Music therapy as a supplemental treatment for mental health disorders.

 

As I looked back and read over my journaling from the past couple of weeks, I realized that many of the themes around drugs and the brain are very similar. To me this makes a great deal of sense due to the fact that drugs most commonly affect our brain’s ability to either send or receive.  They do this in a number of ways and can have a great variety of effects.  Some drugs can aid in people with brain issues, other drugs can make those issues worse.  I thought it would be interesting to see how these topics can be applied both in my own life and in the lives of the general public.  

As I thought of a topic that I could use to tie in these topics I have been journaling about, I began to think about the effect of music on mental health.  I personally have used music as a type of therapy during my life.  Often times I would combat negative feelings with music that in some way addressed those feelings and made me feel less alone in my fight against them.  While I recognize the importance of therapy from a licensed professional, and also that of taking the appropriate prescribed medication, this semester we have had an overarching theme of Ayurveda and a more complete approach to health.  With this in my it seemed appropriate to me to look into the subject a little more and find if there are any professional studies done on the effectiveness of music on mental health. 

While on the NLM website I found an article addressing music and mental health.  In this article it discussed in detail the benefits of both music therapy and music in general on the mental health of individuals exposed.  Music therapy was established as a profession after WW2 and has been used by therapists to aid individuals who are seeking to express themselves or who struggle to communicate in the normal way.  When many people think of therapy, they think of a person sitting down with a therapist and talking through their problems.  The issue with this is that some people with mental disorders, do not have the capability of having an adult conversation which could in any way be beneficial.  Some individuals I have worked with while I was an employee at Chrysalis do not have the ability to communicate on a level above that which you could communicate with a 2-year-old.  These people need to be able to express themselves.

Music therapy can provide an outlet for individuals who struggle with communication. It has been shown to have a positive effect on the behavior and emotional state of individuals with all kinds of mental health disorders.  Individuals with anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and autism have all been shown to benefit from music therapy. A common issue of mental health disorders is feeling like you don’t have an outlet to express how you are feeling.  People struggle to put to words something that can only really be related to by others with the same issues.  Music helps these individuals by providing both an outlet for communication and also a space where they can make connections with others around them in a way that is more than just exchanging words. 

Music has also been shown to have a positive effect on the immune system.  While this might sound strange at first it makes sense when you think about it a little deeper. Our mental and physical health are very closely related, affecting one will usually affect the other.  An example of this is shingles, a disease that lies dormant in your nervous system until your immune system is weakened to the point where it can trigger a reactivation.  There have been many studies which have shown that significant stress can have a weaking effect on the immune system and lead to outbreaks of certain diseases.  Other mental issues such as depression and anxiety can also have a negative effect on our body’s physical health.  If anyone reading this knows someone with severe anxiety you have probably seen them suffer from an anxiety attack.  The stress this puts on the body is certainly detrimental to ones physical. The study from NLM talks in detail on the effect of stress on the body.  It also talks about how music can aid in reducing this stress and it lays out some of the specific benefits of music therapy on physical health.  “Specifically, music has been shown to modify heart rate, respiration rate, perspiration, and other autonomic systems.” Relaxing music has even shown in some studies to have an effect of decreasing the cortisol levels in the body, a hormone that can be detrimental if the body produces too much.

While relaxing music is often used as an example of how music can affect the body, more upbeat music has also been shown to have a relationship with certain bodily functions.  When listening to upbeat music such as techno, individuals were often found to have higher levels of growth hormone and norepinephrine in their body.  When you think about it, this makes a good amount of sense.  I have often found that I am more motivated to work out depending on the type of music I am listening too.  When listening to an upbeat song I often seem to have more energy and get tired less easily.  There is also a potential warning, listening to music that is extremely loud and aggressive when one is already stressed can possibly have a negative effect on their mental health. 

When we think about mental health, I feel that society has often placed a separation between it and our physical health.  This is detrimental to those who suffer from mental health disorders.  The brain is a physical part of our body and issues that effect it are as real as any disease that affects our ability to walk, eat, or breathe.  There is a reason why there is often a drug that can be prescribed to help people with such mental issues.  The issues of what we feel is all in our heads can often stem from a chemical imbalance.  Drugs can help to fix this as we have learned this unit.  I also think it is important to continue to look for other ways to aid individuals without the use of prescription medication.  Often, prescription drugs can cause as many problems in individuals with mental health issues as they fix.  By using a mix of both physical treatments such as medicine, and mental treatments such as music therapy, I believe that we can achieve a more effective method of treatment for anyone suffering from mental disorders.  I believe that I what a holistic approach to health is all about, using everything that can be beneficial in ways that serve to increase the quality of one’s life.  By doing this I think we can help those who suffer from mental disorders, as well as those who don’t, have more joy and fulfilment from life.

 

Sources:

Rebecchini L. (2021). Music, mental health, and immunity. Brain, behavior, & immunity - health, 18, 100374. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbih.2021.100374

 

Brain and mental disorders.pdf (in modules)

 

MindBrainandPersonalityDisorders.pdf (in modules)