Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

~Berthold Auerbach

Medics regularly claim that music can be a powerful healing aid with patients having any given issue ranging from depression to cancer. As stated by Cheryl Dileo, a professor of music therapy and director of the Arts and Quality of Life Research Center at Temple University in Philadelphia, “Music therapy is an evidence-based practice that can affect changes in physical, psychological, social and cognitive domains.” So does music really have the ability to touch us on a deep, subconscious level, and heal us in ways beyond how any physically medicinal treatment ever could?

Well since 1944, when its current form developed in the United States, music therapy has been researched and studied and many times over has proven to be a noteworthy mood-changer and reliever of tension and stress, functioning on many levels at one time. It is the medical and evidence-based application of music to achieve individualized objectives and to establish a healing relationship between patients and professionals. It has been shown to improve motor skills, social and interpersonal progress, cognitive growth, self-awareness, and spiritual enrichment. It is now considered an official health service categorized with occupational and physical therapy. Music therapy offers a chance for a reprieve from pain, anxiety and stress reduction usually accompanying sicknesses and disease, helps create positive transformations in both mood and emotional conditions.


Countless professionals propose that it’s the beat of the music that has the soothing effect on us even if we may not be entirely aware of it. Experts point out that when we were babies in our mothers’ wombs, we most likely were influenced by the heartbeat of our mother. We react to the calming music at later phases in life, conceivably relating it to the secure, comforting, protective atmosphere of the womb.

One of the initial stress-fighting changes that occur when we listen to a song is an increase in deep breathing. With this, the body's fabrication of serotonin also accelerates. Music has been found to decrease heart rates and to encourage higher body temperature - a sign of the beginnings of relaxation. Merging music with relaxation therapy has become a much more valuable tool in the world of medicine than simply exploiting relaxation therapy or medicinal treatments alone. As John A. Logan said, “Music's the medicine of the mind.”