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Have you noticed that when selecting music to listen to, sometimes you pick something loud and upbeat, and time that same music will irritate and jar on your nerves? Another time you might search for something soothing and relaxing but that might not be enough ‘music’ for the mood you are in. Sometimes it takes quite a few choices to find the one you are in the mood for.
Music for moods
Music can have a profound effect on both the emotions and the body. Faster music can make you feel more alert and concentrate better and can make you feel more optimistic and positive about life, perhaps motivating you to take your mind off a chore you are working on, or a boring job that needs some distraction.
A slower tempo can quiet your mind and relax your muscles, making you feel soothed while releasing the stress of the day, and can induce a relaxation response in our bodies, decreasing the heart rate and blood pressure levels to allow your cardiovascular system to find balance. All this is well known for those in the spa business - nothing is more soothing than relaxing ‘zen’ music that is just in the background, soft and rhythmical, calming the jangled nerves of everyday life.
The technical stuff about music
432Hz apparently is the scientific frequency that would benefit the entire planet and all mankind living on it. This particular frequency resonates inside your body, releases emotional blockages and expands consciousness.
Current research findings also indicate that music around 60 beats per minute can cause the brain to synchronize with the beat causing alpha brainwaves (frequencies from 8 - 14 hertz or cycles per second). This alpha brainwave is what is present when we are relaxed and conscious. To induce sleep (a delta brainwave of 5 hertz), a person may need to devote at least 45 minutes, in a relaxed position, listening to calming music.
In a nutshell, happy, upbeat music causes our brains to produce chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, which evoke feelings of joy, whereas calming music decreases cortisol (stress hormone) and relaxes the mind and the body.
How about no music at all?
One way to relax is using sensory deprivation. Instead of turning the music on, you are cut off from all sounds. Floating in silence in a tank filled with highly salted water is used for what is known as REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy) and will be in a dark, soundproof room. It apparently supports relaxation, improves sleep, and decreases stress, anxiety and pain (though personally, I would find it a little claustrophobic, to say the least). If that interests you, finding a sensory deprivation tank is easy - some spas here in Portugal have them too, and float centres and spas offering this therapy are all over the world.
The way it works is that the water in the tank is heated to skin temperature and nearly saturated with Epsom Salt, providing huge buoyancy so you float more easily. You enter the tank ‘in the buff’ and will then be cut off from all sounds and sights when the tank’s lid or door is closed, though both can be included if you wish. As you float weightlessly in the silence and darkness, the brain apparently enters into a deeply relaxed state.
The first tank was designed in 1954 by John C. Lilly, an American physician and neuroscientist, who designed the tank to study the origins of consciousness by cutting off all external stimuli.
In the 1970s, commercial float tanks were created and began being studied for possible health benefits. Their increase in popularity may be due in part to the scientific evidence, and studies suggest floating in a sensory deprivation tank may have some benefits in even healthy people.
If music be the food of love, play on!
This is the first line of the comedy play Twelfth Night’ by William Shakespeare, and is one of the best-known lines from all of Shakespeare's dramatic works, meaning quite literally, ‘food for the soul’. So, turn it on – or turn it off, whatever floats your boat (or you!).
Marilyn writes regularly for The Portugal News, and has lived in the Algarve for some years. A dog-lover, she has lived in Ireland, UK, Bermuda and the Isle of Man.
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Marilyn, as a dog-lover, you may be interested to know that I use music to bring some comfort to the dogs (and other farm animals, too) around me where I am staying in rural, Central Portugal. Otherwise such lovely, charming people, the rural Portuguese have little empathy for animals and I often see situations that break my heart. I have had some success, but very limited, trying patiently to speak to people (although I never give up trying), and where I can I use treats to bring a little pleasure to the animals, but in some cases, where that's not possible, I use music. And I have found that 50-60 minutes of Bach (or other) does make a difference... Animals, even pigs, have moods, too, and while it is so little for me to offer, I know it means a lot to them, to be taken away for a little while from their confinements and brutal lives, and to be left in a better frame of mind, at least for a little while. My own dogs and I listen to music all day long, and I know how much they love it. Anyway, for the other animals, prisoners, I know it makes their horrible lives a little better, so I do it, for those around me, every day, and I don't care if neighbors think I'm rude with the volume of my radio...
By Guenady from Other on 29 Mar 2024, 07:28
During millennia, Levantine mystics have meditated by floating in the heavily saline waters of the Dead Sea in Palestine. This achieves sensory deprivation which is an essential tool for enhancing mental clarity by the removal of anxiety while also relieving physical discomfort.
While touring Israel some fifty years ago, I was tempted by my guide to emulate this philosophy by using the natural buoyancy of the waters to read the Psalms and then to listen their musical performance by a cathedral choir on a cassette inserted to the then novel Sony Walkman . This provided a prescient experience of the more expansive Spa treatment with its perhaps unholy holistic music as is described in this otherwise perceptive article.
By Cavaleiro R. from Other on 29 Mar 2024, 10:41