Music as Medicine


Music Soothes, Energizes and Heals Us


by Kathleen Barnes


and director of the Sound Healers Association in Boulder, Colorado. Through researching his many books,


including The 7 Secrets of Sound Healing, Goldman is convinced of the profound effect sound has on the human organism. “The simple chanting of the sound ‘om,’ or ‘aum,’ in addition to instilling calmness and relaxation, causes the release of mel- atonin and nitric oxide. It relaxes blood vessels, releases soothing endorphins, re- duces the heart rate and slows breathing,” he explains.


“Sound can change our immune A


s primeval drumbeats echo across an African savannah, the rhythms circle the globe, picked up by the


chants and rattles of shamans gracing Amazonian jungles and Siberian tundra. They’re repeated in Gregorian chants filling medieval cathedrals and “om” meditations sounding in Himalayan caves and yoga classes everywhere. They gently echo in the repeated tones of mothers’ lul- labies, happy hummings as we go about our day and the melodies of Mozart. Music is the soundtrack of our lives,


whether we’re aware of it or not. It exists within, uniting and guiding us, and has helped heal body and spirit since the


dawn of humanity. National Aeronau- tics and Space Administration scientists recently discovered that the universe itself has a song.


Pioneering Practitioners From the soothing tones of a harp to the jarring screeches of a construction site, the stress-reducing or stress-producing properties of sound are familiar to us all. “Stress is an underlying cause of the vast majority of all illnesses, and sound and music are effective in relieving stress and bringing stillness,” says Jonathan Goldman, an internationally recognized pioneer in harmonics and sound healing


function,” wrote the late Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, former director of medical oncol- ogy at New York’s Weill-Cornell Medical College for Complementary and Integra- tive Medicine in his book The Healing Power of Sound. “After either chanting or listening to certain forms of music, your Interleukin-1 level, an index of your im- mune system, goes up between 12-and- a-half and 15 percent. Further, about 20 minutes after listening to meditative-type music, the immunoglobulin levels in the blood are significantly increased. Even the heart rate and blood pressure are lowered. There’s no part of your body not affected. Its effects even show up on a cellular and sub-cellular level.”


Practical Applications Consider some of music’s scientifically validated health benefits: Stress: Singing, whether carrying a tune or not, is a powerful way to combat stress, according to many studies. A recent joint study by German and British researchers published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience confirms that simply listening to soothing music results in significantly lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. The more intense the experience is in singing or playing an instrument, the greater the stress reduc- tion. A collaborative study by several Swedish universities showed that group singing caused participants’ heart rates to synchronize, producing relaxation effects similar to that achieved through group meditation. Cancer: Gaynor used music to


treat even advanced cancer patients for decades, considering it a “disease of disharmony.” He advocated re-harmo- nizing the body with sound vibrations that affect virtually every cell, especially


16 Twin Cities Edition NaturalTwinCities.com


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