Music as Healing Tonic

Music as Healing Tonic

WTF is wrong with critics? Must they “criticize?” Look for the wrongs and negatives? Such a sad lens to see the world. Though panned as “not funny,” critics are missing the point. Jamie Fox’s Netflix comedy special, “What Had Happened Was … ”  about his stroke and 20 day coma, is less laugh out loud comedic (though his impressions are riotous), and more paean to almost dying and recovering life, to his re-discovery of God, of his abiding faith. As I watched the show, I was moved by his reach to his audience, and their arc to him, an invisible elastic string expanding and contracting, their exhorting his power and his humility to them, their applause and chanting. It was my peek into a deeply personal, intimate relationship with a group. An unabashed holding space for a loved one. The audience welcomed him unconditionally—and he gave it right back, e.g. “It’s you, for you, thank-you.” His audience, repeating his words, encouraging him, applauding him—they echoed him—it was his church and salve, his healing playground. Beautiful to see. The reciprocal generosity grows my heart, blows me away … if we as individuals and groups did this, what would our planet look like?

Foxx is vulnerable, bare, human, profoundly grateful to be alive, with the guts to talk about his fears for his erectile function, or “pickle,” health 🙂 While in the coma, his vitals wildly unstable, it was “touch and go, they almost lost me.” Though he didn’t want his daughter to see him at his ‘worst,’ she snuck into his hospital room and played the guitar for him, one of their favorite songs, which he says is the only thing he remembers during that 20 day phase. His nurses shocked that his vital signs stabilized, Foxx described his daughter’s  guitar as a “Spiritual defibrillator” and  ‘Neurologic Music Therapy.’

This is not woo woo made-up stuff. It’s a bone fide medical treatment. What is Neurologic Music Therapy (NMT)? In ‘The Journal of Biological Cybernetics’ experts define it as “Rhythmic entrainment with the motor system.” Entrainment is a temporal locking process, a systems’ movement/signal frequency entrains another system. We see this in many ways: physical (pendulum clocks, sound wave vibrations synchronizing), biological (marine organisms to tidal waves, fireflies in unison), and human systems (circadian and cardiac rhythms).

When we feel blue or down,  heavy or anxious … and a favorite song comes—it’s involuntary, our bodies take over, we tap our feet, nod our head, shake our torso … it buoys and lifts us. We feel the power of music entering our bones and blood and transforming us, lifting us up beyond what we thought ourselves capable. Until the late 1990’s, music therapy was a part of psychology. But the past 25 years gives us a watershed of exciting discoveries: I’m stoked to see a ton of research linking music and brain function: with sophisticated fMRI methodology, music catalyzes speech, cognitive, motor, cognitive and affective, perceptual processes. It’s been a boon to use music for retraining the injured brain. The World Federation of Neurohabilitation uses standardized techniques of NMT for sensorimotor, speech, and cognitive rehabilitation. We champion our brain’s plasticity, see music as a complex auditory language, helping to advance brain rehabilitation.

How does music help? In short, patients suffering with movement disorders piggy back on the intrinsic periodicity and rhythmic patterns in music, entraining their limbs. Therapy includes playing beats/chords/melodies at the tempo of the natural gait of the person: this activates a “subsidiary redundant” neural circuit, facilitating populations of neurons that fire in synchrony. The ‘Journal of Clinical Rehabilitation’ reports that music eases motor function, restores balance and freezing of gait, walking velocity, and mental health for patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Music boosts the immune system, e.g. in ‘The Journal Frontiers in Immunology’ talks about music regulating the function of the immune system by reducing the “hyperactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) Axis.” The ‘Journal of Neurology: Neuroimmunology and Neuroinflammation’ talks about ’immunoglobulin A and Parkinson’s Disease, the latter shows cells in the basal ganglia degrading—this is a group of subcortical nuclei connected to the brain’s own internal clock, where dopamine signals/transmits information in this cluster of neurons.  Dopamine does different things in different parts of the brain, e.g. pleasure in the limbic system, helps to maintain a steady gait by synchronizing circuits that are required for walking and moving.  L Dopa and Carbidopa,two of the main medications for Parkinson’s, act as precursor and agonist for this precious neurotransmitter, which when healthy, we take for granted.

Michael Tout at the University of Toronto, developed a  type of PT, a technique,  “Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation,” playing music at a requisite tempo, helping to induce a sure-footed, predictable step after which some patients are able to have a more steady gait. This is magical, how does it happen? The brain entails the music, predicts where/when the next beat’s going to be, helping them move more smoothly. This goes beyond motor functions, the  ‘International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health’ focuses on music and its effects on movement disorders’ symptoms, e.g. communication, swallowing, breathing.

Sebastian Seung at Princeton does thrilling work with his notion of the “Connectome,”  an idea parallel to the genome: how do neurons connect to each other at what state they’re in at any given moment in time. A group of neurons deliver an experience—sensory, intellectual, emotional, intersects with consciousness and self-awareness. Whoa—we are a frontier of understanding from within the system of ourselves! The ‘Journal of Clinical Medicine’ reports NMT “rebuilds structural connectome after a traumatic brain injury.” They did baseline MRI scans of before and after intervention. Incredible finding: music therapy induced structural white matter neuroplasticity, improving executive function! Whoa. We humans just don’t go down. We fall, and damn do we ever bounce right up!

What exactly is “music?” Many things to people, with shape-shifting meanings. I’m especially taken with Daniel Levitin, famed author of ‘This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession.’ He describes music as: “gives your body and brain a chance to reset.”  He dissects more than ten aspects of music: tone, pitch, temp, timbre, contour reverberation spatial location, meter, key, melody, harmony … and orchestrates between all. I know I’m making music sound like a panacea and too good to be true, but we’re not talking treatment outcome in binary terms—it’s not a zero-sum gain. If someone struggles 10% less, it’s 10% more gain than they otherwise would’ve had. And boom, their quality of life is that much better.

Yes, music has medical applications, but let’s appreciate its fuel for the soul. Shazam is my secret treasure—my heart soars. When I click the “Listen” button, the circle whirls with “Listening,” I hold my breath and wait, hoping and trusting  that it’s gonna come through for me, and within a second, vocal or instrumental, world music or Western, BAM—it pulls it up correctly—my eyes pop outta my head. I can’t deal with the excitement! I’m besides myself. It’s bomb.  I’ll never get used to it.  Apple acquired Shazam for $400 million; call me naive but I think it’s priceless. You can’t put a price tag an the wonder that is Shazam—a few seconds of a melody and boom! We have our song. Shazam is a marvel, a magical thing, more than technology, more than audio fingerprint/frequency/database complex math equation algorithm …those genius engineers/coders   prized humanity with a direct line to the artery of motion in the air. Yes, Shazam is a sound wave wonder, a miracle drug, an elixir, an invisible healing potion—call it a shaman in a smartphone

Without the wealth of research backing up Music Therapy, it would be easy to pooh pooh the efficacy, but because we respect the science of validity and replicability, we can’t deny the data doesn’t lie.  With people so in need, the suffering so great, this is a gift. Music is a benign intervention, treatment with zero side-effects, pleasurable. Rooted in our primitive brain, we humans organically gravitate to it … it’s ripe and rich, full of promise and effective.

Dr. Ranjan Patel Marriage Family Therapist 1 (650) 692-5235