Music Therapy for Mental Health

Well I heard there was a secret chord David played and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music do you? Well it goes like this The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah Can you join me? Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah Music engages the brain in remarkable ways. The brain responds to music with profound cellular signals that evoke emotions within us. Consider how often you walk around wearing your headphones choosing the song that best fits your mood on that particular day. How does this change your experience? Does this alter your perception of the environment around you? If you look at the brain on a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine or fMRI for short, you will see multiple areas light up when a person is listening to music. But it wasn't just any music chosen during this study. It was familiar music chosen on purpose. Music that relates to a experience. Music that makes them feel something significant. Neurons, which are brain cells that send messages, become activated during this process. Areas involving attention, memory, movement, coordination, emotion, all become affected when exposed to what we call preferred music. These chemical conversations and associations made by the mind are what engage our complex network. Because of its ability to tap into our emotions, music has been used therapeutically since the dawn of humanity. In fact, music therapy practices have roots that date as far back as a thousand years before Christ, and that is just as far as we know. Music was initially used to communicate, stemming from early man's necessity to vocalize intrinsic needs. Over time, humans developed methods for using music as a tool for socialization, creativity, and healing. It's said that Greek philosopher Pythagoras, born 570 BC, would prescribe musical scales in various modes to treat different ailments. This was over 2,500 years ago. An infamous biblical story accounts Israelite David, born nearly 500 years before this, playing the lyre for King Saul to soothe him, as it was believed he was taunted by an evil spirit. We may refer to this evil spirit today as depression, or maybe anxiety. I heard there was a secret chord that David played and pleased the Lord. That is no small feat. These uses of music in ancient times set the tone for where we are today, in employing music to assuage our bodies and minds. Music therapy is an established evidence-based health profession, practiced by a credentialed therapist, in which music is used to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs. Now, music can be accessed by anyone. That is not to be diminished. But it's the unique therapeutic relationship offered by music therapy that makes it a special type of service. Something to consider is that, from the point of inception up until our last breath, we respond to music in one way or another. This may be because we're all born with a rhythm within us, right? Our heartbeat. Or perhaps something deeper. From stabilizing premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit, to addressing trauma in children and teens, to increasing coping skills in those living with addiction, or helping with anger management in those incarcerated to prevent recidivism, or supporting older adults with dementia, Parkinson's disease, cancer. Music taps into this phenomenon by meeting the needs of the individual from birth to death. As an intern with the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine in New York City, I've been able to implement some of this work day to day, and let me tell you, the results are truly incredible. This study, conducted by renowned Louis Armstrong Center music therapists, was the first of its kind to be published in this high-impact medical journal. Researchers sought to find if a specific music therapy intervention could have a positive effect on anxiety and distress in cancer patients undergoing their first day of radiation treatment. As you can see in this graph, patients provided with music therapy had a significant decrease in their distress and anxiety, while the patients who did not have music therapy actually became more anxious and more distressed. This is just one of countless examples of how music can be used clinically. Among the areas addressed by music therapy is perhaps the one that hits closest to home for a lot of us, mental health issues. While the language has evolved, we've begun to identify these as brain disorders, a phrase coined by neuroscientist Thomas Insel. The concept still stands. Evidence shows that music has profound effects on ailments of the mind. A 2014 study deemed music therapy a viable and effective treatment for mental and behavioral disorders. In 2007, the late neurologist Oliver Sachs told us that while music is an intrinsic part of the human experience, we've yet to identify a single brain circuit that represents it. That's because music is everywhere and the whole brain is involved. In his polyvagal theory, Dr. Stephen Porges tells us that our bodily responses to trauma often worsen the negative emotions associated with traumatic events. Did you know that when we perceive fear, our bodies and brains and nervous system automatically respond with reduced blood flow to the brain? Now imagine there was a non-invasive form of treatment that could restore both physiological and emotional balance associated with music therapy. This is where music therapy flies its flag. Now how does all this relate to us? As young people, we are faced daily with issues related to our mental health. One in five youth meet the criteria for a significant lifetime brain disorder. 17 percent of young people will experience an emotional, mental, or behavioral illness in their lifetime and the number is growing. So many are affected and so few ask for help. We may wonder why this is, but let's think about the facts. One in four youth are bullied. 90 percent of LGBTQ youth experience bullying. The rate of mistreatment towards those who appear or act different is at an all-time high. In the age of social media, it's really hard to turn a corner without being exposed to this type of negative attention. Now if you look at the brain, you will see how music affects it profoundly, completely. To boot, so many people have gone uneducated about the inner workings of the mind. This often results in ignorance or stigma or simply refusing to acknowledge the problem, even when it may exist under one's own roof. It can be incredibly difficult for a person to reach out with all this working against them, especially when it feels like their own minds are working against them too. If you've experienced mental health issues, you may already know what I'm talking about. It's feeling locked in when the door is wide open. It's feeling like you're being chased by a bear, but there's no bear. It's being sensitive to light but afraid of the dark. It's something you're not alone in. It's something we need to get to talking about. You see, anxiety is future-oriented, but if we could strike that nerve, if we can use music therapy to heal and become present, then we are really getting somewhere. When it comes to our mental health, music therapy is here to bridge the gap between ease and disease, between pain and comfort, between misunderstanding and acceptance. Let's look at this in action for a minute. A 12-year-old girl began to experience severe separation anxiety following her mother being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. She began to have feelings of depression and nervousness, which eventually gave way to panic attacks and being unable to eat, sleep well, or socialize. After multiple attempts at handling this herself, the girl found herself at a bit of a dead end. The patient was emotionally exhausted and felt as though she had nowhere to turn. That little girl was afraid to ask for help. As a writer from a young age, she would often pen her thoughts down in a notebook, turning her pain into poems and songs too. One day, she decided to show this diary to her mother, who also happened to be a creative arts therapist. Reading about her daughter's experience, recognizing her symptoms and her natural affinity for writing music, the woman knew the right route for her child. The patient was taken for an assessment with Dr. Joanne Lowy at the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine, and it's here that she began to explore her emotions through music in a therapeutic environment. Interventions such as songwriting, lyric analysis, and lyric substitution provided her with a sense of self-expression, giving her a safe space to emote from a place of power as opposed to helplessness. It is here that she began to heal and began her journey of healing. Ten years later, that same girl would go on to study music therapy at Berkeley College of Music. She would go on to intern with the Louis Armstrong Center, working under the same doctor, helping treat those going through similar experiences, and eventually she would come to stand in front of you on this stage today. My experiences continue to inform my practice and bring me to where I am now. To tell you that if I, an anxious, nervous person, can stand on this stage and do this, imagine what you can do. Just imagine. Now, I'm not here to persuade anyone or implore anyone to run to a therapist's couch tomorrow, but I am standing in a high school, and I'd be remiss if I didn't say this. Parents, be a voice for your child when your child cannot be a voice for themselves. School is hard, and in a society that is so focused on seeing young ones succeed, the pressures of academia and family life can often lead to stress, which can open the door for brain disorders down the road. Students, anybody, if you feel you are struggling, reach out. Reaching out is vital. There is a large discrepancy between our ability to heal and our hesitation to do so, but this hesitation is little more than a belief. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health issues, reach out to your school's counseling resource, to a teacher or a parent, a friend, to someone you trust. You have the power, and I'm telling you, you have the strength. So on the days we feel like our anxiety has earned squatters rights in our chest, or our depression just won't leave us, or our brains are meeting us with an experience we don't quite understand, we must be brave in asking for help, because believe it or not, those who struggle internally are some of the bravest people already. Let's remember that we are worth the help we seek out, even if we may not believe that. We are visible, and we are here, and we are forever fierce in our quest to matter. Philosopher Rumi left on this earth the words, the wound is the place where the light enters you. Leonard Cohen, that guy who gave us hallelujah, told us that there is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. So let the light in. We've got a journey to begin. Thank you.