Studies Explore the Healing Power of Music

The right kind of music has been proven to alleviate stress and scientists have used it to heal a young girl’s brain.

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Beautiful music can move an audience to tears while a high-pitched sound can shatter glass. The vibrations and frequencies that make up the sounds have a powerful effect on the human mind—and body, say some scientists.

The right kind of music has been proven to alleviate stress and scientists have used it to heal a young girl’s brain, help Alzheimer’s patients, aid recovery from surgery, and raise people’s IQs. Ancients used music as a fertility treatment and to target ailments in specific organs.

Music and Healing

“Music is a uniquely effective tool for treating neurological impairment because it recruits nearly every region of the brain,” wrote William Forde Thompson, a distinguished professor of psychology at Macquarie University, and Gottfried Schlaug, associate professor of neurology at Harvard University, in an article published by Scientific American.