Neuroscientist David Levitin explores how music may also help heal us in his new e book
Natalie Foss
Most of us already know that music can have a profound impact on thoughts and physique. Think about the sensation of empowerment if you slip on some headphones and go for a run, the push of nostalgia you get from listening to your favorite music out of your childhood or the enjoyment of singalongs within the automotive – music strikes us, actually and figuratively. It may possibly make us joyful after we are unhappy, unhappy after we are joyful, in addition to make us dance, snigger and chill out.
However what if it might do greater than that – what if music had the facility to truly heal us? In his new e book I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as medication, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin explains why he believes it may well.
The concept that music is medication isn’t new – there may be proof that shamans and healers in cultures internationally have used music, particularly drumming, to deal with folks for hundreds of years.
Solely in latest a long time, nonetheless, has science supplied a rational foundation for music as a mechanism for therapeutic, demonstrating that it has a direct and measurable influence on our nervous system.
Advances in neuroimaging coupled with extra rigorous experimentation drawing on music principle, cognitive psychology and physiology recommend that music will be helpful in aiding the whole lot from Parkinson’s illness to Alzheimer’s and melancholy.
Levitin spoke to New Scientist about these well being advantages, and the way music may be added to our medical toolkit.
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