When a hobby can serve as therapy, what more can you ask for in life? If you love listening to music, continue reading this article to know as to how music therapy can help improve your health and aid in treating medical conditions.
The concept of using music as medicine or therapy dates back to the World Wars when musicians across America began performing at hospitals for injured soldiers.

How music therapy helps your general health:

• Relaxing music is said to have similar effects on our minds as that experienced during meditation. It alters our breathing pattern and senses in a manner that calms us down, uplifts our mood and is ideal for fighting depression, anxiety and stress.
• Music therapy improves immunity by cutting down stress-related hormones, which can destroy our immune system. Also, indulging in 50-60 minutes of peppy music is found to increase the levels of immunoglobin A – a kind of antibody that fights diseases.
• Music therapy can assist in weight loss. People who listen to music while exercising were found to be more enthusiastic and motivated to work out than the ones who didn’t.

How music therapy helps cure certain medical conditions:

• Alzheimer’s disease:It’s a mental disorder that can frustrate and agitate the patient as it not only destroys memory but also depletes other cognitive and psychological functions. With music therapy, such patients get comforted, feel less confused and irritated. Music keeps the mind engaged, prompts them to dance or be physically active, and also ignites lost memories (especially old music). Music therapy is even more crucial for Alzheimer patients as it has no cure.
• Depression:Leo Tolstoy had once said, “Music is the shorthand of emotion.” That is why, during active music therapy sessions, the therapist encourages the patient suffering from depression to play around with musical instruments, sing and even dance. This helps most patients to express or relieve themselves of their pent-up emotions (sorrow, sadness, anger, etc.). This, in turn, lightens their mood, encourages them to be more communicative about their feelings, enhances their self-esteem, self-awareness and self-acceptance.
• Neurological diseases:The effects of music therapy, as noted above, also reveal as to how it can be used to improve the expression and communication skills of autistic children. Moreover, music therapy also aids speech development in kids who suffer from speech disorders because speech and music belong to different departments of the brain. That is why singing is used to treat speech disorders.
• Others:Music therapy also helps in recovering from cancer. It helps the patients to be less dependent on anti-depressant drugs and stimulants.

These facts about music therapy only substantiate what poet Berthold Auerbach had once said, “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” And for peace of mind, it’s always advisable to purchase health insurance from a reputed insurer like ManipalCigna.