Billy Gil

Professor Syretta Massey-Jimenez

ENC 1101
April 18, 2016

Final Essay

Music and its Health Benefits

Music is the most powerful sound. This is a statement that we can all agree, because of the
mental, psychological, health and spiritual effects that Music has in ourselves, and how these can
affect the entire human population despite language and cultural barriers. Music can also help
cope with every disease and suffering for different causes, because it soothes and relaxes the
individual to a point that not even meditation or massages can achieve, and also strengthens the
immune system and gives the body a chance to fight back the disease.

Centuries ago, people werent sure about the benefits of listening to music. In the renaissance
era, Musicians although being praised by their work, find often hard to transmit their Music
because the lack of any transmission method but live performance, and these live events often

could only be enjoyed by members of high political and economic classes, such as kings and
queens, while the rest of the population simply couldnt access to this media, and live their lives
without enjoying music at all.

Then, with certain engineering achievements, Music became more widespread, and people began
questioning about the real meaning of music. Is it a profession or a hobby? What could be
considered as good music and bad music? How is Music bonded to a certain era and cultural
traits? Can listening to music affect us? And with many questions came many answers by the
hard work of researchers, psychologist, doctors, historians, philosophers, scientists and many
more.

They discovered that the called Classical Music that ruled the world during the renaissance
was the most complex and elaborated of all, and because its complexity these melodies often
affect the listener in some strange and peculiar ways.

Classical Music can improve a person life from early stages of birth to the last steps of death.
When pregnant, exposing the fetus to Classical Music can help the child develop neuronal
patterns much faster that would allow the child to develop language and reasoning skills earlier
in life, and in a more efficient way. Also, the child is more likely to develop a higher sensibility
to music later in life, which translates into the necessity of learning to play a musical instrument,
and enjoying all the benefits that this action has in the mental development of the individual.

This phenomenon is perfectly exemplified by child prodigies that tend to develop amazing
musical skills earlier than the rest of human population, just because they were exposed to
Classical Music while on the women womb.

This genre also can help people cope with their last instances of life, because it soothes and
relaxes the body, allowing to a relaxation state that the mind cant achieve with any other method,
so it proves even more effective that certain medications and relaxation methods such as
meditation, or physical exercise, and also helps to relieve chronic pain, and allows the brain to
deal with the reception of pain much better, by diminishing the signal of pain delivered by
neurotransmitters. We can often find meaning in the Art of Music by the last stands of Prodigies
such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who died while writing his masterpiece Requiem. This
makes us wonder: Why Music is so mystical that people dedicate their entire lives to perform,
without expecting anything in return, and doing it so devotedly?.

Although Classical Music is the most powerful of genres, and has the most impact in peoples
health, its not the only one. Every Musical genre existing has an impact in our minds, our
bodies, our psychology and emotions that no other form of expression can match. Why this
happens is unknown, but we can find certain effects that music has in ourselves thanks to
centuries of research.

First, Sound waves are received by our ears, then the signal travels throughout our neuronal
pathway to our brain which processes the information and then releases chemicals throughout
our body that give us a sense of reward, and this is why Music is often addictive, because the
stimulus generates a reward, just as when addictive substances are consumed. A recent study
proved that Music is as addictive as Cocaine.

We can summarize the positive effects that Music has in our bodies: Music helps cope with
chronic pain, reduces anxiety, relaxes more than a massage or meditation, can lead to spiritual
enlighten, boost creativity, boost productivity, allows to a better emotional equilibrium, allows
the creation of new neuronal pathways, improves our mathematical and spatial reasoning skills,
improves our language skills, boost I.Q, allows better academic performance, boost
concentration, boost workout performance, speed up recovering post-workout, give us more
stamina while doing cardiovascular exercises, helps concealing sleep, allows lucid dreams,
improves short-term and long-term memory, strengths the immune system and helps prevent
Alzheimer disease.

These are some of the benefits that listening to Music on a regular basis has, and there are many
more. Music is mystical, is fascinating, and its part of human nature, thats why the most natural
behavior would be taking advantage of all of its health benefits.