The Healing Power of Music
How Does Music Affect Our Body and Brain?
Music appears to be processed in the right hemisphere of the brain. The way we experience music also affects our nervous system.
There are different neurons that respond according to what kind of music is playing. Music can effect hormones, encourage the production of cortisol, testosterone, and oxytocin. Music can even trigger a release of endorphins.
Beyond the biology and the actual responses of your body, there are definite responses of the mind as well. You're aware of how you feel when you listen to music, but how do you know that it's actually having any sort of effect on you? There is scientific evidence of the way it can affect your mind! It's clearly more than just a suspicion -- it's fact!
The most famous experiment related to this is probably the one that was performed at the University of California at Irvine.
College students were assigned to three different groups. The first group listened to Mozart's sonata for Two Pianos in D Major. The second group listened to a relaxation tape. The third group listened to nothing at all.
After listening, they took a Stanford-Beinet reasoning test. The results were clear -- those who had listened to Mozart had improved scores!
To Be Continued....