What is sound therapy and how can it help?

The music therapy It presents many scientific evidences supported by a multitude of applications and experienced clinical cases. Modern neuroimaging techniques show the response to musical stimuli and make it possible to observe which areas are most active.

The detection of increased blood flow and increased oxygen consumption is key to its visualization through functional magnetic resonance.

Thus, it has been possible to verify how certain motor neuronal areas are activated and respond to a auditory stimulus of rhythmic sound patterns, being of great help for the recovery and synchronization of the march in those people affected by stroke or Parkinson’s.

This, precisely, is one of the works in which the neuroscientist and musician has specialized Dr Thaut. One of his former students, music therapist Edward A. Roth, a professor at Western Michigan University and director of a rehabilitation research center, explained in one of his seminars the hopeful results that are achieved simply by listening to the rhythmic soundof a metronomeby reinforcing the neural connections implicit in these movements.

Another curious experiment that Edward cited involved “mirror” neurons. A group of patients dedicated themselves to observing, for a few weeks, the walking exercises, to the sound of the rhythmic patternsof their colleagues affected by stroke.

After this time, it was found that the “sedentary” patients they had achieved up to 80% of the improvement achieved by the “practitioners”, only through careful observation, without any practice. The explanation was due to the behavior of “mirror” neurons, which are characterized by their activation upon perception of the actions carried out by another person without any movement.

Today music therapy is recognized as a scientific discipline, mainly due to the effects derived from biochemical changes that occur in response to musical stimuli.

These changes affect us physiologically and, in turn, affect our emotional and cognitive systems. If this were not the case, it would hardly be applied in centers such as Harvard Medical School, where the benefits of Mozart’s classical music in patients in intensive care units.

Sound therapy and its therapeutic efficacy

It is sometimes cited that sound and music, as therapeutic instruments, have no side effects. But the famous neuroscientist Oliver Sacks He cites in his works cases in which music has induced epileptic seizures in certain people.

You have to be responsible and aware, therefore, that its use is not free and therefore it is highly recommended to put yourself in professional hands. We are interacting with stimuli to which our brain and our body offer a biological response and, therefore, are sensitive to them.

On some occasion I have been asked if the sound of a quartz crystal bowl or a Tibetan bowl can heal. It is not easy to answer this question with a simple monosyllable, since many nuances must be considered.

If we suffer from muscle contraction or are stressed, we can easily see an improvement. But in the case of a more consolidated disease it is more difficult to affirm or deny its effectiveness. From the point of view that many illnesses have an emotional originif we act effectively on the emotions – sound therapy is a good tool – the evolution will be positive, either through sound therapy or another type of therapy.

The patient’s response to sound therapy

In a therapeutic session, for example in the case of sound therapySeveral elements intervene: sounds, therapist and patient. Everything is important and contributes a certain specific weight.

On the one hand, the physical characteristics of the sound, because depending on what it is, it will induce some psychophysiological effects or others. In turn, the attitude and intention of the therapist that will facilitate the process, especially if the person trusts him. And finally, the most important element: the patient himselfin whom the response must actually occur.

The therapeutic capacity is in usin our resources, which sometimes we cannot or do not know how to mobilize adequately.

Hence the need for certain external stimuli, be they sounds (words, mantras, songs, music, silence), images, movement (dance), therapists who guide and accompany us, and who facilitate the start-up or adequate stimulation of our internal systems so that they act in the right direction.

It may be that, due to personal circumstances, at a certain moment I adapt better to one type of therapy than to another. It is a personal choice. Even for the same problem, sometimes it is effective to solve it with different methods. Placebo effect? Perhaps, but if that were the case and the result is as desired, should we rule it out?

Is it not accepted and widely used, precisely because of its benefits, in conventional medicine practices, according to numerous psychiatrists?

As neuroscience advances and we learn more about how the brain works, all these doubts will be resolved and clarified, although others may appear… Isaac Newton already said it: “What we know is the drop and what we ignore is the ocean”.