David J Pezzner – Music Therapy

Music Therapy

For some people, music is a mere way to past time while going through a 6-hour drive. For some, it’s a way to forget their past and move on. Music is made by people who try to express themselves and some people also find themselves in the situation thus being relatable to the music they hear. For some, music is a way to focus on what they are doing and to keep them calm in a situation. For some, it’s a way to heal not only a broken heart but to keep themselves healthy in mind, soul, and body.

Music therapy is not new at all, it’s already been a thing in the ’80s. Music therapy is considered a health profession close to psychological aspects. It consists of a systematic process wherein a therapist uses music and its relying categories such as physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual, and aesthetic, to help their clients recover their physical and mental health. Music therapists, another branch falling under psychology, primarily aims to help their client improve regarding their motor skills, cognitive functioning, emotional development, and social skills. Through such a process, a person undergoing music therapy is expected to experience positive outcomes such as improved attention span and emotion management.

Music therapy can also be done by other health professionals such as psychologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and physicians. Patients can also seek therapy without professional advice. There are two different forms of music therapy known as the active and receptive forms. Active therapy pertains to both client and therapist interacting and creating music with instruments using their voice along with other objects if necessary. By this means, the therapist is allowing the client to express him or herself freely and making oneself comfortable and relaxed. It is also a way to promote creativity and self-expressiveness in the form of art and music. On the other hand, receptive therapy is the counterpart of active therapy. It is where the therapist plays or produces music to let the patient meditate, listen, relax, or even draw what he or she feels. The method on how to treat the patient is usually decided by the therapist not unless it is requested by the patient.

There are also various approaches underlying music therapy which will depend upon cases to cases. Some of the most prominent methodologies in the field of music therapy are NMT also known as Neurologic Music Therapy, Nordoff-Robbins, and the Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music.

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Alleviating Amnesia through Music Therapy

Christopher Nolan, the guy who brought us the “dark knight trilogy” also brought us one of the highest rated movies of all time back in 2000 “memento” memento is a story about Leonard (guy Pearce) a man who has an untreatable form of memory loss. The issue is Leonard can’t remember what happened fifteen minutes ago, so he tries to remember things by getting tattoos. It’s an awesome movie; watch it today if you haven’t. The one thing that you can learn from the movie is how bad it is to have amnesia.

The most common cause of amnesia is a brain injury. Now imagine not being able to remember your spouse, or imagine having to learn how to drive all over again. The truth is amnesia and memory loss are depressing that’s why most people opt for medication. The problem with drugs are the side effects, the thing is sometimes instead of drugs solving an existing problem they may end up causing more problems.

The truth is most types of amnesia can’t be treated with drugs, this means that you will have to find alternative ways to solve existing problems. One of the best ways to help people who have amnesia to recover their memories is music therapy.

During a music therapy session patients with amnesia are asked to sing a simple song, they also have to tap their fingers to the rhythm of the song. The patients are cued to sing along with songs that have familiar lyrics but some of the lyrics are left out. The idea is to let the patient fill in the gaps, this triggers lost memories and the patient is able to remember something’s that he or she forgot.

According to a study done by the Center for Biomedical research in music, patients with brain injury who received a form of music therapy known as RAS (rhythmic auditory stimulation) showed significant improvement, this means that although the study concluded that the clinical applicability of music therapy is still uncertain music can help people who suffer from brain injury or amnesia.

How music affects your brain

Music has the ability to pump you up or calm you down literally–this is because music can make your heart beat faster. It can also lower your heart beat in effect calm you down or lower your blood pressure. When you listen to music you feel good, this lowers anxiety meaning that instead of taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication you should switch to music.

Music will also help your brain to increase connectivity, spatial intelligence and improve language development–this is good for people who suffer from amnesia because it may help the patient remember.

Alzheimer’s and music therapy

The success of music therapy can be seen in the way that it is changing the lives of people who have Alzheimer’s, Alzheimer’s is a form of dementia that results in disorientation, impaired thinking, memory loss and personality changes. Music therapy has been shown to improve patient’s mood and to help them remember.

Simply put Music therapy is fun, practical and very beneficial especially to people who have suffered brain injury making it one of the best ways to alleviate amnesia.…

Benefits of Music Therapy

Where on God’s green earth did music come from? That is one question that has bothered mankind for millions of years, maybe if you had a time machine you could go back have a chat with Adam and eve or our ape ancestors. Regardless of where music came from, we all agree that music is a huge part of our daily lives. look at it this way, businesses have been built around music, people have been made famous by music and most importantly music makes us feel good.

One profession that rises above all in the music industry in terms of human benefits is what is known as music therapy; according to clinical and medical evidence music therapy is good for your brain and overall wellbeing, how? Music therapy affects the emotional, cognitive and social aspects of individuals. The result is you feel better about yourself through music.

Picture this, you are 39 and life has not gone the way you wanted it to go, thus you spend your days depressed, in the dark or you cut yourself off from society as a whole and go to the mountains to become a mountain man. The only thing that can keep you from losing your mind when isolated is music; this is because the music reminds you of the beauty of everything.

Benefits of music therapy

The definition of music therapy sucks, check it the American Music Therapy Association defines music therapy as “the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish personal goals within a therapeutic relationship by a certified professional who has completed an approved program” dumb it down it simply means that music therapy aims to make your life better.

We all hate drugs right? Me myself I hate white tablets, don’t ask me why I just do. Now before you get excited it’s worth noting that music therapy is not a form of alternative medicine thus you should not stop taking your drugs if you have to. Its purpose is to help you relax, heal emotionally and to help you develop you develop a positive self-image. This is because it reaches out to your subconscious mind (that is the part of the brain that makes you who you are).

Music therapy stimulates your brain waves thus it makes you smarter, try this, go to YouTube download “alpha brain waves music” and listen to it while reading. You will notice that your mind will retain what you read for longer periods of time, also concentration will be heightened.

Why music therapy?

Music therapy provides emotional release, reduces loneliness and most importantly it helps you relax. Health wise, music therapy can either increase or reduce your heart rate depending on what you are listening to or singing. This means that music therapy is good for your heart it has also been shown to help people who are dealing with addiction.

What a music therapist can do for you is help find what suits you best, for instance, if you are dealing with shyness a therapist might recommend “lilting” music or if you have high blood pressure you may have to listen to lots of Mozart. If I were you I’d contact a music therapist right now.…

How to Handle Adolescent Mood Disorder

Uh adolescent’s, they are the worst right? If you have a child I know that you that that child will have to go through adolescence sooner or later, how the child emerges at the end of this stage will determine the type of person that child will become. The simple fact that we all went through adolescence should be enough to make us understand what the child is going through, the problem is today’s kids live in a reality that is very different from what 90s,80s,70s, and 60s babies went through.

Look at it this way; this is a generation that is growing up with the internet, thousands of TV channels and a very violent world. I’m not saying 90s or 70s were peaceful the only difference is today’s kids have access to more information. This means that understanding adolescents today is a bit complex, look at it from this perspective, your child can develop PTSD just by watching the news or by watching violent things on the internet.

As a parent it is of utmost importance to learn how to handle your adolescent’s mood disorder, this will help you to raise a child who is capable of handling the 21^st century in a positive way. The best way to do this is to keep your child “occupied”, my recommendation is music therapy.

Why music therapy

Music therapy helps your child to relax, it also improves memory and creativity and on top of all that it’s good for your child’s mental development. Thus it helps control adolescents mood disorder.

What happens during a music therapy session is adolescents are allowed to compose music, might be a computer or an instrument in a group. The benefit of this is it teaches your child how to relate to other people. In the long run, it will help your child build relationships that last. It will also give the child the ability to understand and control his/her emotions.

What causes mood disorders in adolescents?

You can’t solve a problem if you don’t know where it came from, for instance, your adolescent might be happy today and the next day he or she might give you the cold shoulder for no apparent reason.

There are two major causes of mood disorders in adolescents today namely, depression and anxiety. If your child is depressed the first thing you will notice is withdrawal i.e. the child will stop doing things he/she enjoys doing. The child might also show signs of sadness, academic performance may decline and the child’s sleep patterns may change. If you notice changes in your child’s behavior it is very important to solve the problem early.

This will keep it from getting worse; the best way to do this is to introduce the child to music therapy. You may be advised to put your child on antidepressants but the problem with that is antidepressants might trigger more problems such as weight gain, skin rashes, muscle ache etc.

On the other hand music therapy has very little or no side effects on your child, simply put the best way to help your child deal with adolescent’s mood disorder is music therapy so try it today.…

Overcoming Depression

Heard of “Gloomy Sunday”? If you haven’t you should know that this is the most depressing song ever released, it’s so sad that according to urban legend if you listen to it you may end up committing suicide. That’s why it’s known as the “Hungarian death song”, this shows you the power music can have over you.

The thing about depression is it’s not something that happens overnight, this means that it has stages. Generally, there are three stages of depression, it starts with denial, at this stage most people ignore the symptoms, if left for long enough it proceeds to stage two which is insomnia, at this stage you may lose your ability to think properly, meaning that there is a high chance you might make mistakes. In some cases, you may hallucinate visually or auditory, some people may attempt suicide at this stage.

If you get to the third stage of depression there is a high chance that you might harm yourself or the people around, this is because you will suffer from memory loss, schizophrenia and manic depression amongst many other mental problems.

What all this means is depression is dangerous, thus you have to deal with it. The first option is to go to your doctor and get antidepressants, but the problem with antidepressants is in some cases they may cause more problems e.g.:

Sleep disturbance: you may have problems sleeping when on anti-depressants.
Physical symptoms: you may experience diarrhea, skin rashes, muscle aches, headaches and joint pains.
Sex: antidepressants can affect your sexual healthy in the long run.
Weight gain: antidepressants can make you gain weight.

Is there a safe way to deal with depression?

The answer is Music therapy, the awesome thing about music therapy is it comes with very little or no side effects.

The first reason why you should consider music therapy to help you through depression is music helps you express your emotions, for instance, assume that you get dumped today. If you listen to an angry fun song such as Kelis “I hate you so much right now” or backstreet boys “incomplete” you will start to feel good about yourself. This is because you have somewhere to express the way you feel right now.

Music will keep you from getting lost in your own thoughts, thus you will confront the problem head on. If your child suffers from low self-esteem music therapy can help the child improve his/her interactive and communicative skills this will in effect reduce the symptoms of depression.

Note that music affects your blood circulation; this means that it can either speed it up or slow it down. For instance, a song like “I can’t feel my face” by the weekend will make you want to stand up and shake what your mama gave you. On the other hand listening to Mozart can help you lower your heart rate, thus relieve high blood pressure.

This means that music therapy can help you relax or it can get you excited.

Clinical evidence shows that music therapy is one of the most effective and safe ways to deal with depression in adults and children alike, therefore instead of reaching out for those antidepressants turn the music loud and enjoy the moment.…