Music is an everyday thing for us. It’s everywhere, in movies, on the radios in our cars, at school when we’re working. It’s also constantly altering our moods, we all have that one song that makes us happy when we’re feeling sad, and one song that gets us in our feelings. This is why I think music therapy should be used more, we use it subconsciously already but it should be more and more of a conscious thing.
When we are feeling sad we almost always start playing music in today’s society. It’s not always a song that will lift our mood though, and that’s okay. A study at Durham University in the United Kingdom and the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, shows that, “Even sad music brings most listeners pleasure and comfort”. Listening to sad music while you are sad can make you feel like you’re not alone or just in general be a comforting thing. Lead author, Tuomas Eerola, Ph.D., a professor of music cognition at Durham University, said that, “The results help us to pinpoint the ways people regulate their mood with the help of music, as well as how music rehabilitation and music therapy might tap into these processes of comfort, relief, and enjoyment.” This study made a huge difference in the view of music therapy. Music therapy was used before this study but this study just boosted therapist confidence in the effectiveness of music therapy.
Music Therapy has been used since World War I and World War II. It was used to help soldiers and patients with PTSD and even physical trauma to
recover. It made a huge difference and impacted the patients and soldier tremendously. Music therapy is expressive, whether that be through playing an instrument or listening to it. It makes it easier for people to be able to open up. This is why it’s so good for patients with PTSD because they can open up and talk about what they saw and what happened because of the influence the music has on them.
Music therapy for people with anxiety is also a very good solution. As I said earlier music calms us, subsciously most of the time. The only people that could be concerning for this type of therapy are depression patients. Music has a powerful influence on us, more than we realize. It can lead us to do crazy things, bad things. If people with depression listen to the wrong type of music that have the wrong influence on them it can lead to bad things, so that’s the danger of this therapy for those people. But for the most part music therapy is a very good form of therapy because of its large influence it has over us that we don’t even fully realize.
Music therapy is something that I feel people should be using more. Like I said throughout this blog, the influence that music has over us is very powerful, more than we’ll ever be able to fully comprehend. It should be one of the more commonly used therapy methods in today’s world.
Sources:
Boothby, Suzanne. “How Does Music Affect Your Mood and Emotions.” Healthline, Healthline Media, 21 Aug. 2017, www.healthline.com/health-news/mental-listening-to-music-lifts-or-reinforces-mood-051713#1.
San Francisco, Paradigm. “Can Music Therapy Reduce Stress and Anxiety?” Can Music Therapy Reduce Stress and Anxiety? – Portland Music Therapy, 19 Jan. 2016, portlandmusictherapy.com/can-music-therapy-reduce-stress-and-anxiety/.
Davis, Lauren Cassani. “Is It Harmful to Use Music to Cope With Life?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 2 Nov. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/is-it-harmful-to-use-music-as-a-coping-mechanism/413236/.