Abstract Mental health includes our psychological, social, and emotional well-being. It affects how we act, feel, and cope with life. Mental health affects about 26.2% of Americans ages 18 and older or about one in four adults (“The Kim Foundation, 2016”), and approximately 10% of children aged 5-16 years have a recognizable mental disorder (McDougall T, 2011). Music and emotions go hand in hand. When you think of your favorite song, it usually puts a smile on your face. Music is a powerful influence because it helps us experience feelings we might be avoiding or feelings we don’t even know are there. When ignored, our emotional health suffers. It’s hard for some people to express their emotions, especially painful or sad ones. In this paper, I will explore the benefits of music therapy and how music is a positive non-pharmacological way of coping with mental illness.
Introduction
Psychosis is characterized by pivotal changes in thoughts and perceptions as well as one’s emotional and social life (Solli & Rolvsjord, 2015). Although the exact cause of most mental illnesses is not known, it is becoming clear through research that many of these conditions are caused by a combination of biological, psychological, and environmental factors.
Biological factors:
•genetics (heredity)
•certain types of infections
•brain defects or injury
•prenatal damage
•other factor such as poor nutrition, or exposure to toxins such as lead.
Psychological factors:
• Severe psychological
The regulation of emotions is an extremely important skill to maintain good mental health. Music has a powerful ability to induce emotion which many people use to regulate emotions. People who have been diagnosed with depression use music as a coping mechanism. College students
This article helps explain and break down exactly what music therapy is. Music therapy is a gentle, and effective form of actual therapy. Music therapy helps those in need of help mentally, physically, and emotionally. Whether the patient was domestically abused, raped, witnessed a tragedy, or anything. Therapists believe that music can help and solve anything. The article exclaims its importance to those who suffer from different forms of anxieties, depressions, and traumatic events. This article helps the reader understand specifically just how fully music therapy can help any situation, and anyone out of anything. The article also states the side effects
The participants totally 18 patients were divided in to two groups of nine. One group received comprehensive rehabilitation treatment and an additional music therapy treatment. This group participated in a total of eight music therapy sessions, two sessions per week for four weeks. The other nine patients in the control group did not receive music therapy. Each session were 40-minutes consisting of a hello song and sharing of events in their lives for a period of 5 minutes, planned musical activities for 30 minutes, and a sharing of feelings and goodbye song for 5 minutes. Patients were encouraged to sing and improvise. Tests aimed to assess depression and anxiety were given to both groups before and after the sessions. The study, found that anxiety decreased for 5 patients in the music group and depression decreased significantly in the music therapy group as well. Furthermore, 66.7% of patients and 55.6% of caregivers reported that music therapy, helps rehabilitation, and motivates. 77.8% of patients and 66.7% of their caregivers reported that music therapy had a positive psychological change. (Kim et al., 2011)
Following the developing of social sciences, everybody has started to get concerned about the issue if music is good for healthy body and mental recently. This phenomenon makes the music therapy becomes popular. Music therapy is defined as “ the therapeutic use of music as to reduce anxiety, improve cognitive functioning, promote physical rehabilitation, or enhance interpersonal communication that typically involves listening to music, singing, playing musical instruments, or composing music “ in the Merriam-Webster.com. In other words, through the activity of music people can improve physical or psychological disease that achieves cure and health.
The Holyoake DRUMBEAT (Discovering Relationships Using Music, Beliefs, Emotions, Attitudes, & Thoughts) program is as suggested by its name a program that uses music therapy in the form of hand drumming to engage participants in the exploration of music as way to combat the negativities of substance misuse. The program aims to reduce a variety of problems associated with drug and alcohol misuse, such as poor or impaired peer relationships, disassociation from family, school, work or other community groups and assists in promoting positive mental health and wellbeing.
To sum up, overall music enhances my mental health in terms of emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It is rewarding and enjoyable at the same time. Furthermore, music helps me in community development and emphasises empowering ways of working in school’s assignment. The playlist that I created has successfully enhanced my mood. I figured out that the elements in music can result in so many ways. One of the result is that it reduces anxiety and helps maintaining calmness. Another result is that it helps me to relax and stay motivated in life especially during bad days. Additionally, it can boost one self esteem and achieved desired state of mood. Thus, this playlist can be recommended to other people as it bring benefits in terms
There are many studies that show how music therapy helps people with mood disorders. People with depression can benefit from music therapy because through music therapy they can lessen the symptoms of depression. In the studies and cases that will be mentioned we can see that music therapy is effective through methods like group therapy. It is shown that people with depression that go through music therapy are affected in a positive way.
I have this theory that when it comes to music there is an unseen power which transforms. In in my life I have felt the influence of this power but it wasn't until the other day that I witnessed this power in action. It was through a procedure called Music Therapy where the method of treatment involves the patient listening to music. The element of music has a history of an intuitive connection that has psychologically been beneficial. Music therapy bands together the concept of music, mental health, psychological, and physiological benefits. With more examinations to estimate the advantages for this procedure more debate arises. Many are eager to
The impact of music on positive psychology and emotion is a well known fact. Music has an extraordinary ability to change people’s emotions. In humans, music has the ability to invoke emotions of sadness, happiness and even fear (Goycoolea, Levy & Ramirez, 2013). The ability of music to alter human mood makes it one of the greatest subjects of positive psychology. Seligman (2011) argued that even though a lot of effort has been spent on psychotherapy and pharmacology, such interventions are not
Psychosis (Psyche – Greek for the mind or soul; -osis referring to abnormal condition) is a general umbrella term for mental states traditionally characterised by a loss of contact with reality, during which sufferers may experience episodes of hallucinations and delusional thinking, distorted thoughts or behaviours, even personality changes. Current criteria for diagnosis includes experiencing one or more symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized or catatonic behaviour, negative symptoms; disturbed social cognition and functioning, bizarre behaviour, emotional labiality (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).
There are many different ways that we benefit from music. Music can inspire better self-esteem, and confidence. It’s a great way to set the mood, and a wonderful tool. Music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program (Gram, 2005). Music therapy can reach out to anyone, age, race, gender it doesn’t matter. Children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly with mental health needs can benefit from music therapy. As well as, those who have developmental and learning disabilities, those who suffer from Alzheimer's
Alternative methods of healing have been utilized by non-western medicine for generations. The use of acupuncture to heal everything from seasickness to muscle soreness is well documented and widely used. Physical therapy is often a precursor to surgery and many times will prevent the need to undergo a more invasive procedure. A lesser-known form of alternative healing but becoming more popular is music therapy. In the late 18th century, scientists began to investigate the effects of music on the human body; however, using music as a healing medium dates back to ancient times. There are many forms and techniques of music therapy that aid a variety of disabilities having to do with communication, behavioral issues, the autism spectrum,
Needle pricks, medicine, exhaustion, sickness, pain, feeling different ‒ these are just a few of the things that people with mental disabilities and serious diseases have to go through on a daily basis. But what if there was a different kind of treatment that could comfort them or reduce their pain even a little bit? Fortunately, for the people facing these issues, there is. Music therapy is a relatively new approach that doctors, teachers, and many others are taking to help heal and improve the quality of life for their patients and students. It’s starting to become more common around the United States and is expected to become even more popular in the future. Books like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart support the idea of music therapy by demonstrating how music can be used to soothe and improve the moods of individuals regardless of what they may be going through. Music therapy is an effective way to speed up the healing process and improve the emotional state of a wide range of people facing different obstacles in life.
Aside from emotions, music can also have an impact on mental illnesses like ADHD, depression, and dementia. To combat depression, Cadena states that “music therapy alleviates pain and promotes calmness by slowing the heart rate and other bodily functions” (2). It provides the patient with a means of escape from the stressful and painful ordeals of life, and can even encourage them to recover from depression. To help children with ADHD, music therapy and medications can be used conjointly. Music, Cadena affirms, “can provide a calming, sedative affect and assist a child with focusing on the task at hand” (2). In regards to dementia, a study was done to investigate the effects that music would have on people with the disease. The findings demonstrated that “mean agitation levels were significantly lower while listening to music than before listening to the music” (3).
Music has been proposed as an expedient and economical intervention to manage agitated behaviors in patients with mental illness (Sung &