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Photo: CarbonNYC / Flickr

Who doesn’t like music? It can reduce your stress levels. When you’re miserable, it helps lift your mood. It carries you through difficult emotional times. It can help you concentrate better. It always improves a party. It brings people together. Some couple have a special song. A road trip worth the name will become memorable thanks to the fantastic inpromptu soundtrack created by you and your friends. But can music do more for us? Apparently, much more than we thought.

Heal thyself

In the first experiment of its kind a surgeon in Hawaii played random pieces on the piano as the patient was wheeled and prepped for surgery. Researchers were testing the effect of music on a patient’s health and vital signs, as well as the level of pain experienced.

Another study conducted that the immune system’s ability to defend the body against infection was strongly affected by music.

Listening to music after surgery, other physical trauma or psychological shock or injury has been shown to greatly assist in a more rapid and more effective recovery.

There is music and then there is…

Turns out our parents were right. Studies do confirm that some genres are better than others at improving health and healing in patients. Even more interesting is the fact that specific kinds of tunes and tempos are more appropriate for specific injuries and conditions.

One of the reasons given for the power of music to heal is as simple as distraction from pain. Some people exposed to pain were able to handle it better while they were listening to music they enjoyed.

Another finding is that different parts of the brain handle and process music. So, while the stroke patient is listening to music and occupied, nerve cells are stimulated and can bypass the region affected by stroke.

Some researchers theorise that it’s all about emotions. Emotions indicate the release of certain hormones in our bodies, which in turn have an effect on the healing processes taking place.

Even Pythagoras said so

He believed that parts of music somehow were a mirror image of the natural order of the heavens and nature. According to him, listening to music ‘purified the soul, restoring the vitality of the body, calming the mind and emotions’.

Turns out hippies were onto something, after all…

Tags: music