Boost Your Health and Mood Through Music

The executive editor of Harvard Heart Letter, Julie Corlis, on June 07, 2018, posted “Music and Your Heart Health.” Her article is about the role of the auditory system and other areas of the brain that can boost mood and health through music.

Do you have a cheer up song? Survey on this topic concluded that cheer up songs are list of songs that perk up your mood and sometimes, if not most of the time, positively make you nostalgic; most of them are songs when you were in high school and college. Cheer up songs actually boosts your health as well as your mood.

Music and your brain

“There is no other stimulus on earth that simultaneously engages our brains as widely as music does,” says Brian Harris, a certified neurologic music therapist at Harvard-affiliated Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. Music connects not only with your ears or sense of hearing. It also engages areas of your brain that are responsible for language, attention, memory, and emotion. This universal activation happens whether you listen to music, play a musical instrument, or sing – even informally in your car or inside the shower.

Make your heart sing

Music can also alter your brain chemistry. Listening to or creating music triggers the release of dopamine, a brain chemical or neurotransmitter that makes people engaged and motivated. Authorities claim that the effect of dopamine can be likened to the effects of a stimulant like cannabis or methamphetamine. Dopamine stimulation through music is therefore considered as a “drugless high.” As Harris points out, “An exercise class without music is unimaginable.”

Many research conclude that chemical changes in the brain produce cardiovascular benefits. Studies have found that listening to music may affect the heart in the following:

1. Enables people to exercise longer during cardiac stress testing done on a treadmill or stationary bike.

2. Improve blood vessel function by relaxing arteries.

3. Help heart rate and blood pressure levels to return to baseline more quickly after physical exertion.

4. Ease anxiety in heart attack survivors.

5. Help people recovering from heart surgery to feel less pain and anxiety.

So why then do you still care about your high school and college songs? Research suggests the benefits from patient-selected music rather than those selected by someone else. According to American Music Therapy Association, “Music provokes responses due to the familiarity, predictability, and feelings of security associated with it.”