Music is a therapeutic tool that can help improve a person’s sleep, daily performance, and emotional health. For decades, people have been using this as a healing therapy. In fact, the ancient Arabic cultures used musicians to work side by side with their physicians.
Also, after World War II, the U.S. hospitals housed musicians to help and heal soldiers from their emotional and physical trauma.
How Can Music Affect Your Body and Mind
When you listen to a particular song, especially your favorite song, you immediately feel a rush of emotions or pleasure and make you want to cry, dance, or sing.
So, music really has diverse and powerful effects on your mind and body. It can trigger the release of your hormones, boost your brain’s emotional and cognitive centers, influence your heart rate and breathing, and can stimulate your immune system.
Music can make you feel relaxed and improve your sleep by:
- Lower your blood pressure
- Ease your muscle tension
- Slow your breathing
- Lower your heart rate
- Reduce your anxiety and stress
- Trigger the release of your sleep-related hormones, such as oxytocin and serotonin
- Calm down your immune system
What Are The Benefits of Music for Sleep
There are so many benefits of music in your body. Depending on the type of music, it can make your body relax and mimic a state of sleep. Listening to relaxing music can do just that by triggering physiological changes in your body, such as lowering your blood pressure, slowing your breathing, and slowing your heart rate.
Music can also help create a soothing effect that can ease your stress and anxiety. So listening to relaxing music or instrumental music can relax your mind and body before you go to bed, helping you to turn your body (physically and psychologically) into sleep mode.
Improves Your Sleep Efficiency
Sleep efficiency is the measure of the time you actually spend asleep vs. the entire time you’re in bed. When your sleep efficiency is low, then that may be a sign that you have trouble sleeping or you have been restless and awake all through the night.
That’s why incorporating music, according to recent analysis research, can be an alternative yet effective way to relieve chronic and short-term sleep disorders. It offers therapeutic benefits so you can sleep and get better on time. The more you use music, the more effective it will be.
Improves Your Mood and Relieves Stress
Another benefit that music can give is its effect on your emotional state and your mood. If you notice, your mood has an impact on your sleep. In the same way, stress can also affect how you sleep throughout the night.
Emotional state and mood have a bi-directional relationship with sleep. This means that having poor sleep can be both a symptom and a cause of your mood or emotional status. All the psychological, emotional, stress, and anxiety problems may affect your sleep and at the same time, not having enough sleep may cause you to be more vulnerable to these conditions. So through music, you can improve your mood and your level of stress as it influences and activates your memory and emotional centers in your brain.
Helps Treat Pain
Did you know that music can indirectly reduce your pain? Sometimes, the main causes of why you can’t sleep at night are the physical pain and discomfort you have. Just like in mood, sleep also has a dynamic relationship with pain and works both ways. This means that pain affects your sleep, and not having enough sleep increases your pain sensitivity.
There is growing research about how people from the old days used music to relieve pain. A lot of studies show that listening to music before, during, and after surgery can reduce anxiety and pain. Patients who incorporate music become less reliant on their medications.
Conclusion
Music is not just for your ears to enjoy but for the benefit of your entire body and mind. It offers great therapeutic effects on your sleep, emotional state, mood, and even works to reduce your pain.
Prayer Pray offers a collection of Christian music instrumentals, violin music, cello music, piano music, harp music, guitar music, flute music, and more. Download our relaxing music audio now to help you have a good night’s sleep. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel for more of our latest relaxing music and heavenly instrumentals.
