3 ways music therapy heals our pain
According to a research review published by Alzheimer’s Research and Therapy, music therapy improved memory, attention, and orientation in Alzheimer’s patients. Neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks documented the power of music to arouse movement in paralyzed Parkinson’s patients, to calm the tics of Tourette syndrome, and to vault the neural breaches of autism.
In 1697, William Congreve famously wrote the line “Music soothes the savage beast” for his play, “The Mourning Bride.” Science is finally beginning to validate what Congreve instinctively knew hundreds of years ago. Music impacts our brain in a way that nothing else quite does. Here are three ways music is being used for healing:
Music takes us to our happy place
It doesn’t matter where I am when I hear it. If Carol King’s “I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet” comes on, I am 15 years old. My girlfriend Robin and I are at Santa Monica Beach. (Of course, my mom is there too because I wasn’t old enough to drive.)
I visited with Tyler Hayes-Rueff, director of Music Services at On Site Workshops in Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee. She does amazing work helping clients to create original songs that tell the story of their own lives. During our conversation, she said, “The music remembers,” and that phrase has stuck with me for a long time.
When we were living in Los Angeles, I was invited to be the piano player for a church ministry that visited a nursing home facility each week. There was one woman in the group who would never open her eyes or speak — until the music started. No sooner would I begin to play than she would begin singing at the top of her lungs, remembering every word of whatever hymn I was playing. As soon as the music ended, she would retreat into her silent world. The music remembers.
Carla Guthrie, a woman who works with assisted living facilities to help families understand and cope with loved ones who are experiencing Alzheimer’s and/or dementia-related symptoms, showed me a diagram that displayed which parts of the brain are responsible for storing certain memories. As she moved through the presentation, sections of the brain were gradually erased to show the progression of memory loss. The last thing to be erased was the music note. Not only does the music remember, but it also remembers the longest.
Music can heal our brains
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I learned that trauma is processed primarily in the right hemisphere of the brain. Melody is also processed primarily in the right hemisphere of the brain whereas language is processed primarily in the left hemisphere of the brain. So, when you add words to a melody you have the full engagement of the brain. The melody adds an extra layer of meaning to the words which makes a song especially powerful in generating a response from the listener.
In effect, a song is doubling down, not only using the power of words to communicate but also using the power of melody to release those emotions and feelings that are beyond words. It follows then that healing music, and in particular healing songs that engage the left-brain language processing skills, are incredibly effective in helping people process their pain.
Music also engages the limbic system of the brain where it is processed at the speed of light to “fast track” emotions. We have had therapists tell us the songs in our MUSIC FOR THE SOUL catalog can accomplish results in mere moments what would take months of talk therapy to achieve.
Karl Paulknack, concert pianist and dean of music for Ithaca College in New York says, “I’m not just an entertainer. I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, or a rescue worker.”
Music can reawaken and engage our emotions
We all know from personal experience the effect that music has on us. You can be in a downer mood and suddenly you hear a song that reminds you of a favorite memory and — Boom! There you are — riding down the highway with the top down and the wind in your hair. But a song can also be a powerful therapeutic tool reaching far beyond a simple change of mood.
All of us carry emotional wounds that cannot be seen from the outside. For some of us, these wounds go beyond the merely emotional to the traumatic. Post-traumatic stress first came into the lexicon through discussions of the aftereffects of military service or high-stress jobs like police work, firefighting, and EMTs.
But the fact of the matter is post-traumatic stress affects many people with no connection to stressful work. Accidents, assaults, a sudden unexpected death, and verbal and/or physical abuse — all of these and many other tragic life events can result in post-traumatic stress.
Healing from traumatic or emotionally upsetting events is a process. Before one can begin to heal one has to be able to acknowledge the pain. But most of us don’t like to spend time thinking about the emotional pain in our lives. Instead, we tend to erect walls of defense to shield and protect ourselves from the hurt.
This is where music and a song can become particularly effective. A song can seep through the cracks in our walls of defense, softening and opening up a closed heart. Once that heart is opened, then a message of healing and hope can be placed there. That’s when the healing work can begin.
As a songwriter, I am very focused on the intentionality of the lyrics. Healing songs specifically target an issue or emotion with words designed to resonate with a lived experience. The response elicited can be literally breathtaking: “Oh my gosh, that’s me!”
When a song mirrors someone’s pain with authenticity, it expresses the inexpressible. In this way, songs can play an active role in helping us access and process painful emotions. They can even become lifelines. As one of our listeners said to me, “There was a time in my life when music literally kept me alive.”
Melody and rhythm are both memory devices. That means that a healing message heard in the lyrics of a song has an exponentially better chance of being remembered than something we are told or read in a book. A song gives a message staying power. The music remembers.
A healing message expressed in a song can connect in a deeply personal way. As one abuse survivor said to me after hearing our song “Innocent Child,” “People have been telling me I was an innocent child my whole life. I never believed it until I heard you sing it today.”
On the old American Bandstand TV show Dick Clark used to ask studio audience members what they liked about a song. Invariably they would say, “It’s got a great beat and you can dance to it.” There’s nothing wrong with that! Music and songs can give us enjoyment and make us move physically. And with styles from rock to rap, from country to jazz, music is as unique as every individual.
The music remembers, and when the music meets the uniqueness of our story, that’s when God can do amazing work.
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Steve Siler is founder and director of Music for the Soul. He is an accomplished songwriter and music producer with over 500 songs recorded in the Christian, country, and pop genres including nine #1 and 45 top ten Contemporary Christian songs to his credit. His songs have been recorded by artists such as Point of Grace, Kenny Loggins, Smokey Robinson, Larnelle Harris, and The Oak Ridge Boys, among others. Visit https://www.musicforthesoul.org/.
