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Guwahati, May 18: When you are feeling down and put on your favourite song, it acts like a mood booster, lifting your spirits and bringing joy. It's like a mini-miracle, right? It acts as a placebo effect in our minds, altering our mood. Believe it or not, we are using music therapy in our day-to-day lives.
Researchers say that music therapy can have effects that improve our psychological and physiological health by engaging sensory processes, attention, memory-related processes, perception-action mediation, multisensory integration, activity changes in core areas of emotional processing, processing of musical syntax and musical meaning, and social cognition.
Anubhuti Kakoty Goswami, an eminent and certified music therapist, while speaking to The Assam Tribune, shed light on how music helps improve our mood and reduce stress and anxiety. “When the music is received by our ear through the auditory cortex, it is spread to different sensory parts of the body. There are different elements in music, including rhythms, taal, and sound, which are then analysed by different parts of our brain. For instance, whenever we are writing something, some other thoughts might pop into our minds, however, if we are listening to music or singing a song, we might not be able to think of something else as the entire brain is busy analysing the elements of the music.”
Goswami highlighted that we have a few important parts in our brain: the frontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus. The main purpose of the frontal cortex is decision-making, and the amygdala is closely associated with emotions.
“When the frontal cortex is able to have control over the amygdala, it is able to make decisions with ease. The hippocampus helps in the secretion of pleasure-related hormones such as dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin,” she said.
“Whenever we are sad or angry, our amygdala becomes active, owing to which the frontal cortex loses control over it. During this time, if we tune in to some music, our mood starts to lift as our brain becomes engaged in analysing the elements of the music. With these, pleasure-related hormones begin to release, making the hippocampus active and further stabilising the amygdala. Music also decreases the stress-related hormone cortisol. Owing to these engagements of the brain, the frontal cortex is again able to make a healthy decision,” she explained.
She further highlighted how we often like to listen to upbeat or happy music in our usual time, however, whenever we are feeling low, we prefer sad music because we can relate to it.
Goswami said that music therapy is primarily a clinical term, though it has a scientific underpinning. “When we use music with a purpose, it is called music therapy. The purpose might be mental, physical, social, or cognitive. This therapy should be done by a trained and certified music therapist.”
She said that music therapy can be used for various purposes, but it is mostly used for mental health, including autism, schizophrenia, Parkinson, speech problems, ADHD, depression, and others, adding that “this therapeutic approach cannot be considered a solo treatment but an alternative treatment.”
“When we use music therapy by collaborating with other professional health specialists, it helps the patients recover from their illness. Although this therapy doesn’t work as a medicine for physical illnesses, one of the main reasons behind diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. is stress anxiety. In these kinds of diseases, music therapy aids in their recovery,” the music therapist said.
Goswami said that there are some proven raags in our Indian classical music that help improve physical illnesses such as high blood pressure, diabetes, migraines, and others. “Puriya Dhanashri raag helps to control high blood pressure levels in a patient,” she added.
Anubhuti Kakoty Goswami entered the profession of music therapy a decade ago, as she believes “music is not only a source of entertainment but also helps people in their wellbeing.”
Presently, the people of Assam are not extensively aware of music therapy; however, Goswami believes that in the upcoming years, people will know about the art and implement it as an alternative treatment to cure various illnesses, including mental and physical, among others.
