The Connection Between Music and Mental Health
Our senses impact our groundedness (our ability to be centered and be one with our own reality). It can be easy to float in goals and dreams (future attainment), easy to be stuck in the mundane routine of responsibility and familiarity, and even easier to be fixated and stationed in our past memories- cycling through our past personas.
Music is a collective humming, a resonating proof that we are human and that we have meaning. It is a celebration and a powerful indicator that we exist.
Vibration, frequencies, shapes, realities. They are all tied together, related.
Sound is a vibration, from the perspective of string theory, these vibrations are waves, traveling, and existing all around us. Different wavelengths create different frequencies. These frequencies are shapes. Meaning, these frequencies have distinct natures to them. Many recall high school biology, the phrase “form follows function”, or form determines function. It's the same with these frequencies.
If different sounds (waves/ frequencies) are distinct from one another, then surely their functions are different.
With a little research, you'll find these types of frequencies. Alpha Waves, Delta Waves, Theta Waves, Beta Waves.
We make a sound using an instrument. Our mouths, our pianos, our arguments, our wars, our birthdays. These sounds travel from the source and enter into a recipient's space where they use another instrument to collect the wave and translate it. For us humans, our ears collect the wave through tiny fibers and carry those waves to our mind to translate it. It is then that we define what its existence means to us.
“In essence, String Theory describes space and time, matter and energy, gravity and light, indeed all of God's creation ... as music.”
- Author: Roy H. Williams
A deep voice can be very calming to one person but could bring fear or past trauma to another. This is a type of ‘subjective translation’, as I like to term it. It doesn't mean the wave itself is evil or presents evil, nor is it good, but rather it impacts us based on how we translate its reality and its existence. There are the obvious exemptions to this. Meaning sound can be very easily manipulated to cause harm or to cause enjoyment.
Music creates tradition, but it also stirs something deep within our identity. It can shape our reality, and change our outcomes. It is a universal element, a way to communicate those things that are otherwise uncommunicable.
A theme song, a cinematic build-up, an orchestral linger of string instruments all pull at our ear fibers in different ways.
When we play our favorite song, do we realize why it’s our favorite song? Does it strike a memory? Calm your heart rate? Give us energy? Put us to sleep? There is deep meaning behind the phrase “That really resonates with me”.
Creating playlists for different experiences can be a great tool if the above is really true! A playlist for when we’re anxious, or when we are needing sleep. A playlist for needing the energy to work out or a playlist for when we have a broken heart!
When these vibrations translate into our minds, the translations are expressed through chemicals/neurotransmitters. These get pumped through our brain and body, and like most transitional experiences, flush out within 15- 30 minutes.
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” – Plato
Can this impact your mental health? Absolutely! The more precise you can define the problem area or difficulty, the more precise a resolution you can develop. Even to the point of choosing which type of wave vibration to experience to better alter your mood! To more precisely craft your reality!
Looking for treatment planning resources? Check out my article “Top 10 Tx Planning Resources”
https://link.medium.com/0i42KzUVSZ
Geries Shaheen is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Nationally Certified Counselor operating in and around St. Louis Missouri. Geries holds his MA in Professional Counseling from Lindenwood University, BA in Intercultural Studies from Lincoln Christian University, and holds a certificate in Life Coaching, Geries provides life coaching services to clients online globally.