Music is a very underestimated element which plays a huge role in our daily lives. From having genres which suit every mood, songs which have lyrics and/or tunes which help us channel our emotions, music is that which is omnipresent and listened to by all. What’s not discussed as often is its impact on our […]
Music is a very underestimated element which plays a huge role in our daily lives. From having genres which suit every mood, songs which have lyrics and/or tunes which help us channel our emotions, music is that which is omnipresent and listened to by all. What’s not discussed as often is its impact on our physical and mental health. The following analysis assesses the various roles music plays in our lives as both an intervention and a treatment.
McCrary, J. M., Altenmüller, E., Kretschmer, C., & Scholz, D. S. (2022) conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis on the Association of Music Interventions With Health-Related Quality of Life. This study was conducted with the motive to gather evidence which supported the ability of music to promote wellbeing and health-related quality of life. It further looked into 26 previously conducted studies on the impact of music on health. Consisting of 779 participants, 16 among these 26 studies showed that music interventions brought statistically and clinically significant changes in the participants’ mental Health-Related Quality of Life thus implying that music interventions are associated with clinically meaningful improvements in health-related quality of life in spite of the occurrence of individual differences [1].
While the previous study stressed upon the effects of wellbeing and health as a whole, Rebecchini, L. (2021)’s review on Music, Mental Health, and Immunity discussed how patients diagnosed with mental disorders showed a drastic improvement in their mental health after interventions using music as primary tool. It also discussed studies that demonstrated the benefits of music which include improved heart rate, motor skills, brain stimulation, and immune system enhancement. The review further had studies which talked about how music plays a crucial role in supporting every stage of life [2]. One of them was a study conducted by Vlismas, W., Malloch, S., & Burnham, D. (2013) on the Effects of Music and Movement on Mother–Infant Interactions. This study involved two experiments which further investigated and explored the effects of a Music & Movement (M&M) programme on healthy first time mothers and their infants aged between 2-6 months, over a span of five weeks. Results showed that M&M improved dyadic reciprocity between mothers and infants [3].
Based on the World Health Organization (WHO)’s research, an estimated 15 million babies are born too early every year. Preterm birth disrupts the normal brain maturation process, exposing the brain to different noxious stimuli present in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and depriving it from meaningful sensory inputs which are relevant for activity-dependent plasticity during a crucial period of its development. This further increases the risk of neurodevelopmental impairments [4]. de Almeida, et al. (2020) studied the impact of music as an intervention to treat preterm infants’ brain structure maturation in the NICU. The study consisted of 30 preterm newborns among which 15 were exposed to music during their stay in the NICU while the remaining 15 were not exposed to music during their stay. In order to make the study more effective, 15 full-term newborns underwent an MRI examination at term-equivalent age, comprising diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), used to evaluate white matter maturation using both region-of-interest as well as seed-based tractography approaches. Results showed that there was a significant improvement in white matter maturation as well as the development of the amygdala, the brain’s seat of emotions in comparison with preterm infants who solely received the standard of care treatment. These findings further implied that music when used as an intervention had a structural maturational effect on the auditory and emotional processing neural pathways in preterm infants during a crucial period of brain development [5].
As one grows, responsibilities and experiences increase and this makes psychological stress on one hand inevitable, it cannot be eliminated. There will always be situations where one experiences varied levels of psychological stress. It could have detrimental effects on one’s immune system and lead to an increased risk of systemic inflammation. A systematic review by Mojtabavi, H., Saghazadeh, A., Valenti, V. E., & Rezaei, N. (2020) evaluated the impact of music on heart rate variability. The review consisted of 29 articles (24 pre-post intervention studies and 5 randomized controlled trials) and a total of 1368 subjects. When reviewed and analysed, the results proved that music as a stimulus leads to the reduction of stress responses in the cardiovascular system by increasing parasympathetic activity and heart rate variability [6].
Music alters one’s physiological and psychological state and this further results in alterations in the cardiovascular system. A compelling study by Nayak, S. K., et al. (2016) investigated the effects of slow and fast music on the autonomic nervous system and cardiovascular health. in order to study the effects more effectively. In order to study the effects more effectively, the participants were encouraged to listen to different types of music, of a language which they are familiar with. The heart rate variability and the conduction pathway of the heart were studied using an electrocardiogram (ECG) in order to analyse activity in the autonomic nervous system and study the physiological changes. Results of the study showed an increase in the parasympathetic dominance when the participants were made to listen to music. The magnitude of parasympathetic activity was found to be higher when the participants listened to fast music than when they listened to slow music. The findings also showed alterations in the conduction pathway of the heart [7].
Rahman, J. S., Gedeon, T., Caldwell, S., Jones, R., & Jin, Z. (2021)’s study on effective music therapy for mental health care using machine learning tools: human affective reasoning and music genres highlighted the connection between the body and the mind. During the study, they analysed the Electrodermal Activity (EDA), Blood Volume Pulse (BVP), Skin Temperature (ST) and Pupil Dilation (PD) which they collected from 24 participants while they were made to listen to 12 pieces from 3 different genres of music. The results of the study further prompted the researchers to investigate the relationship between physiological signals and music, which can lead to improvements in music therapy for mental health care and musicogenic epilepsy reduction [8].
Using music as a structured intervention, as a form of therapy to treat those with mental illness. Kim, J., & Stegemann, T. (2016) conducted a systematic review to explore the use and efficacy of music listening as an intervention for children & adolescents in both clinical and non clinical settings. The review consisted of 36 studies among which 18 studies focused on music listening in paediatrics which indicated a significant decrease in pain, anxiety and distress; 9 studies were set in the mental health context and while the remaining 9 studies’ focus and content varied, they supported the benefits of listening to music in order to lead to a significant decrease in symptoms and lead to the enhancement of specific skills. The results in the review not only supported music as an intervention, they also showed that music listening in the health care context is a feasible, easily applicable and cost effective intervention for both children and adolescents [9].
In order to make healing a smooth yet structured process, music can be used to treat individuals who’ve been exposed to trauma and have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The review by Landis-Shack, N., Heinz, A. J., & Bonn-Miller, M. O. (2017) brings to light a few key empirical studies which support this theoretical assessment. The study discusses social, cognitive, and neurobiological mechanisms which include community building, emotion regulation, increased pleasure, and anxiety reduction that promote the efficacy of music as therapy for individuals. It was further concluded that music therapy could help foster resilience and be used as a therapeutic tool to reduce symptoms and improve the functioning of individuals with trauma exposure and PTSD [10].
Music can lift our spirits as well as move us towards a path which might seem like a trigger but in reality, music has the potential to be used as a treatment and an intervention. While the need for more substantial evidence remains, conducting more controlled studies, exploring and studying the extent to which music affects various aspects of cognitive functioning which include memory, problem solving and analytical thinking, and sharing future trial reports with thorough descriptions and details on the music interventions used while also examining their long term residual benefits could help this developing mode of therapy grow dramatically while also providing us with an economical and pleasant intervention and treatment.
Compiled by Madhuvi Kikani
Research And Analysis
Hibiscus Foundation
