For as long as humans have pounded drums and plucked strings, listening to music has affected people’s sense of well-being, lifting their spirits and — as new research shows — calming their nerves. Literally. According to a study at Cleveland Clinic, music can slow the neuronal firings deep within the brain during surgery designed to treat Parkinson’s patients.

The seeds of this study were planted about two years ago, when a patient named Damir Janigro was being prepped for spinal surgery. Janigro, who is also a neuroscientist at the clinic, lay captive to the nerve-racking din of the operating room and in his frazzled state thought about how dentists often give their patients earphones to help ease anxiety. (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2008.)

If people getting root canals merited a musical intervention, he thought, why not people undergoing brain surgery? Patients with conditions such as epilepsy, brain tumors, severe depression, and obsessive-compulsive and motor disorders like Parkinson’s have to be awake for surgical procedures that often take several hours. Janigro and his team decided to use that wakeful period to determine whether music made the subjects’ experience in the operating room less stressful.

He will present his findings on Oct. 30 as part of a symposium in New York City on music and the brain. The son of a world-renowned cellist, Janigro specializes in studying epilepsy and is associated with Cleveland Clinic’s Arts and Medicine Institute, which is working to advance our understanding of how music can do such things as help decrease pain and blood pressure and improve movement in Parkinson’s patients.

The medical community has long been interested in how the brain is affected by music. Historically, however, most research was linked to the cortex, the brain’s outer layer, which is associated with functions like memory, consciousness and abstract thought.

In those studies, neurosurgical patients, wide awake with their cortex exposed, listened to certain sounds and music. While their neural activity was being recorded, they told researchers how those selections made them feel.

Janigro wanted to perform similar studies on motor centers deep within the brain. Because music is often associated with movement — like tapping one’s feet — he theorized that music could be used to modify the activity of thalamic and subthalamic neurons, which are located in the same area where a neuronal pacemaker is implanted during deep-brain stimulation.

In Janigro’s study, more than a dozen neurosurgical patients, predominantly with Parkinson’s, listened to three musical selections — rhythmic music with no discernible melody (by Gyorgi Ligeti, of Stanley Kubrick–movie fame), melodic music with undefined rhythm (by Aaron Jay Kernis, a Pulitzer Prize winner) and something in between (Ludwig van Beethoven). In the later stages of the research, to prevent familiarity from swaying the subjects’ responses, music was specifically composed for the study by students from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

In the end, patients almost unanimously said the purely melodic offerings were the most soothing. But the recordings of their brain activity were eye-opening. (Read “The Year in Medicine 2008: From A to Z.”)

Listening to melodic music decreased the activity of individual neurons in the deep brain, says Janigro, adding that the physical responses to the calming music ranged from patients’ closing their eyes to falling asleep. Some patients even settled into a nice round of snoring. And when lead neurosurgeon Ali Rezai needed patients to perform an action, such as lifting a limb, during the procedures, he simply removed their earphones and relayed instructions. Once the music resumed, patients returned to their snoozing.

These are very desirable results, says Janigro. With the right music, he says, patients can be more relaxed in the operating room. And that relaxation may mean not only that procedures involve less medication — to control blood pressure, which increases with stress — but perhaps that patients have quicker recovery times and shorter hospital stays.

Janigro anticipates that following institutional approval, music will be used during certain neurosurgical procedures at the clinic as early as 2010. He hopes other hospitals will soon follow Cleveland’s lead. “This type of surgery can be a traumatizing experience, and using music can decrease anxiety,” he notes.

And you can’t beat the cost.

With health-care expenditures through the roof, this patient benefit is practically free, says Janigro, who used his own iPod and that of a colleague’s to pump in the music for the study. “The clinic doesn’t have a budget for iPods yet, but soon I think we will. It’s a no-brainer,” he says. “There’s nothing more calming than sleep.”
By Coeli Carr

A Day with Dr. Clive Robbins, Music Therapy Pioneer

This morning I had the distinct pleasure of spending a morning in a wonderful workshop at the U of L School of Music, listening to and learning from Dr. Clive Robbins, who has spent his life working with handicapped children and using music therapy to transform their lives. If you’re interested in learning more about him and his work with Paul Nordoff, go to http://www.nordoff-robbins.org.uk/

“Zip-a-dee doo dah, Zip-a-dee-ay …”

–A. Wrubel, R. Gilbert

“Do-wah diddy-diddy dum diddy-do …”

–The Moffats

“Super-cali-fragilistic-expialidocious …”

–The Sherman Brothers

“What an odd thing it is to see an entire species–billions of people–playing with, listening to, meaningless tonal patterns, occupied and preoccupied for much of their time by what they call ‘music.”‘

–Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia

“Music is playing inside my head, I Over and over and over again, My friend, there’s no end to the music …”

–Carole King

Throughout human history and in all known cultures, people have been immersed in music. Humans passionately create, listen to and dance to it. We Americans, most of whom have no particular musical talent, spend hours daily listening to music on car radios and MP3 players, and as background in offices, homes, TV shows and movies.

The fact that music is such an integral part of being human raises intriguing questions, some of which are relevant to MS. Does the brain have specific regions that respond to music? Could people who have conditions that affect the brain, such as MS, obtain therapeutic effects from music?

The neuroanatomy of music

Music is experienced through the simultaneous activation of a remarkable number of brain regions. Listening to music involves two major processes–perception and emotional response. Through perception we recognize music’s physical characteristics–the rhythm, harmony and tone. Our emotional response evokes feelings–sadness, happiness, relaxation and more. The two processes, perceiving and feeling, activate multiple brain regions that are interconnected through complex and vast networks. They range from the front of the brain (frontal lobes) to the back (cerebellum), from top (motor cortex) to the bottom (amygdala), and from outer surface (auditory cortex) to the inner core (nucleus accumbens and hippocampus). Creating or dancing to music activates an even greater number of brain regions.

Importantly, perceiving and feeling music are two distinct processes. For example, there are people who are gifted at perceiving music, such as those with absolute pitch, but who are indifferent to its emotional effects. The reverse is true as well (and is more common)–there are many people who have little or no musical talent, including those who are tone-deaf, who are passionate about music. In other words, you don’t need to be musical to be strongly affected by music and potentially to benefit from its therapeutic effects.

Why do we like music?

“I know it’s only rock ‘n’ roll but I like it, like it, yes I do …”–The Rolling Stones

The widespread activity in the brain that music arouses suggests that music serves a critical role in human existence. Some have proposed that music actually preceded language in human evolution, thus making it a core characteristic or instinct. There is considerable evidence that music is involved in sexual attraction, especially for men trying to attract women. (However, playing the clarinet in my high school band didn’t seem to make me a chick magnet.) Music may, in a more general sense, promote social bonding and may also be important for cognitive development.

Music as medicine: studies in MS and other conditions

“‘Cause music’s been my therapy, Taking the pain from all my anatomy …”–Marvin Gaye

“Music is the medicine of the mind.”–John Logan

It is thought that music may act as a sort of tonic or jump-starter to activate or improve neurological function. MS may be particularly well-suited to respond to music therapy. Each person with MS has a unique collection of brain lesions that produces a unique collection of symptoms.

Music may be capable of accessing diverse brain regions in an individualized way.

Researchers have studied music therapy in MS and other neurological conditions, but most of the studies done so far have had limitations, such as small numbers of participants. Even so, it appears that music might alleviate a remarkably wide range of MS-related symptoms:

* Stress (music may be combined with other relaxation strategies-see Summer 2009 Momentum)

* Emotional problems such as anxiety and sadness, and difficulties with self-esteem, self-acceptance and coping

* Cognitive issues, including problems with memory, speech, or communication

* Weakness, poor coordination and walking difficulties

* Pain

To determine whether music therapy has definite therapeutic effects in MS, larger and more rigorous studies are needed.

What can you do now?

Music therapy is generally safe. The only precaution is that excessive noise (greater than 90 decibels) may increase blood pressure and impair hearing. Although studies of music in MS are limited at this time, music is readily available, and for those who are interested, it is certainly a reasonable approach to try. Music may be pursued on one’s own or by consulting a professional music therapist.

Examples of approaches to try on your own include:

Listening

* Although many people listen casually, it may be helpful to be more thoughtful about the types of music one chooses and to be more attentive to them.

Creating music

* Play an instrument.

* Make simple movements, such as tapping a drumstick, along with music.

* Join a chorus or choir.

* Even if you’re not musical, have a jam session with friends.

Moving or dancing

* Take dancing lessons.

* Just dance or move parts of the body to music.

Additional Information

Two outstanding lay books on music and the brain have been published recently:

* Musicophilia, by Dr. Oliver Sacks (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).

* This Is Your Brain on Music, by Dr. Daniel J. Levitin (New York: Penguin, 2006).

by Allen C. Bowling, MD, PhD

Suzanne Darley, MA, REACE, reviewed and provided valuable input to this article.

Dr. Allen C. Bowling is the medical director of the Multiple Sclerosis Service and director of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Service at the Colorado Neurological Institute. He is also clinical associate professor of Neurology at the University of Colorado-Denver Health Sciences Center and author of Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Multiple Sclerosis (2nd edition, Demos Medical Publishing). For more on CAM, visit his Web site, NeurologyCare.net.

Yes, there was a time when things were done very differently in surgery.  Some of these tools pictured here were downright barbaric!  But today, things are done very differently.  Today doctors and patients alike know about the benefits of music during surgery.  We are much more aware of the dangers of too much anesthesia and about the fact the adding music to the anesthesia mix can help decrease the amount of

anesthesia needed, thus leading to a safer procedure and a faster recovery!   If you or anyone you know is preparing for surgery, please let them know about the Surgical Serenity Headphones and the Surgical Serenity Download.  The download is immediate, of course, but the headphones can be overnighted anywhere in the U.S. and expedited to anyplace in the world!  Give yourself and your family members the safest surgical experience by tapping into the “relaxation response.”

By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

Classical music played on a piano in the operating room for 115 patients having eye surgery at the former St. Francis Medical Center-Liliha had “profound” physical benefits, it was reported today.
The music lowered the patients’ blood pressure and heart and respiratory rates before any sedation or pain medication, according to a paper in the Medscape Journal of Medicine, a Web resource for physicians of peer-reviewed medical journal articles.

Dr. Jorge Camara, a classically trained pianist and ophthalmologist, played music for patients before surgery as part of a study from May to August 2005 to demonstrate the medical benefits of music.

The classical and semi-classical pieces ranged from Debussy’s “Arabesque No. 1 in E Major” and Chopin’s “Etude in E Major, Op. 10 No. 3,” to “The More I See You,” by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon.

The patients, 49 to 79 years old, were having surgery for the first time. The study reports average decreases of 21 percent in their blood pressure, 8 percent in heart rate and 21 percent in breathing rate.

“This sentinel paper validates the growing evidence that listening to relaxing music has profound beneficial effects on the physiologic functions of the human body,” said Camara, director of ophthalmology in the Department of Surgery, University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine.

He believes it’s the first study in which a surgeon performed on a piano in an operating room for patients before surgery.

When Camara began the project, Samuel Wong, former Honolulu Symphony music director, and Arthur Harvey, former University of Hawaii music professor and researcher, joined him in playing the piano for patients.

A total of 203 patients underwent ophthalmologic procedures when the piano was in the operating room, but 88 had no music played. The result was “a statistically significant increase of their mean arterial blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rate,” the study found.

Co-authors of the paper, “The Effects of Live Classical Piano Music on the Vital Signs of Patients Undergoing Ophthalmic Surgery,” are Joseph Ruszkowski, Kamehameha Schools music teacher, and Dr. Sandra R. Worak, a research fellow trained by Camara now working in the Philippines.

No complications were associated with the music, and patients “were very happy their doctor was playing the piano for them,” Camara said in an interview.

He said Kahala painter Laurie McKeon, 57, one of the patients who heard live music, wrote about the experience, explaining how scared she was to have surgery and how the piano music made a huge difference.

She wrote: “The music soared above me, swirled around me. It penetrated through my pores, beyond my ears, past my mind and somehow, into my heart. I felt at peace. I felt safe. I felt like everything was going to be just fine. And it was.”

Camara no longer has live piano music in his operating room but patients hear a recording of him playing the piano. He is past president of the Aloha Medical Mission and has given three piano concerts to benefit the organization at the Neil Blaisdell Concert Hall.

Citing growing interest in the medical benefits of music, he said, “So much more has to be studied,” such as the effect on male versus female patients and rap music versus relaxing classical music. “This is only the beginning of a journey that will open our eyes to the wonderful potential of music for healing,” he said.

J Clin Nurs. 2009 Aug;18(15):2153-61.

Soothing music can increase oxytocin levels during bed rest after open-heart surgery: a randomised control trial.

Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Centre for Health Care Sciences, Orebro University Hospital and School of Health, Orebro University, P.O. Box 1324, Orebro SE 70113, Sweden. ulrica.nilsson@orebroll.se

Music that Inspires Joy Improves Blood Vessel Function

Nov. 13, 2008 — Joyful music helps your heart, researchers find.

The study comes from Michael Miller, MD, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland. Miller reported the findings at this week’s annual meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans.

Ten volunteers identified specific music that made them feel a sense of joy. While the music played, Miller and colleagues used an ultrasound device to measure how well each person’s blood vessels responded to a sudden increase in blood flow (caused by release of a blood pressure cuff).

When they heard joyful music, the volunteers’ blood vessels dilated by 26% — a very healthy response. It’s similar in magnitude to the response seen after aerobic exercise.

Laughter also improved blood flow. After listening to a comedy tape, volunteers’ blood vessels dilated by 19%. That’s similar to the laughter effect seen in an earlier study, in which volunteers viewed excerpts from the comic movie Kingpin.

But music has a dark side, too. Listening to music that made volunteers feel anxious narrowed blood vessels by 6%.

“These results were music to my ears because they signal another preventive strategy that we may incorporate in our daily lives to promote heart health,” Miller says in a news release.

Country music made most of the volunteers feel joyful. Heavy metal music made most of them feel anxious. But Miller says what matters isn’t the type of music, but an individual’s emotional response to the music.

Miller says that 10 different individuals might well have found different types of music joyful — and heart healthy.

Funding for the study came from the American Heart Association, the Veterans Administration, and the National Institutes of health.

This post appeared recently on another blog (http://ordinarilyuninteresting.blogspot.com/2010/02/its-business-time.html) and pertained so specifically to music with dental surgery, I thought that my readers might enjoy reading it:  “I had to get up early–0500h–in order to travel to the Big City and get a tooth implant. For those of you who don’t know, a tooth implant is a titanium screw that is placed in the jawbone as an anchor for a permanent tooth approx four months after the implant is embedded. It is the best solution for those looking to replace a missing tooth, the other options being a bridge or no treatment. Bridges are usually fine and have been used for decades, are usually lower cost, but the downside is that you have to ruin two perfectly good teeth in order to install a bridge.

So I didn’t go with the bridge, because I am a relatively young guy and I don’t want to give up two more teeth–bridges can result in root canals in a long-term run–and my doctor recommended the implant. He’s a nice guy, great with oral surgery. Did my wisdom teeth (third molars). The only problem I had with the implant was that I needed some bone grafting done in order to anchor the implant firmly. These days they grow bone tissue in test tubes, so I didn’t not have to give up any of my bone for the procedure.

I was a bit scared at first, because I remember when I had my wisdom teeth removed. I had all four teeth growing in, two of them impacted, so I had to have two of them pulled and two of them cut out. It wasn’t pretty. I remember waking up after the surgery int he recovery room thinking I was at some kind of party or social event at which I had imbibed too much alcohol. The feeling after being aroused from the anesthesia is remarkably like being intoxicated. The nurses had a hard time getting me to lay back down. I then spent the next two weeks recovering from my procedure, spending lots of time with my mouth open over the toilet as blood and ooze drained from my cavities, suffering pain unimaginable when my codeine ran out or I had to eat–I remember lots of chocolate malts. What a way to spend spring break.

So this time I was a bit unnerved about the whole ordeal. Getting my mouth opened up and having some bone and titanium implanted into my jaw didn’t sound like a lot of fun. So I get to the Big City and get into the office and they talk me through the thing and let me choose my anesthesia and I’m looking around at all the tools and stuff laying around the small operating area and I want to ask lots of questions–not out of worry, but curiosity. I don’t ask those questions, though, because I’d rather these nurses concentrate on making everything go smoothly as possible. I wake up about two and a half hours later in the recovery room, this time completely ready for the wave of intoxication to wash over me. There is is. I lay back down, knowing that I got little enough sleep the night before and that I’ve got time here, and now, to get more rest without feeling guilty. I just had a major operation done. So I lay back down, listen to the girl crying next to me–her first time, I assume–and just let the anesthesia work its magic.

My mom drives me home after that; I’m not allowed with all the drugs in my system. I brought my mp3 player and listened to soothing music to facilitate more rest, in case the pain kicked in early. Last time we didn’t have any drugs and I was in howling torture by the time we got home. Not this time. They gave me some really great pain killing stuff at the hospital. Injected it directly into my mouth.

And I sleep most of the rest of the day, nearly completely pain free. Yesterday I went out to a client’s house and hooked up her computer and configured the printer with no problems. I slept early last night and woke up in some pain, but I took ibuprofen for comfort, no Darvocet. “  Whenever you can manage dental pain with a little ibuprofen and no narcotics, THAT’S a successful music-amplified anesthesia!  Get you headphones here:  www.surgicalheadphones.com. 

Sound Healing has become more popular over the last couple of decades, simply because more and more research has proven that we are greatly affected mentally, emotionally, and physically by sounds or combinations of sounds. Sounds can essentially bring us up or bring us down, from a mental and emotional standpoint, and this works the same way on the physical level as well.

How Sound Healing Works
Because all sounds have a frequency, and every cell in our bodies also has a frequency, these frequencies can work together to heal our minds and our bodies. For example, in modern medicine, sound is commonly used. Sound waves, or sound frequencies, can be used to destroy gallstones or kidney stones in many cases.

Sound is also often used for the reduction of pain, although we don’t realize it. For example, when you have a dental procedure done these days, you will usually have the option of wearing earphones and listening to music. This isn’t to drown out the sound of the dentist’s drill. It’s for the purpose of taking your mind off of the procedure, to reduce the pain that you experience, and to relax your mind as well.

If you doubt that this type of therapy actually works, or has an effect on us, try it out yourself. Listen to music that you love for about thirty minutes, and then jot down your feelings in a journal. On another day, listen to music that you hate, and again jot your feelings down. You will most likely notice that your feelings after hearing music that you liked were positive, while they were negative after exposure to music that you did not like.

Various Sounds Used for Sound Healing

While most people think that only music is used for this type of healing, this isn’t true at all. While music is widely used, and highly beneficial, other sounds are also used – such as beating drums, sounds of animals, sounds of water, sounds of wind, sounds of the ocean, and many other sounds.

Typically, the sound chosen for your healing will depend on the type of healing that is needed, and on your personal preferences concerning sounds. For example, some music and sounds can actually distress us, while other types of music and sounds make us quite happy, or extremely relaxed.

The Benefits of Sound Healing

Sound healing can be used for a variety of problems. It can lower the blood pressure, ease or eliminate stress, reduce pain, improve sleep, lift depression, and much more. You can find sound therapy or healing used in doctor’s offices, dentist offices, hospitals, day care centers, schools, nursing homes, prisons, rehabilitation centers, and a variety of other places.

For more info, go to http://www.methodsofhealing.com

Tomorrow I’m traveling to Versailles, KY to speak to a group of 25-30 dentists about our Surgical Serenity Headphones and their value in dentistry! Ever since the headphones went on the market last March (www.surgicalheadphones.com) people have been saying “Oh, those would be great in a dentist’s office!”

Yes, the dentist chair is one of the most un-favorite places to find oneself. In dentistry, the headphones would serve multiple purposes. In addition to the relaxation effect that invariably is elicited, there’s also the fact that having on headphones will block and muffle the sound of the drill, one of the most unpleasant parts of the dental procedure.

As with so many procedures, just knowing that you have multiple choices for pain management is a huge plus, and with music, there’s no novocaine numbness to wear off and no gases or narcotics to put into your bloodstream!

The benefits far outweigh the disadvantages, which are………..none!

Over the years, researchers have studied the various effects of music on human health, intelligence, and well-being, but more recently, researchers came to fascinating conclusions regarding music’s medicinal qualities. Music’s various positive benefits reach diverse groups of people: adolescents involved with music perform better in school , music increases exercise endurance by up to 15%, music lowers stress levels, anxiety, and depression in pregnant women, and may be an inexpensive and enjoyable way to facilitate recovery in stroke patients -imagine that!

In order to fully comprehend music’s influence on stroke recovery, we must consider the mechanics. A stroke occurs when blood supply to part of the brain is blocked, which prevents the admittance of oxygen and glucose. Without oxygen, brain cells die. This blockage results most commonly from the blockage of a small artery within the brain itself, but there are several other mechanisms for a stroke as well. Some factors that lead to strokes and artery blockage include: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking. Strokes are unexpected and dangerous incidences that remain the third leading cause of death in the United States behind heart disease and cancer. A Harvard Imaging technique reveals increased brain activity when people play or listen to music because more blood and oxygen flow to the brain, healing brain damage.

Researchers find that music aides in the recovery process by improving damage to verbal memory and attention. The brain is more plastic immediately following a stroke episode, and greater plasticity- the brain’s ability to re-wire itself – increases music’s effect. So, the optimal time for music therapy is during the first weeks of stroke recovery for a couple hours per day (University of Helsinki, 2008). Music not only enhances attention and triggers verbal memory but also improves mood, heightening a pleasurable response.
Särkämö, a PhD student at the Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology, at the University of Helsinki and at the Helsinki Brain Research Centre (in Finland), conducted an experiment with stroke recovery patients to test this hypothesis. Prior to treatment, patients exhibited problems with movement, cognitive processes, attention, and memory as a result of their strokes. He randomly assigned them to three different groups: a music listening group, a language group, or a control group. For six months, the music group religiously listened to a musical genre of their choice, while the language group listened to audio books. The control group did not listen to any auditory material during this time. All other conditions remained the same for the three groups. The results showed that music listeners had an improvement of 60 percent, compared to the first week after the stroke. That was more than twice the improvement in the non-listeners, and three times the improvement in the audio book listeners. Furthermore, focused attention improved by 17 percent for music listeners but not at all for the other groups (University of Helsinki, 2008). Additional improvements were noted in the music listener’s mood. This experiment applauds music’s extraordinary ability to rehabilitate the brain. More universally, this illustrates a stimulus that emotionally connects the listener with his or her environment. Music that grabs the patient’s attention and moves him or her can repair and renew previously damaged neural networks.

Music therapy can be applied in different ways depending on severity and type of brain damage. Damage to Broca’s area (left frontal lobe) inhibits speech, but a healthy right hemisphere can still process melody and rhythm. “Melodic Intonation Therapy,” cured a patient who suffered from “aphasia”-loss of the ability to produce and/or comprehend language. The patient created sentences in rhythm to melodies to facilitate coherent speech. Before, he could not string simple sentences or phrases together. Eventually, the patient detached the melody from the lyrics to form normal speaking sentences.

The basic requirement for music therapy hinges on a stimulus that sparks a connection with the listener. The listener chose the music genre most pleasurable to himself/herself. Whether it is raga, classical, pop, jazz, or rock, music stimulates a pleasurable emotional response that aids the brain in recovery from damage like a stroke.

They say that the brain is the last unexplored frontier, but over the last decade or two, much research has been conducted that documents how sound and vibration impact the brain in a very positive way.

The following was found on today’s “The Daily Turn-on.” Enjoy!

Did you know you can actually charge up your central nervous system through music? Alfred Tomatis, French physician and specialist in otolaryngology (ear, nose, throat specialist) has been studying the functions of the human ear for over forty-five years. Tomatis discovered that with a frequency as high as 8000 hz, such as Gregorian chants, humans are able to “charge” the central nervous system and the cortex of the brain. Through years of research he has found that sound is not actually produced through the mouth but rather through the vibratory frequency that travels through the bones of the body. Every bone, tissue and fiber of our bodies operates through its own unique resonant frequency which combined make up each individual person’s unique vibratory signature, or aura. Disease occurs when an individual’s own natural vibratory state is out of resonance or is in disharmony. Fortunately, just as the body can get out of harmony, it is possible to put it back in harmony with its natural resonance through sound therapy. Sound therapy involves externally creating sound and projecting it into the diseased area to reintroduce the correct harmonic pattern. So where does this whole chanting thing come into play? We can actually change our body’s natural rhythmic vibrations through a process called entrainment which introducws a more powerful rhythmic vibration to a weaker vibration until the more powerful vibration changes the less powerful vibration and their rhythms become synchronized together. And this can be accomplished through chanting. A a matter of fact, our brain waves, heart beat and respiratory patterns can all be shifted through the practice of entrainment. Sound therapy is a healing modality that uses sound to shift our vibratory frequency to bring the body back to a place of harmony. The key to accomplishing this is understanding the basic categories of brain waves:
Beta Waves vibrate at a frequency of 14 to 20 Hz and are the frequency of our normal waking state of mind.
Alpha Waves vibrate at a frequency of 8 to 13 Hz and are typically the frequency of our daydreaming or meditative state of mind.
Theta Waves vibrate at a frequency of 4 to 7 Hz are the frequency of a deep sleeping state, as well as the frequency found in shamanic activity.
Delta Waves vibrate at a frequency of .5 to3 Hz and are the frequency thats occurs in deep sleep, as well as profound levels of meditation and healing. By utilizing our sense of sound, we are literally able to shift our consciousness and create healing in our body. But, be aware that the opposite is true. We can also utilize our sense of sound to negatively shift our consciousness and create disease.

For anyone wanting to know how music can be used for healing or for wellness, there are hundreds of studies in libraries, journals and on the internet. I thought my readers might enjoy seeing just a sampling of some of the published studies from 2009. These studies run the gamut from pregnancy and preemies, to Alzheimer’s patients and end-of-life issues. I welcome your questions and comments.

1. “Music therapy can reduce pain and anxiety in hospice patients” December 2009 23:34

Add guitars and other musical instruments to the tools caregivers can use to help patients in hospice care. Part of Pitts’ motivation for pursuing this research was the lack of resources she could draw on when working with hospice patients. Patients in hospice care, depending on their illnesses, may or may not be able to participate in the playing of music for therapy, Pitts says. But music still matters.

2. The effects of music listening on inconsolable crying in premature infants. Journal of Music Therapy. 2009 Fall;46(3):191-203. Keith DR, Russell K, Weaver BS. Georgia College and State University.
Over the decades, medical staff have developed strategies to manage crying episodes of the critically ill and convalescing premature infant. Twenty-four premature infants with gestational age 32-40 weeks received a developmentally appropriate music listening intervention, alternating with days on which no intervention was provided. The results revealed a significant reduction in the frequency and duration of episodes of inconsolable crying as a result of the music intervention, as well as improved physiological measures including heart rate, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, and mean arterial pressure. Findings suggest the viability of using recorded music in the absence of a music therapist or the maternal voice to console infants when standard nursing interventions are not effective.

3. Music therapy to relieve anxiety in pregnant women on bedrest: a randomized, controlled trial. MCN American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing. 2009 Sep-Oct;34(5):316-23. RESULTS: Anxiety levels decreased and physiological responses improved significantly in the intervention group, which was provided with music therapy while on bedrest. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Carefully selected music that incorporates a patient’s own preferences may offer an inexpensive and effective method to reduce anxiety for antepartal women with high risk pregnancies who are on bedrest.

4. Therapeutic role of music listening in stroke rehabilitation.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2009 Jul;1169:426-30.
We performed two parallel interview studies of stroke patients (n= 20) and professional nurses (n= 5) to gain more insight into the therapeutic role of music listening in stroke rehabilitation. Results suggest that music listening can be used to relax, improve mood, and provide both physical and mental activation during the early stages of recovery from stroke. Thus, music listening could provide a useful clinical tool in stroke rehabilitation.

5. Music for stress and anxiety reduction in coronary heart disease patients.
Cochrane Database Systematic Reviews. 2009 Apr 15;(2):
AUTHORS’ CONCLUSIONS: Music listening may have a beneficial effect on blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, anxiety, and pain in persons with CHD. However, the quality of the evidence is not strong and the clinical significance unclear.Most studies examined the effects of listening to pre-recorded music. More research is needed on the effects of music offered by a trained music therapist.

There are so many other wonderful research studies that are easy to find online if you are interested in more information. If you want to learn how to implement any of these interventions in your life, feel free to contact me through my website!