Music Therapy

Orchestrating Good Health

Have a tension headache? You might try listening to a couple of Chopin nocturnes. Can't sleep? Some Sinatra may help. Got the blues? Then the blues, followed by some cool jazz and a bit of Bach, may be just the remedy.

For centuries, philosophers and poets have celebrated the healing power of music. Now, researchers are jumping on the bandwagon.

Increasingly, studies are finding that music offers wide-ranging therapeutic benefits. A serenade, it seems, can not only help alleviate stress, insomnia and depression but it can also improve concentration and memory, boost immunity and ease pain--even labor pain.

You may not be aware of it, but music appears to trigger a variety of physical changes, altering skin temperature, brain-wave patterns and levels of stress hormones in the bloodstream. Music also changes your breathing rate, heart rate and blood pressure.

"What we're realizing is that music and sound can be used as a tool for healing and well-being," says Don Campbell, a classically trained musician who is founder of the Institute for Music, Health and Education in Minneapolis and author of The Mozart Effect and Music: Physician for Times to Come.

Some hospitals already pipe music into rooms to help people relax and manage pain. But you don't have to be bedridden to enjoy the benefit of your favorite Bach or Beatles.

NOTEWORTHY RESULTS

The heroine of Jane Campion's film The Piano relies on music to lift her spirits, overcome loneliness and fear, and express joy and longing. She is, it happens, a gifted pianist. But talent isn't required, says Barbara J. Crowe, a registered music therapist and director and professor of music therapy at Arizona State University in Tempe.

In fact, most of the research into music's therapeutic effects has looked at a cross section of ordinary women. And the studies have shown that music brings many rewards.

One study used music in combination with imagery and breathing techniques to ease the pain of childbirth. A group of expectant mothers listened to music during labor. Each heard music for ten minutes, then went without for five, listened for the next ten, and so forth. When the music came on, the women breathed rhythmically and deeply or envisioned calming images, using techniques they'd practiced in advance.

"Every woman had fewer pain responses while listening to music," says study coordinator Suzanne Hanser, Ed.D., chairperson of the music therapy department at Berklee College of Music in Boston. The music, it seems, helped by both distracting and relaxing the women, she says.

Research suggests that stress can raise the risk of heart disease, weaken immunity, contribute to depression and anxiety and interfere with sleep, concentration and recall. By taking the edge off stress, music may stall these harmful effects--and might even reverse them.

Researchers at Stanford University studying depressed older adults found that those who used relaxation techniques while listening to music felt less depressed than those who didn't learn the techniques.

A University of Illinois study concluded that office workers who listened to music while performing moderately complex tasks were more relaxed, satisfied and productive than colleagues who toiled in silence.

You'll get even more than stress reduction from a close encounter with specific kinds of music, research shows. In a study at the University of California at Irvine, psychologists found that students who heard ten minutes of a Mozart piano sonata scored higher on a test of spatial intelligence than those who sat in silence or listened to instructions. But the researchers found no improvement in mental skills among students who listened to a hypnotic composition by Philip Glass or a highly rhythmic dance piece. It's possible that a complex musical composition, like a Mozart piano sonata, stimulates neural pathways that are important in certain essential mental skills, the researchers speculate.

A MUSIC THERAPY SESSION

Of course, music affects us emotionally and mentally as well as physiologically. It can move us to tears--of joy or of sorrow. Consequently, it's a powerful tool in psychotherapy.

"People have such a strong response to music," says Crowe. "Music therapy can be part of comprehensive treatment of depression or anxiety," she says. For treatment of these and other emotional disorders, music therapists may team up with therapists who specialize in other creative arts as well as psychologists and psychiatrists.

In an initial session with a music therapist, the two of you might discuss your goals and your musical preferences and abilities. What would follow would depend on what you hoped to accomplish. A therapist might ask you to try lyric analysis, for example. The two of you would discuss the lyrics to a song to explore your feelings, experiences and beliefs.

The results can be dramatic. Dr. Hanser recalls one woman who'd sat through a number of group therapy sessions without saying much, then burst into tears one day while the group listened to the Simon and Garfunkel ballad, "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

"She began to talk about her loneliness, of not having a bridge or a goal or something on the other side," says Dr. Hanser. "For her, the metaphor was so powerful that it led to tremendous insight."

PLAYING TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT

A therapist might also encourage you to make music--to improvise vocally or with instruments in the therapy room. The idea isn't to play beautiful sonatas, but to play what you feel. If you're depressed because you habitually repress your anger, you may end up yelling and wailing or banging away on the lowest octaves on the piano. Not splendid music--but the expression of feeling is all for the better.

"Music therapy can really help people who aren't able to articulate all the things they're feeling and experiencing," says Dr. Hanser.

Once issues and feelings are out in the open, you and the therapist might explore these feelings further, and explore different ways of working with them, Crowe says. You might write a song together or do more improvisational music-making. The idea is to experience the feelings and different ways of dealing with them, rather than simply talk about them.

The woman who responded so strongly to "Bridge Over Troubled Water" went on to explore her feelings and options with more improvisational playing, Dr. Hanser adds.

"We created this bridge with the music we made," she explains. "The melody was about what it would feel like if she got to the other side, where hope is. While we were playing and chanting and singing, she didn't need to know or identify precisely what was on the other side--what her goal was. But by playing, she could sense that there was an option other than what she'd experienced in the past. She could feel there was hope, and actually express it by making sound that was hopeful. The fact that she could really experience this optimism gave her the confidence that eventually enabled her to articulate what she wanted and what she could do to get it."

GOING SOLO

With a few pointers, you can learn to use music to relax. You can also use it to be more productive, to feel better, to get to sleep or--if you put on that lively samba music--to get going during a workout.

The key, Campbell says, is selecting appropriate music.

If you're looking for some gentle strains to help you get to sleep, a slow, quiet Sinatra piece is more likely to get you there than Guns N' Roses. But maybe not. The same piece of music can have very different effects on different listeners, says Crowe.

"I'm leery when people claim that one type of music always has that type of effect," Crowe says. "Human interaction with sound is so complex; to prescribe like that is to misunderstand the complexity."

To find the right music, then, you have to experiment. Here's what the experts suggest.

Start with what you like. This advice may seem obvious, but music you don't like can make you feel more stressed out or irritated, says Crowe.

Put it to the test. Before you begin listening to a selection, check your pulse and note your breathing rate, says Campbell. Note whether your muscles are tense or relaxed and evaluate your mood. Are your thoughts louder than your feelings? Then listen to the music for 20 minutes, allowing your body to respond. Lie down, loosen up, dance, hum, clap--do whatever the music moves you to do and let the music release the stress from your body. Then check your pulse, breathing, muscle tension and mood again. In a notebook, jot down the name of the selection, and your feelings. Once you've made a few entries, use the information to help you use music to relax and change your mood.

Work with your mood, not against it. If you're sad and play happy music, it can make you feel worse, because it can seem an impossible standard to reach, says Crowe. "You need to make the change gradually," she explains. "So start with a piece matching your mood, then gradually change the music. If you start with the music that's a little sad, then begin to change the music, you can change your mood, too."

Ditto if you're trying to calm down and go to sleep. Start with music that matches your energy level and gradually shift to music that's slower and more subdued, Dr. Hanser says.

Tune in. Listen to sounds and feel vibrations in your own body, says Campbell.

Try humming. If you find yourself easily distracted or very stressed, says Campbell, try humming. "When you hum," Campbell says, "you're massaging your body from the inside out."