Music as a Treatment for Illness - Essay Example

According to the research music plays a significant role in the lives of most people, whether it is through listening to music at a supermarket or a coffee store, being involved in producing music or intentionally listening to particularly pieces of music for entertainment or relaxation. Music has been a part of human culture as far back as is known, and it has played a significant role in humankind’s development. For example, music is used in celebration, in morning the dead and when going into battle.

Although music can be considered a sequence of vibrations played in a specific order, the effect of music on the human body and mind is profound. People may be stimulated by hearing a piece of music, working faster and more efficiently, while a different piece of music may depress them, making them melancholy and decreasing their productivity. These effects vary with setting the particular piece of music, and the person that it is being played to. Changes are not limited to the psychological, instead, music has been observed to cause changes in a number of systems in the human body, such as immune and biochemical changes.

To understand what effect music could potentially have in the treatment of illness in humans, the first step is to examine how this occurs in animals. Music is often uses as a method of treating animals and research suggests that music acts to lower respiration, anxiety and heart rate in animals that were listening to the music. An example of this is Alianna Boone, a harpist who plays for sick animals in a veterinary clinic in Florida. (British Psychological Society, 1993). Research suggests that this result occurs because the vibrations that the harp produces resonate with the cellular rhythms of the animals.

This assists in releasing the tension within the tissues of the muscles, reduce levels of anxiety, induce deep sleep, enhance digestion, and increase the endorphins which are present. Endorphins are used for managing pain, and all of these effects assist the body in self-healing (Korhan, Khorshid, & Uyar, 2011). A similar result was found in a laboratory study that examined hypertensive rats. In this study, the authors found that music was effective at reducing the blood pressure in the animals used, but that this effect was significantly related to the frequency of the music.

Reduction in blood pressure was significantly higher at frequencies between 4k and 16 Hz, and lower in frequencies that were lower than this (Akiyama & Sutoo, 2011). This suggests that music which contains sounds at high frequencies may be able to moderate brain function through the stimulation of dopamine synthesis. The studies