Music: the Multipurpose Medicine

Point to Ponder:

How often do you listen to music?

by Neissa Brown Springmann

Today I am feeling relieved and amazing! Thanks to grandparents keeping the kiddos, my entire weekend was devoted to cleaning, sorting, organizing and purging. I started on one end of the house and thankfully made it to the other end, and through all rooms, closets,cabinets, drawers, etc. After five loaded 42 gallon trash bags, a garage piled with garage sale and donation items and a non-cluttered and totally organized house (with the exception of the garage), I feel light as a feather and grateful to have cleansed from what felt like years gluttonous behavior.

It’s ironic, because during the fall and even within the past few months I have spoken on and off with Russell about the idea of purging, downsizing and simplifying our lives. It’s not like we live in a big house, but I have found a way to collect an excessive amount of stuff. I had a closet filled with clothes and shoes I don’t wear, shelves crammed with books I don’t plan to read, a kitchen loaded with dishes and platters that I don’t need, and soooo much more. Be careful for what you ask for, because downsizing and becoming a minimalist is exactly what the universe gave me! I got what I asked for, I just didn’t think it would show up in the loss of a job and a move to San Diego, making downsizing and getting rid of all non-necessities a must.The point of this journal is not to convince you to organize or purge (but if you do, iGnite Member Annemarie Glover shared the awesome organizational blog IHeartOrganizing with me — check it out), rather it’s to remind you of the power of music! Oh my goodness…from the moment I started until the time I finished, my shuffled iTunes library was cranked up! I had every single window in the house open and at about 11:00pm on Saturday night. I thought for sure my neighbor was going to come over and ask me to turn it down. But, there was no way I could’ve heard the knock on my door or door bell ring anyways. It was awesome!

From Otis Redding, Guns and Roses, George Strait to Bruno Mars, I was rockin’ and, had it not been for energy that the music gave me, there was no way I could’ve completed my project — much less dance from one room to the other. It was fantastic!

From infants to seniors, I think it would be hard-pressed to find a person on the planet who doesn’t like music. It’s the universal pick-me-up, and multipurpose medicine, which might be why the The Voice continues to be the #1 rated television show on Monday nights. For sure, getting to look at Adam Levine, Blake Shelton and Pharrell Williams doesn’t hurt, but music is magical and according to the Huffington Post article Music And Health: 11 Ways Playing And Listening To Music Help Both Body And Mind, music has plenty of healthy benefits. In brief:

According to Researchers from Drexel University, they found that cancer patients who either listened to music or worked with a music therapist experienced a reduction in anxiety. A doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg reveals that listening to music everyday lowers stress. The University of Maryland Medical Center researchers have found a link between listening to music and heart health. The researchers found that listening to joyful music is linked with dilation of blood vessels’ inner lining, meaning more flow of blood through the blood vessels. Specifically, the diameter of blood vessels grew by 26 percent when a person listened to happy music. Researchers from University of Utah Pain Research Center showed that listening to music is effective as a distraction for anxiety-prone people from feeling pain and as a result, could help people feel less pain. Finnish researchers found that listening to music soon after a stroke could help with recovery, News Medical reported. Published in 2008 in the journal Brain, researchers found that listening to music was linked with improved verbal memory and attention among stroke patients, compared with listening to audio books or not listening to anything at all.

Action Item:

In addition to listening to the birds happily singing their springtime songs, I encourage you to play music, dance and let it be one of your happy and healthy pick-me-ups and medicine for your week!

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