The power of music to integrate and cure is quite fundamental. It is the profoundest nonchemical medication. Oliver Sacks’ “Awakenings” Music as a healing force goes back several centuries. The Greeks worshiped Apollo as the god of both music and medicine. Healing and sound were considered highly developed sacred sciences in the Egyptian and Greek education systems soon after World War I and II.
Community musicians of all types, both amateur and professional, serenaded veterans suffering physical and emotional trauma from the wars. The medical profession is now embracing the value of music in the healing or palliative care of a wide variety of patients: the chronically or terminally ill, the disabled, the neurologically impaired, and the mentally challenged. Music therapy programs are popping up in hospitals and treatment centers nationwide.
Heart disease is the primary cause of death in the United States. Those who suffer from heart disease either die prematurely or suffer a marked decrease in quality of life. Increasing evidence is proving that music is soothing for the heart. For example, Marconato and colleagues reported in the Arq Bras Cardiol. in 2001 that decreased stress levels and increased personal satisfaction, higher consumption of fiber-rich food, lower cholesterol intake, and a better perspective on life in people on receptive music therapy.
White, in the American Journal of Critical Care in 1999, showed that music therapy is associated with changes in heart rate, respiratory rate, and myocardial oxygen demand in patients with an acute heart attack. Guzzetta went further and reported in Heart Lung in 1989 that the incidence of cardiac complications was lower in patients admitted to the coronary care unit with a presumptive diagnosis of a heart attack.
Suppose they were subjected to music and relaxation therapy. In 2004, Thorgaard and associates reported in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing that specially selected music had a positive effect on patients’ well-being and opinion of the sound environment during invasive cardiac procedures. Other studies have demonstrated the health benefits of music during and after cardiac surgery.
Music has other benefits, too. “Simply put, music can heal people.” — Senator Harry Reid, Nevada. As a therapeutic modality, music interventions can promote wellness, manage stress, combat depression, alleviate pain, relax or sedate, express feelings, enhance memory, improve communication, and promote physical rehabilitation. Therapeutic music enhances an individual’s self-awareness and spiritual growth, brightens their perspective on life, and results in increasing their quality of life
German author Johann G. Seume expressed, “Music is the key to the female heart.” Love is intimately connected to music. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87), an American clergyman, sang, “Of all the music that reaches farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.” Music helps conquer loneliness. Lawrence Pat Conroy said,” Without music, life is a journey through a desert.” Music can help combat depression and anxiety.
A British writer, George Eliot (1819-80), announced, “There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.” Music has its spiritual benefits, too. Every religion has incorporated music into its fabric. Basketball coach Red Auerbach, elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1969, preached, “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Music helps laborers lessen their burden and allows their time to pass faster. It also acts as a uniting force in all aspects of life.