Music Therapy

The ancients long ago discussed music, stating that it “communicates with the spirit intelligence,” can achieve “connection with the human qi,” “stirs the blood vessels, and unblocks the spirit,” and can “make one joyful, make one sorrowful,” thereby cultivating the emotions and temperament. The yin and yang rise and fall within a musical melody can coordinate the yin and yang rise and fall within the human body to achieve balance; thus, music possesses the function of preventing and treating disease.

Modern medicine holds that when a person is immersed in a beautifully pleasing musical environment, it can improve the functions of the nervous system, cardiovascular system, endocrine system, and digestive system, prompting the body to secrete an active substance beneficial to health, and can regulate vascular flow and nerve conduction within the body. On the other hand, the frequency and sound pressure of musical sound waves evoke psychological responses. Positive, benign music can enhance the excitability of the cerebral cortex, improve mood, stimulate emotion, and invigorate the spirit. At the same time, it helps to eliminate adverse psychological states such as tension, anxiety, melancholy, and terror caused by psychological and social factors, and enhances stress-coping ability.

Music should be selected individually according to the patient's specific condition. Appropriate music therapy can often achieve very favorable therapeutic effects. For example:

1. Patients with depression are best suited to listen to music that carries a sense of melancholy. Whether it is a “sad” “waltz” or other compositions with melancholic elements, they possess aesthetic beauty. Once the patient's mind has been bathed in the “beauty” of these melodies, the melancholy within the heart will naturally and gradually dissolve. This is the most scientific and readily effective method.

2. Patients with an irritable and impatient temperament are best suited to listen to music with a slow tempo that inspires contemplation. This can regulate the mood and overcome the impatient disposition. The slow adagio sections of some classical symphonies are particularly suitable.

3. Pessimistic, negativistic patients are best advised to listen more often to grand, bold, and rousing music. Such compositions are helpful for patients lacking self-confidence. The firm, indomitable strength imbued in the music, carried by the overflowing melody, sprinkles itself upon the listener's “weak” spirit. Over time, it can help the patient build confidence, raise their spirits, and earnestly reflect upon and approach the path of their own life.

4. Patients suffering from memory decline are best served by frequently listening to familiar music. Familiar music is often tightly intertwined with unforgettable fragments of past life. When recalling an unforgettable life experience, one cannot help but hum those songs and tunes; humming those songs and tunes likewise evokes memories of that unforgettable life. Having patients with memory decline listen regularly to familiar music indeed has the effect of restoring memory.

5. Patients with essential hypertension are most suited to listen to lyrical music. An experiment once demonstrated that after listening to a deeply lyrical violin concerto, blood pressure could drop by 1.3–2.7 kPa. What patients with essential hypertension need is tranquility, and they must most avoid music that might stir their emotions and cause excessive excitement.

6. Parturient women are best advised to listen more to poetic, picturesque, relaxing, elegant, and strongly lyrical classical and light music. Such music can help the parturient woman eliminate tension, relax the mood, fill her with confidence, reduce the sensation of pain, and facilitate the birthing process. Music with intense rhythms and monotonous timbres is absolutely unsuitable — especially disco music.

In summary, music therapy is different from general music appreciation. It operates within a specific environmental atmosphere, and through specific melodic and rhythmic structures, it enables the patient to produce a psychological self-regulating effect, thereby achieving the goal of treatment.