Music Therapy—The Benefits Are Profound
Doctors discovered that music therapy had a calming impact on World War II soldiers' combat-wracked nerves in the middle of the twentieth century, which is when music therapy first emerged as an organised field of study. However, shamans have long used tribal drumming to promote healing, and nowadays, music therapy has been expanded to assist those who suffer from depression or severe mental illness, as well as those who have autism in children, hospice patients, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, or other neurological damage. Music has a "unique power to arrange or reorganize brain function when it has been disrupted," according to Dr. Oliver Sacks. (Sacks once brought a patient with a brain tumour to see the Grateful Dead; the patient's appreciation of the band's music actually roused him, if only momentarily, from his coma.) Also, listening to music decreases stress hormones, increases oxytocin levels, which is a chemical associated with tendern...