Music is medicine. It can wake up the brain, calm our hearts, and ease our fears. In fact, from Alzheimer’s to heart disease, research is proving that music can be as powerful as some medications to help heal what ails us.
The sound of Swan Lake transports Marta Gonzalez, 71 and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, back to a time when she was the prima ballerina.
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Carol Rosenstein, Founder & Executive Director of Music Mends Minds Inc., uses music to bring back lost memories.
“Some of them have just been sitting like stone and they hear a familiar melody, and they start to open their eyes and … vocalize, and tap, and snap,” shared Rosenstein.
Music storage cells in our brain do not succumb to the disease process.
And music doesn’t just impact our brain. A review of 23 studies, covering 1,500 patients, found that listening to music reduced heart rate, blood pressure and anxiety in heart disease patients. And a Harvard study proved cardiac patients who listened to music recovered from heart attack and stroke faster.
“Somehow the music releases the elixirs that allow us to respond,” Rosenstein said.
A study out of UC Irvine found healthy adults aged 60 to 85 without previous musical experience improved their processing speed and memory after just three months of weekly 30-minute piano lessons and three hours a week of practice. Whereas the control group showed no changes.
And Stanford University conducted a study with 30 depressed people over 80 and found those who participated in a weekly music therapy group were less anxious, less distressed and had higher self-esteem.