At the Arti outside the new Hanuman Temple in Texas
Earlier this year I had the honor of being one of the presenters at the first Symphony of Yoga in Frisco Texas.
There were many distinguished doctors who also spoke on aspects of sound and music in relation to their own clinical specialties.
My presentation was on the therapeutics effects of music and sound and you can listen to my lecture at a link in today's blog.
Music as Therapy
Music was used thousands of years ago as a healing therapy in Egyptian, Greek and Indian cultures.
Today, music is used therapeutically in hospitals, centers, special schools and homes. Trained music therapists help patients of all ages express themselves and communicate through music. The therapy aids:
• Concentration and memory
• Movement, strength and co-ordination,
• Improve mental health and combat depression
• Improve speech impairments
• Help support treatment for alcohol and drug abuse
• Alleviate stress
The research for my presentation was based on data from multiple areas such as psychology, neurology, quantum physics, immunology, and yoga enabling a common thread to be identified between them all and helping people understand what is happening throughout all aspects of the body at a neural, emotional, and spiritual level.
Healing
When we think of what it means to be healed, we tend to think of someone whose body is weak, diseased and injured being made well. However there are many areas in which an individual can long to be healed:
• Wanting to experience a release from painful memories
• Removing desires and addictions
• Gaining freedom from depression, anxiety, and sadness
• Feeling whole and less distant from God
• Released from loneliness
• Seeking forgiveness for wrongs done
Brain Waves
The brain responds to information received via the senses, mental images, and from memories. Mental visualization or sensory induced stimulus creates changes in the heart rate and respiratory rate and is depicted in four brain wave patterns: Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta.
Music, rhythmic breathing, and meditation alter the brain waves and promote healing by bringing the mind into Alpha rhythm, promoting a calm and relaxed state of mind. Where the breath goes the mind follows and where the mind goes the body follows. Staying in control of the mind enables a person to take control of their thoughts and subsequent actions thereby helping them to maintain a positive and peaceful state of being.
With other presenters and attendees.
Music Therapy and Research
The research identified many areas where music increased an individual’s ability to heal and when combined with rhythmic breathing and meditation actually slowed the worsening of serious diseases such as cancer and AIDS in a few weeks. This offers a relatively inexpensive and non-intrusive method of helping to treat symptoms of severe illnesses.
In one example, patients undergoing a bronchoscopy were divided into two study groups. The first group was placed in a room that had screens depicting scenes from nature: trees, landscapes, blue sky. The patients also listened to music that comprised of sounds occurring in nature such as gently flowing water and birds chirping.
The second group had no music or visual therapy.
Music was clinically shown to reduce not only emotional anxiety pre-operatively, but patients also required less pre and post-operative medicines to alleviate pain.
Nature sounds are particularly powerful in their ability to modify a person’s mood. Based on clinical data, some pediatrics, oncology departments, peri-operative care, burns units, hospital theaters, and day surgery units now expose patients to images and sounds of nature to induce a calm meditative atmosphere.
Trickling water, bird song, and images of trees, flowers, and lush forests all provide a soothing ambiance and for the patients who experience this relaxing atmosphere, it means less pre and postoperative drugs and a reduction in emotional anxiety.
Physiological Changes
Music induces physiological changes in both the cardiovascular and respiratory systems reducing stress, aiding recovery after a heart attack by maintaining a slow and steady heart rate, and improving motor function in patients with stroke.
In a study published in the September 30, 2005, Online First issue of Heart, the authors conclude that “appropriate selection of music, by alternating fast and slower rhythms and pauses, can be used to induce relaxation and reduce sympathetic activity, and so be potentially useful for cardiovascular disease.”
The breath and the body fall into rhythm with a musical tempo regardless of whether the beat is fast or slow. A slower beat shifts the breath to a slower rhythm, creating a feeling of relaxation and deeper awareness.
Music therapy reduces respiratory and heart rates, and myocardial oxygen demands. In addition, slower-tempo music slowed the pulse rate with tempo being the significant factor rather than patient preference or music style.
It is the rhythm of music rather than the tune itself which is important at affecting the body. Our own internal rhythm maker is the heart, and when its rhythm is off-beat, there are serious consequences to one’s overall health.
Alterations in Brain and Immune Function
Music has even more powerful applications when combined with yoga sadhana and meditation with studies showing thickening of the pre-frontal cortex associated with improved memory and slowing the aging process.
Practitioners of rhythmic breathing and meditation demonstrate a feeling of wellbeing but other findings including a reduction in serum cortisol levels and strengthened immune system have been reported in patients with breast and prostate cancer.
When faced with challenging situations such as heart surgery, patients who practice rhythmic breathing and meditation techniques keep their mind at ease and stay focused on the present, aiding recovery by reducing anxiety and stress-related symptoms.
Premature Babies
These infants often have great difficulty sucking and swallowing. Others develop an “oral aversion” and resist having things in their mouth if they have been on a respirator.
You can imagine how you might feel if you have had plastic tubes inserted in your mouth and windpipe to help you breathe.
Pacifier Activated Lullaby
Professor Jayne Standley is a music therapist working at Florida’s Children’s Hospital in Orlando spent 10 years developing the Pacifier Activated Lullaby (P.A.L.).
At 34 weeks of gestation premature babies are able to respond and learn from the device within minutes.
A specially-wired pacifier is connected to a small computer that contains a CD of female-voiced lullabies.
When sensors in the pacifier detect the baby sucking properly, it instantly activates the CD player rewarding the infant with music.
If the baby stops sucking, the music shuts off after ten seconds.
When the baby starts sucking again, the music comes back on.
In this way, the babies learn to suck, a lesson that is retained when bottles or breast milk is given between the PAL sessions. It benefits babies in the following areas:
• Minimizes Hospitalization
• Babies thrive and gain weight faster. PAL babies actually fed at twice the rate they were before.
• Builds Endurance
• It can also build up endurance by having the babies suck longer before the music starts once they gain weight.
• PAL has also been used to help relieve pain in newborns.
• These babies don’t have to suck so hard to trigger the music and the music plays for longer than for a feeding.
The Rhythm of Sound
Harmonious vibrations and music have a profound effect on the body. We can perceive sound to be pleasant, as in hearing a child laugh or a favorite piece of music, and conversely it can fill us with an extreme urge to stop an offending noise, whether it is an irritating song, nails scratching down a blackboard, or a repetitive disturbance that is distracting or even painful on the eardrums.
Plus, it's worth remembering that what one person listens to for pleasure can be a source of discomfort for another!
Sound evokes memories at different levels of consciousness and can trigger positive or negative reactions without an individual even realizing why. Music is everywhere in nature, in the songs of birds, in the laughter of children, in the flow and ebb of our own breath.
Throughout history, humans have used music or sound for a variety of purposes including warning sounds, calls to action to signify the beginning or end of an event, and to promote a sentient romantic atmosphere. A great deal is known about its ability to provide sustenance and comfort but it is only recently that it has been possible to prove the effects of certain sounds upon the brain and how they impact human behavior and healing.
Combining sound with therapy has a profound effect regardless of whether it is a child or an elderly person. Repetition of favorite music also helps the mind focus and heal following bereavement or other life-altering situations. Sound restores the natural rhythm of the body by re-establishing balance to the whole body through the senses and through the different processes of consciousness.
Musicians, drummers, and dancers often find themselves in an altered state where the mind’s natural rhythm changes to the highly creative and restorative alpha waves.
Some people prefer to listen to a musical sound in the form of a voice singing a repetitive phrase, an object like a wind chime blowing in a gentle breeze, or even the rhythmic ringing of a small bell.
Harnessing the power of sound provides you with another tool to expand your conscious awareness of how you affect the environment and how the environment affects you. This symbiotic response makes each of us more cognizant of the fact that we are sentient beings and are indeed affected by what we hear around and within us.
Lifestyle Changes
The strong mind/body connection between thoughts and emotions impacts the neurological and immune systems.
Music, meditation, and yoga have been found to reduce stress, anxiety and alter the lifestyle patterns that contribute to illnesses. They calm the mind and relax the body, promoting a rediscovery of inner sources of peace and joy, increased compassion and love, knowledge of the inter-connectedness of life, and a deepening awareness of spirituality.
A mind absorbed in sound is free from attachment to the material world and loses its tendency to wander.
Intuition is heightened as practitioners pay attention to what is happening to their body. They notice emotional and physical discomfort and are able to change the way they are thinking about a situation and find a place of stability, clarity and ease within.
Using music to calm the mind by slowing down the thoughts and staying in tune with the body strengthens the new neural pathways that are created when positive lifestyle changes are initiated.
Just as a path in the woods is difficult to navigate if it is overgrown through lack of use, it becomes easier and clearer to walk on each time you use it. Likewise, the pathways in the brain become easier to use and positive thoughts and actions become more natural and familiar, eventually replacing the old behavior.
Mantra. The key to a healthy life.
Just as there are different areas in which a person longs to be healed, there is another form of music, or sound vibration, which promotes healing.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali states in Chapter One verse 27, “God's voice is Om.” Patanjali goes on to explain that the repetition of Om should be made with an understanding of its meaning to gain introspection and the disappearance of obstacles. These distractions include disease, inertia, doubt, lack of enthusiasm, laziness, sensuality, pain, despair, a disturbed an uneven breath, and instability of the mind by allowing it to wander.
The mantra of Om (AUM) is a means to self-realization and the removal of obstacles to attain health. It should be practiced by focusing on the sound vibration for what it means and represents.
Mantras are comprised of a powerful energy and repetition brings the mind and body in tune with the vibration of the sounds of the word/s increasing knowledge and promoting health and healing.
Focusing on Om brings knowledge of the vibration of all things in the universe.
It clears blockages in the body and allows for the healing flow of the subtle energy within.
Sounds and Vibrations
These include:
Singing bowls (to focus the mind and induce the meditative process
Any tranquil music with a slow rhythmic beat, classical or modern
Listening to repetition of a mantra (Swamiji chanting)
You own voice chanting a mantra or repeating Om
Mental repetition of a sound
The internal sound vibration that is only heard when all other sounds and thoughts cease (ajapa)
Wind chimes
Indoor fountains
Mind’s Peaceful Rhythm
There are a variety of tools that you can use at home and work in order to stay calm, positive, and healthy:
1. Combine music with activities for improved emotional and physical health
2. Listen to Tranquil music with a slow rhythm
3. Listening to repetition of a mantra (Swamiji chanting)
4. Play joyful music and dance if that’s how you feel
5. Explore nature outdoors or bring it indoors with a fountain
6. You may like to have a wind chime near you outdoors
7. Hear or chant a mantra or AUM
8. Feel the internal sound vibration that is only heard when all other sounds and thoughts cease (Anahata Nada)
Challenge Your Thoughts.
Through the use of sound you can stay in tune with the rhythm of the body and rediscover peace and joy, and a deepening awareness of spirituality.
Integrating these methods may be a challenge at first, but just as a path in the woods is difficult to navigate if it is overgrown through lack of use, it becomes easier and clearer to walk on each time you use it.
Likewise, new pathways in the brain that are created through music become easier to use and in turn, you receive the many benefits of sound and music.
A link to my presentation can be found here
Symphony Of Yoga presentation
The 19th Century Scottish Philosopher Thomas Carlyle said:
If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being music everywhere.
