Get Your Groove On
Music, the New Medicine for Your Brain
It is common knowledge that music has healing powers and it is often recommended for its stress relieving powers. But, research has now shown music may also be therapeutic for your mind and contribute to lower blood pressure, reductions in anxiety, and improve both sleep quality and mood.1
“There are few things that stimulate the brain the way music does,” says one Johns Hopkins, Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor. “If you want to keep your brain engaged throughout the aging process, listening to or playing music is a great tool. It provides a total brain workout.”
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have studied the affects of music on the brain while having jazz performers and rappers improvise while lying down in an MRI. What they discovered was the portions of the brains that were engaged while improvising music.1
“Music is structural, mathematical and architectural. It’s based on relationships between one note and the next. You may not be aware of it, but your brain has to do a lot of computing to make sense of it,” notes one Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor.1
Give Your Brain a Musical Workout2
Turns out the benefits of music aren’t only limited to listening. Try taking a music class or learning a new instrument. Research indicates musicians’ brains work differently than non-musicians’. “There’s some good neuroscience research that children involved in music have larger growth of neural activity than people not in music training. When you’re a musician and you’re playing an instrument, you have to be using more of your brain,” says Dr. Eric Rasmussen.
Listen to this: Check out kidney patient, David Rush’s new song, the Alive Project and create your own brain boosting playlist.
