The Contribution That Music Can Make to Health and Wellbeing - Literature review Example

CRITICALLY EVALUATE THE CONTRIBUTION THAT MUSIC CAN MAKE TO HEALTH AND WELLBEING by Music has been existent for centuries and has played an important role in the people’s lives. Different types of music, for instance Blues, R n B and Rock among others elicit different kinds of emotions in people. Moreover, people prefer different kinds of music because music appeals people in different ways. Singing has been proven a joyful and uplifting experience (Koelsch, 2010:133). It has the capacity of generating positive mood, enjoyment and happiness. These positive emotions and feelings counteract the feelings and emotions of anxiety, stress and help distract people from internal negative feelings and thought (Jorm, Korten, Jacomb, Christensen, Rodgers, & Pollitt, 2009:396). People with mental health issues can benefit from music because it takes them away from thinking of themselves as patients by promoting their self-esteem, social recognition, confidence and status especially when they participate in singing (Bradt & Dileo, 2009:2, Music for stress and anxiety reduction in coronary heart disease patients). The relationship between arts and health has been a topical issue for a long time. The linkage between arts participation and health has been developed for instance the influence of sports on physical health and the influence of music on mental health. It is indeed true that arts participation has an effect on key health indicators. Music, health, and well-being: A review by Raymond and Macdonald (2013) asserts that musical participation as part of arts participation has a direct influence on the mental health and well being in people. Research has indicated that music contributes to mental health and wellbeing of people in different stages of life for instance children and the elderly. Rose Perkins and Aaron Williamon (2013) in their article Learning to make music in older adulthood: A mixed-methods exploration of impacts on wellbeing explore the links between older adulthood, wellbeing lifelong learning and music and posit that music has an important aspect for healthy ageing (Unkefer & Thaut, Eds. 2009:23). By healthy ageing, Unkefer & Thaut, Eds. (2009) refer to the absence of illnesses in old age in terms of social, physical and mental health. In this respect Unkefer & Thaut, Eds. (2009) acknowledge the fact that, “There is a growing body of literature exploring the relationships between music and wellbeing in the ageing population, and we know that music is a powerful part of many older adults’ lives” (Perkins & Williamon, 2013:551). While citing other sources, Downey, et.al, (2013) assert that music is related to the wellbeing through offering a connection with maintenance of physical and cognitive abilities, spirituality, subjective feeling of good health, relationships with self and others and the expression of oneself (Downey, et.al. 2013:1844). These are all aspects of mental health and wellbeing, which shows that music has an important role to play in ensuring that people of old age, can benefit from music. To prove that music plays an important role in adult mental health and wellbeing, Downey, et.al. (2013) conducted a study with 98 adult participants who took part in a musical intervention. Results indicated that learning music helped in enhancing social interaction, self-satisfaction, self-optimization of physical and mental health and physical activity. For example, the participants could show empathy while interacting with caregivers and they could participate physically in activities for instance singing and dancing. Music therapy functions as an alternative therapy with the use of trained musical therapists and care settings (Chanda & Levitin, 2013:180). The goal of music therapy in any care setting that calls for it is to ensure that adequate outcomes for patients of different ages and health conditions are met (Rolvsjord, 2010:23). In music therapy, patients or participants can be passive, for instance through listening or be active for instance through making music or dancing (Naylor, Kingsnorth, Lamont, McKeever & Macarthur, 2011:2. Music therapy has been research in children with different mental and physical illnesses in different settings (Edwards, 2011:194). Edwards (2011) in The use of music therapy to promote attachment between parents and infants assert that music therapy helps infants develop attachment with their parents. Infants are born with neurological and auditory maturity that enables them to distinguish pitch as they develops and this helps them form attachment with caregivers whose voices they hear every day (Gangrade, 2012:42). Caregivers use music and playful interactions to develop emotional attachment with the infant. Therefore, by providing a musical setting and practice where the caregiver/ parent and infant can link, music therapy offers a chance for them to encounter, interact and explore one another closely, thereby forming important attachments (Edwards, 2011:194). The goals of researches have been to link musical therapy to cognitive functioning, developmental issues, social skills and maladaptive behaviors. One such research compared music therapy interventions with interventions without medicine for instance pharmacology in children (Naylor et al., 2010:8). In the same research, children suffering from developmental disorders were exposed to music therapy and the results indicated that they had improved memory. When the focus of the study was switched to cognitive function and socialization, results indicated increased eye contact and turn-taking behaviors after the children were exposed to passive music therapy sessions (Naylor et al., 2010:12). It is clear from the study that music helps in mental health and wellbeing in children. In addition, music has a role to play in the mental health and wellbeing of adolescents. Researches that have been done on adolescents studying the effect of music composition in dealing with grief and ineffective coping. After exposure to music, the participants reported that they had freedom of expression, increased empathy towards others, increased self-awareness, and ability to release hidden feelings (McFerran, 2011:18). Therefore, music contributes to the mental health and wellbeing of adolescents. The above researches and studies show that music helps in mental health and wellbeing from womb to tomb in terms of responding to the different mental issues that different people of different age groups face. Children could be facing mental health issues in terms of developmental issues, adolescents could be facing mental health issues in terms of self-esteem and confidence while adults could be facing mental health issues in terms of stress and depression (McDermott, Crellin, Ridder & Orrell, 2013:783). Music in terms of music therapy or music making can help all the above groups deal with their mental issues and ensure that they are in the best mental health and wellbeing. Therefore, music plays a significant role in the treatment of mental health issues among other health issues such as physical and social health issues. Raymond and Macdonald (2013) acknowledge that music therapy has psychological and/ or physiological benefits for participants (Raymond & Macdonald, 2013:2). Raymond & Macdonald, (2013) also address the effect of community music not as an aspect that has therapeutic effects but as an aspect that promotes interaction, self-confidence and satisfaction among participants, which are important for mental health, and well-being of the participants. With respect to the study on music therapy, Raymond & Macdonald, (2013) acknowledge, “music with very different structural features can be rendered functionally equivalent by the role of preference. That is, the participants chose music with contrasting structural features to produce the same effect, namely, reducing pain and anxiety perceptions” (Raymond & Macdonald, 2013:8). With respect to community music, it is evident that involvement in musical activities has general effects in terms of the manner in which people think about themselves and the positions they occupy in the society (Raymond & Macdonald, 2013:9: Skingley, Clift, Coulton, & Rodriguez, J 2011:2). In a similar manner, Dileo and Bradt (2009) in On creating the discipline, profession, and evidence in the field of arts and healthcare also acknowledge that there is an importance of arts in mental health and wellbeing. Research has proven that there is a link between music and mental health and wellbeing. For instance, a number of meta-analyses have been published on the topics of music therapy, dance therapy, music and art therapy. Cohen and Bradt give several example of this including Music for stress and anxiety reduction in coronary heart disease patients (Bradt & Dileo, 2009), Music therapy for depression (Maratos, Gold, Wang, & Crawford, 2008), and Music therapy for schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like illnesses Gold, Heldal, Dahle, & Wigram, (2008) among others. Bradt and Dielo (2009) report on the findings of their 2005 meta-analyses on the medical outcomes of music and music therapy interventions that sought to answer several questions on the topic. From the study, they were able to identify and define two categories of music interventions. First, music medicine interventions were defined as, “the use of music by medical professionals in which there was no identifiable therapeutic process, no relationship with the patients that was established through the music and no qualified music therapist administering the treatment” (Bradt & Dileo, 2009:173). Secondly, music therapy interventions were indentified and defined as interventions where a qualified music therapist oversees the intervention and the process consists of treatment, assessment and evaluation. It also involves establishing a relationship with a patient through music and where music experiences are used. The variables that were found from the meta-analyses include psychological, biochemical, physiological, cognitive, social and behavioral variables. These variables represent the human attributes that were found in the meta-analyses results (Bradt & Dileo, 2009:174). The findings from these meta-analyses indeed show that music has an important role to play in mental health and wellness. Music has several functions and approaches that can improve mental health and wellbeing and these include pleasure, relationship, meaning, engagement, accomplishment. Music helps people find pleasure by engaging in music making and dancing to the tunes that they like and identify with. Being in that environment helps them find pleasure and happiness. Music can help people form relationships with others for instance through music making and dancing where groups come together to participate thereby helping them understand each other bring their emotions together and form important relationships. Different types of music has different meanings for instance, love, hope, confidence expression of appreciation or social troubles and expressing regret among other meanings. When people engage in music making or are put in music therapy they can find accomplishment once they find the meaning for which they participate in music making or therapy. Music therapy helps people express their emotions and feelings. Music therapy has certain qualities that allow people to express themselves and interact in non-verbal terms especially in expressing their inner experiences that cannot be expressed in words. As such, music can help them express such feelings or emotions through musical experience, for instance through drumming or dancing. For example, drumming or dancing can express one’s happiness. This is important because it shows that music making is social, meaningful and pleasurable. Therefore, it can be used to help people with anxiety problems and depression and help them in terms of their mental health and wellbeing. Music can work through the process of entrainment, which represents a context where the body becomes one with the musical rhythm. For example, a lullaby is used when one wants to sleep especially for children. As such, this makes the body relax (Briggs, 2011:184).  Music helps in the treatment and management of anxiety, depression, development problems, stress issues, self-esteem and confidence and in dementia among other mental health illnesses and issues. The above problems and issues are related in the sense that people suffering from them show behavioral disturbances. Music is one of the tested non-pharmacological approaches that are used in the treatment of behaviorally disturbed people with dementia. In anxiety, depression, development problems, stress issues, self-esteem and confidence issues, music therapy is applied because of the memories, feelings and sensations it evokes to enable people come out of the issues that they experience deeply, for instance extreme sadness in the case of depression or fear in the case of stress and anxiety (Bradt & Dileo, 2009:174). Musical training has also been shown to have an effect on mental health and wellness. For instance, in Musical training, neuroplasticity and cognition Rodrigues, et.al (2010) study the effect of musical training on cerebral function. In this study, they consider music training among musicians and the manner in which this training affects their mental functioning. They state clearly, “The structural and functional reorganization ob­served in musicians’ brains may lead to cognitive differ­ences in comparison to non-musicians (Rodrigues, et.al, 2010:277). Rodrigues, et.al, (2010) review studies providing evidence that musical training triggers neuroplastic processes and modification in cognitive processes. They acknowledge that the structural and functional neuroplastic processes in musicians’ brains influence their cognitive function. They also acknowledge in their conclusion that musical practice is a training that can help in the development of neural and cognitive changes in the human brain (Hsieh, et.al 2012:815). Musical training has cognitive enhancement effects that influence neuroplastic processes. These help in decoding visual information into motor activity, memory and learning all which are important in short-term memory and to a large extent long-term memory. Therefore, different forms of intensive training have effects on brain functioning and cognition especially in music training where specific effects are recorded (Rodrigues, et.al, 2010:286). The above information especially the fact that musical training can have specific effects is important in mental health and wellness. It means that music training can be used to treat specific mental conditions by using different musical procedures or processes such as music therapy, medical music therapy or musical types such as lullaby or R n B type of music. Music can also enhance cognitive abilities in people and this is important especially for children who face developmental issues and require an intervention that can help them deal with the problem they have (Herdener, et al. 2010:1378). In conclusion, the above analysis proves that music plays a significant role in mental health and wellbeing. From the above analysis, it is clear that music influences the mental health and wellbeing of infants, children, adolescents, and adults, typically from womb to tomb, in different ways. It helps in the treatment and management of anxiety, depression, development problems, stress issues, self-esteem and confidence and in dementia among other mental health illnesses and issues. Music helps as a therapeutic and medicinal tool. Music helps people find pleasure, happiness, connectedness, forming attachments and enables the formation of social interactions among other benefits. Irrespective of the evidences given above, there is still a need for more research into the importance of music in mental health and wellbeing. Reference List Bradt, J & Dileo, C 2009, Music for stress and anxiety reduction in coronary heart disease patients. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2009 (2). Art. No.: CD006577. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD006577.pub 2. 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Perkins, R & Williamon, A 2013, Learning to make music in older adulthood: A mixed-methods exploration of impacts on wellbeing, Psychology of Music 42(4)pp 550-567 Rodrigues, A C, Loureiro, M A & Caramelli, P 2010, Musical training, neuroplasticity and cognition. Dement. Neuropsychol, 4, 277-286. Rolvsjord, R 2010, Resource-oriented music therapy in mental health care. Barcelona Publishers. Skingley, A, Clift, S, Coulton, S, & Rodriguez, J 2011, The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a participative community singing programme as a health promotion initiative for older people: Protocol for a randomised controlled trial. BMC Public Health, 11. Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/142 Unkefer, R & Thaut, M Eds. 2009, Music therapy in the treatment of adults with mental disorders: Theoretical bases and clinical interventions. Barcelona Publishers. Read More