com, a website about how music benefits the brain, “Music is mind medicine.” Studies have found that listening to music can reduce stress, anxiety, depression and much more. It can even help some cognitive functions such as learning, concentration, and memory.

Music activates the auditory, motor, and limbic regions of the brain, making it one of the few activities that stimulates the whole brain. The auditory areas process sound while the motor areas process rhythm, and the limbic regions are associated with emotions.

According to knowingneurons.com, a website on brain behavior, the body and mind perform better when listening to music. Music triggers neurons in the brain, which helps the body to relax. It also releases more of the hormone oxytocin, responsible for feeling a sense of connectedness, trust, and social bonding, which could help a person feel more hopeful and in control of their life.

Listening to music triggers the brain’s nucleus accumbens, which are responsible for releasing the feel-good neurochemical dopamine. Dopamine is an integral part of the brain’s pleasure-reward and motivational systems, and it plays a critical role in learning. It is also responsible for “yummy feelings,” such as eating chocolate or experiencing a runner’s high.

“The brain responds to music,” writes Elizabeth Landau for CNN, relating information from several new studies on how music affects the brain. Patterns in brain activity actually indicate whether a person likes what they’re hearing or not. Music also has the special ability to pump us up or calm us down: slow music can calm our heart and breathing rates as well as lower blood pressure; fast music does the opposite.

 

According to brainfacts.org, music can be used to alleviate pain, improve sleep patterns, and lift moods. It also wards off the effects of aging in the brain. Studies show that music can even have positive effects on plants and animals. Wheat will grow faster, cows yield more milk, and hens lay more eggs.

 

Prominent psychologist Daniel Levitin, who studies the neuroscience of music at McGill University in Montreal, says, “We’re using music to better understand brain functions in general. … The promise here is that music is arguably less expensive than drugs, and it’s easier on the body and it doesn’t have side effects.”