Impact music has on mental health during difficult times and the pandemic.

Impact music has on mental health during difficult times and the pandemic.

By: Tobias Foster

Published: June 15th, 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected the physical health and mental health of everyone. In almost all times music is one of the things people can turn to for support whether it’s physical or emotional.

Shannon Harris is a music therapist who practices what he calls “Audio Pharmacology” in Chicago, Illinois. Harris describes Audio Pharmacology (AP) as “I use frequency as a pharmacy so when you go to a pharmacy where you are looking for some type of supplementation and vitamins and things like that imagine using frequencies, which is energy, which correlates to inaudible and audible sound.” 

He explains that AP is inspired by practices from Africa, Asia, Australia, China, and some parts of Europe then it’s mixed into the form of western energy therapy/medicine.

Harris explained how music causes a betawave effect on the brain, so when you put music on while studying and it helps you focus better, that is what causes a betawave effect. “A betawave in music is usually associated with orchestras or string instruments, but we found that a lot of other music has that effect if you have the right BPM (beats per minute), and if it has the right types of frequencies and most of the time sustained notes.”      

Harris explains that music and music therapy can pull attention away from negative stimuli, so when you would put on a song when you are having a bad time, sometimes the song in that moment would get rid of the emotion you are having or help distract you from it. It does that by releasing dopamine, which explains why we loved music for this long, he explained.    

   Entrainment in music/and music therapy is when two or more independent rhythmic processes synchronize with each other (according to In Time With The Music by Martin Clayton, Rebecca Sager and Udo Will). Harris explained how music can align the hemispheres of the brain that become misaligned during times of stress. Harris explains brain entrainment using music as “When you are trying to entrain the brain what happens is after 15 minutes you’re trying to bring (the) left and right brain into the center and after 15 minutes of ... music it starts to bring the brain in harmony, meaning that it’s taking your whole brain (left and right) and trying to center it. After 25 minutes, then you have the brain centered and this is when the brain entrainment happens.”

Harris began working with music in 1986, he said when he started to change music into an emotional type of platform of entertainment it made it more functional for entrainment for himself. He explained when the pandemic hit it was just a normal day for him as he would still be playing his brain entrainment music. 

Kyle Glenn is a musician who currently resides in Bingen, Washington. He elaborated on his experience using music as therapy. “I think playing any kind of instrument whether you learn how to play or not, I think there is a lot of power in the vibrations and the resonance that happens when you play an instrument. While learning an instrument can be stressful, if you have that kind of pressure on yourself I do think being able to play even a note or something can be so calming and soothing to the person playing.”

Glenn also talked about how he uses music as a listener for support, “I listen to a wide range of music and I think that is because I use it to amplify or modify my moods especially when it comes to stress.”   

Glenn spoke up about how he has used music during the pandemic.  “As an artist that music really helps me challenging and processing what is going on, I guess that’s kind of the same thing like when listening to music coming out during this time (Covid pandemic) is that there’s a lot of people processing what’s happening and musicians are able to kinda put that into a poetic sense and share that.” 

Glenn talked about one band in particular that helped keep him afloat in the early days of the pandemic. “For a large time of the pandemic, there’s a band called Phish, they were doing these Tuesday night dinner and a movie (shows). They started right after the pandemic started, and they went for a number of weeks, and on Instagram they’d post a recipe and they were like ‘hey we’re streaming’ and they would just stream an old show.” Glenn went on to explain it was something early in the pandemic he could look forward to, and how it also helped raise his spirits.  

With everything that has been going on in the world recently having music or anything to turn to for support has been really helpful to a ton of people.     

“What fascinates me about music and sound,” Harris said  “is that it’s the only activity that activates, stimulates, and uses the entire brain. A lot of music therapy programs with neural science (are) discussing how to use this in surgery, they’re actually using it in surgery.”

"I, as a listener, can hear my own thoughts that maybe I couldn't like put words to kinda come back.” Glenn said “You know, having that has been very powerful during the pandemic and during any time.”