Be A Deliberate Creator Choose Your Tune /vibration
If you want to be a deliberate creator of your life, you need to be careful with what you are exposed to and focused upon, and this includes music. You need to ask yourself if you are listening to songs that are empowering and uplifting, if the songs take you to a better feeling place, or if they enhance negative emotions.
People often say that music feeds the soul, and its certainly true that music has a deep impact in our lives and affects our thoughts and emotions. So what do you wish to be filled with? If you want to change your vibration and feel joy and optimism, you can use music to step by step song by song get to a better feeling place.
How Can Music Therapy Help
Many research studies have shown that music therapy can help people in various ways. In fact, the American Music Therapy Association has reported that programs of music therapy have helped people achieve goals such as getting pain relief, boosting memory, and also helps in stress management. Research has also shown that music therapy helps people overcome and deal with physical pain even.
A study published in The Lancet in 2015 showed that participants who listened to music during, after, as well as before a surgery, experienced significantly less amount of pain and anxiety, as compared to participants who did not listen to music. In fact, the patients who listened to music actually required less amount of pain medication. This led the researchers to conclude that music is a cheaper, safer, and a non-invasive, technique for helping people undergoing a surgery.
Music therapy is also known to play a crucial role in the treatment of chronic conditions. A study published in the World Journal of Psychiatry has found that music therapy can be used for effective treatment mood disorders and neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons disease, dementia, and even help prevent a stroke.
The Music Affect: Listeners Perspective
One of my favorite pastimes is listening to albums. Start to finish.
It is a journey. When done well, listening to a full album is a very special experience irregardless of the genre.
Music has the power to make listeners laugh, dance, or cry. Listening to a song can give you the chills or, at times, even cause anger. In just few minutes, an uplifting song can make a listeners mood go from sad to joyous. This because of musics ability to stimulate dopaminerelease into the body. Functional magnetic resonance imaging has shown that listening to favorite songs increases connections that positively affects ones default mode network.
In fact, studies have shown that both listening and playing music can have a positive affect on your mood. As we age, listening to music becomes an even more important factor in maintain a healthy brain.
There is little evidence for musics ability to heal physical aspects of the human body. However, studies have shown that music can help restore neuroplasticity in the brain.
Neuroplasticity is our brains ability to adapt to the needs of our physical and emotional condition.
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Music Is A Powerful Healing And Affirmation Tool
This process where you actively choose a tune that feels better is a form of sound healing, where the vibrations from music cleanses your mind and heart. Also, music, with its lyrics and videos, are very powerful affirmation tools, so lets have some fun using music videos to attract more joy and love in our lives!
How Does Music Manipulate Our Emotions
The world of film offers obvious examples of music manipulating our emotions. If the action on the screen is emotionally neutral the music can tip us off that something frightening or happy is about to happen.
If the director wants to make you jump with fright, a sudden loud noise is very effective in triggering your fight-or-flight response, which will flood your system with adrenaline and cortisol.
Psycho
Your brain subconsciously assumes that youre in danger because we have evolved to associate any unexpected noise with a possible threat. This is why the eee! eee! eee! shower scene music in Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho is so terrifying.
The job of a films music composer is to manipulate your emotions without making the music too obtrusive. One effective way of amplifying the emotional impact of a visual event is to precede the climax of the scene with inappropriate music.
If a father is searching for his daughter, we feel much more relief when shes found safe and sound if the searching scene was accompanied by creepy, menacing music.
Similarly, we are a lot more horrified if, after a search accompanied by cheerful music, we are presented with a bloodstained body and a loud, anguished chord.
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Pathways To More Conscious Music Use
The emphasis placed by grounded theory analysts on actions and interactions encourages modeling of diverse pathways through a phenomenon . For this study, the findings suggested a model of the pathways young people with symptoms of depression take through music use that reflect differing strategies for dealing with undesirable moods . The model demonstrates how listeners may have the intention to either cope with or to change an undesirable mood, but outcomes vary depending on the strategy used, which in turn is influenced by the individuals fluctuating level of awareness. In this model, individuals have the antecedent condition of depression and are influenced in their music listening selections by the central condition, which is the state of being in an undesirable mood. They then exercise their intention to either cope with their mood or change their mood through strategies that involve selecting either mood matching music or music that is different to their mood. These selections are influenced by their own changing levels of awareness which in turn, are influenced by intervening conditions such as negative experiences or discussions with family, friends, or a therapist. These differing strategies can have varying outcomes, with mood matching music generally leading to either maintenance of mood or feeling worse, and listening to music that is different to the initial undesirable mood generally resulting in mood repair or a temporary change to mood.
Music Can Improve Cognitive Performance
Research suggests that background music, or music that is played while the listener is primarily focused on another activity, can improve performance on cognitive tasks in older adults. One study found that playing more upbeat music led to improvements in processing speed, while both upbeat and downbeat music led to benefits in memory.
So the next time you are working on a task, consider turning on a little music in the background if you are looking for a boost in your mental performance. Consider choosing instrumental tracks rather than those with complex lyrics, which might end up being more distracting.
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Make Your Own Playlists
Overall, music influences our mood. It is up to you to determine whether you want the influence to be a positive one. Many people tend to have a habit of choosing music that is based on negative feelings and, as we learned above, this behavior can only be beneficial when you are in need of some validation or deeper understanding. However, if you notice the music you choose to listen to makes your negative mood worse, it might be more helpful to challenge that mood rather than to encourage it.
So, before you create a playlist of songs, consider your range of emotions. Create playlists that both fit with your range of emotions and include playlists that help to challenge those negative emotions. Creating the playlists may not be as difficult as choosing the songs and types of music that go into that playlist. When considering what songs to include, keep in mind the following:
Does Music Really Have The Power To Affect Our Well
Your body contains its own pharmacy for dispensing an array of chemicals to help you respond to different situations: calming you down when you need to sleep, or putting you on alert if youre in danger.
If your pharmaceutical system is working properly, the correct chemicals will be dispensed at the appropriate times. If a dog starts chasing you, for example, your internal pharmacist will hand out a shot of adrenaline and a dose of cortisol.
The adrenaline will get you ready to run or fight by increasing the oxygen supply to your muscles, directing more blood to your heart and lungs, and releasing extra glucose into your system.
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The cortisol reaction will further amplify the adrenalines effects, increasing your blood sugar levels and concentrating energy supplies to your arms and legs. These effects are useful during short-lived fight-or-flight events, but are not good for you over an extended period of time.
If you lead a busy, stressed life, you might become depressed or physically run-down because your inner pharmacist is constantly doling out adrenaline and cortisol even in non-threatening situations.
This is where music can help. Listening to calming music has been shown to diminish the adrenaline and cortisol levels in the bloodstream and therefore reduce stress. Researchers at the University of Toronto have even shown that this is true of distressed babies.
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Music Can Improve Your Memory
Lots of students enjoy listening to music while they study, but is that such a great idea? Some feel like listening to their favorite music as they study improves memory, while others contend that it simply serves as a pleasant distraction.
Research suggests that it may help. But it depends upon a variety of factors, including the type of music, the listener’s enjoyment of that music, and even how musically well-trained the listener may be. In one study, musically naive students learned better when listening to positive music, possibly because these songs elicited more positive emotions without interfering with memory formation.
However, musically trained students tended to perform better on learning tests when they listened to neutral music, possibly because this type of music was less distracting and easier to ignore. If you tend to find yourself distracted by music, you may be better off learning in silence or with neutral tracks playing in the background.
Another study found that participants learning a new language showed improvement in their knowledge and abilities when they practiced singing new words and phrases versus just regular speaking or rhythmic speaking.
The Science Behind Music And Mood
Your mood relates to music because of the reward system. This is the role of an important body chemical called dopamine. Not only is music enjoyable to listen to and perform but it can also help release this chemical in our brain.
Interestingly, in 1956 Leonard Meyer listened to an iconic musical piece of Beethovens. As he listened to the music and analysed it carefully, he noted that any parts of the music that were held in suspense led to an unfulfilled mood. If the tension in the music was resolved, a sense of fulfilment could be identified. Essentially, the music caused emotional triggers, linking mood to music. .
Studies have also shown that listening to a short piece of happy music in front of someones neutral face changes our perception. After listening to the music, we are more likely to say they are happy due to the impact of what has been played.
Its clear that there is a lot more science to music than most people realise. Considering we spend so much time listening to music, its really important to understand how it affects our mood.
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Music Can Improve Mood
Another of the science-backed benefits of music is that it just might make you happier. In one examination of the reasons why people listen to music, researchers discovered that music played an important role in relating arousal and mood. Participants rated music’s ability to help them achieve a better mood and become more self-aware as two of the most important functions of music.
Another study found that intentionally trying to boost moods by listening to positive music could have an impact within two weeks. Participants were instructed to purposefully attempt to improve their mood by listening to positive music each day for two weeks.
Other participants listened to music but were not directed to become happier intentionally. When participants were later asked to describe their own levels of happiness, those who had intentionally tried to improve their moods reported feeling happier after just two weeks.
The Music And Mood Experiment
There have been some fascinating experiments on how music and mood are related. One experiment by Durham University has been carried out with 2,400 people from the UK and Finland. They found that most relate emotional and memorable experiences within their life to certain sad songs. The link between music and mood is obvious in this case, on a very big scale.
Interestingly, according to Huff Post Australia, there are two important reasons that enable music to affect our mood. These two triggers are how pleasant, or unpleasant the song is and how active or sleepy the song is. So if you are searching for a bopping playlist to make the morning walk a more chirpy one, these two impacting reasons are definitely things to consider.
There are some brilliant and bright playlists on Spotify such as Happy Pop Hits. In fact, Spotify has a whole Mood section so you can indulge in some self-help listening.
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What Are Mood And Tone
In regard to music, the tone can be approached via a couple of different avenues. Firstly, if you are looking at tone theoretically, you call notes tones such as whole tone or semitone.
But, if you are describing the vibe of the song your learning or writing, the tone can mean the overall feeling or mood of the lyrics and instrument such as a chirpy pop hit having a happy tone.
Mood, if describing music, is also the overall feeling that the song or piece of music causes you to feel. Or the overall feel of how the track sounds. The terminology is all depending on whether you are describing your own mood, or the songs musical mood.
Factors Influencing The Outcomes
Our analysis of the properties and dimensions of the strategies presenting in the data revealed that both positive and negative effects were experienced from both strategies for managing moods with music. This was determined during axial coding, where we examined the circumstances surrounding these strategies in order to determine some of the factors that contributed to a positive or negative outcome. We identified three properties: the messages conveyed by the lyrics, the frequency and duration of listening to certain music, the nature and intensity of the prior affective state of the listener.
The Messages Conveyed by the Lyrics
Some participants described particularly being attracted to music with lyrics that have special meaning for them when feeling down. When Participant 1 described the kind of music she was drawn to in a depressed mood, she said Its both the music and the lyrics as well, and I think that what the singers expressing is a sort of frustration and Ill think, Oh yes, thats exactly what we feel here. Participant 6 described how music with lyrics was especially important to her when she was feeling sad: When Im really, really sad thats the only time Ill listen to music where I care more about the lyrics.
Frequency and Duration of Music Listening
Participant 1 explained how she had experienced a phase in her life when she was listening intensely to music with very negative, suicidal lyrics. She made the following statement.
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Depression And Media Use
Access to online media has increased exponentially with the onset of digitisation and technological advancement . Research has demonstrated that young people are even more likely to turn to media when they are in a negative mood . In fact, withdrawal from socialization and normal daily activity has been identified as a behavior consistent with clinical depression and this often involves an increase in general media use . This increased engagement with media includes music listening, with emotional dependency on music also tending to increase during periods of depression .
However, research has demonstrated that this increased reliance on music during episodes of psychological distress does not always have positive mental health outcomes for the young people involved. For example, Garrido and Schubert have demonstrated that people with a ruminative coping style, which is highly predictive of clinical depression, tend to be attracted to music that can intensify symptoms of depression. Similarly, in a study by McFerran et al. the authors discovered that having high levels of distress while listening to music was associated with more intense, negative moods afterward. Other studies confirm the fact that people with depression are not always able to effectively select music that helps them to feel better . They may also use music as part of generally unhealthy coping strategies such as emotion-focused coping , rumination , or social withdrawal .
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