Music has a bewitching power when it comes to our thoughts and emotions. If you’ve ever cried to a sad song, hidden beneath blankets under the influence of scary music from a horror film, or swelled with a sense of heroism on hearing a rousing tune, you’ll agree. Here’s a look at the neuroscience behind music, and how a simple series of sounds can have weighty impacts in our minds.

Music and the Brain
The psychology of music has been recognized and studied since ancient times, with Plato theorizing that different styles of music stirred different emotions in listeners. Pull up your favorite song or the soundtrack from a horror movie, and you’ll see that he was right. It’s easy to understand that music has a profound effect on us, but modern science has given us clearer glimpses at the neuroscience of music, and why and how music plays with our minds.

Our favorite songs arouse emotions, memories, and even physiological responses like dilated pupils and increased pulse and blood pressure. There is also increased activity in the cerebellum, the region of the brain associated with movement. Interestingly, these intense reactions occur just before our favorite parts of songs, in the so-called “anticipatory phase.” It’s conjectured that this build-up of anticipation, along with subverted expectations in musical patterns, is what primarily heightens our enjoyment and engages our brains.

Because of the ways music influences us, we can—and do—use music to achieve desired results! As music’s effects are more studied and better understood, we can use that information to “hack our brains” with powerful song choices. Here’s a look at some examples of using music to support therapy, sleep, and focus.

Music as Therapy
The use of music in the realm of medicine is impressively far-reaching. It’s been known to assist in therapy and healing for a wide range of illnesses and conditions. Studies have demonstrated the significant therapeutic value of music for patients with:

Stroke
Parkinson’s disease
Cerebral palsy
Traumatic brain injury
Memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease
Epilepsy
Music can also help with mental health by regulating mood, reducing stress, and promoting calm and positivity.

At Levine, we have a full team of board-certified music therapists who are trained to access the therapeutic value of music to help others connect and grow. Our experts work with children and adults of all ages in private and group music therapy sessions using evidence-based practices. In this way, we use music therapy to assist people with a wide variety of needs.

A child with autism spectrum disorder may engage in music therapy sessions to help find their inner voice and connect with the world around them, while an adult with anxiety may be working to manage stress and increase coping mechanisms through musical interactions. In the community, we can work with adults with memory disorders to encourage socialization and reality orientation while also supporting their caregivers with stress relief and self-care. Every session or group is unique, just like every individual has unique strengths, needs, and responses to music.