+++++++++++++++++++

How much of my trauma changed development happened because of the overwhelming traumatic sound of my mother?  How much vicious screaming, yelling and shouting did you hear from before the time you were old enough to begin to know what words were?  How much terrifying noise was directed at YOU?

I know I heard lots of terrible sound as an infant-child, most of it directed at me.  In between, during the extensive periods of forced isolation, I learned to listen in unusual ways as my body-brain developed.  All kinds of sounds are trauma triggers for me, many times even the sound of the human voice.

Music and sound therapy are used in lots of ways to help abused children heal.  We must not lose sight of the power that sound has to heal us as adults, either.  Sound and music therapy is used to help and heal everything from stress relief, the vagal nerve system, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, the autistic brain, and the immune system.

What might sound and music therapy have to offer each of us in our efforts to heal from abuse and trauma of all kinds?

Here is some information about our ears, our hearing, and about how music and sound offer resonance that can help heal our limbic right emotional-social brain, our nervous system (stress response), the vagus nerve ( the nerve of calmness and compassionate caring) and MORE!!!

+++++++++++++++++

For your listening pleasure!  Does Music therapy belong to India?  “It helps in the quality of neurotransmitters secreted in brain and the behavior of the individual.”

Emusictherapy.com – listen online — Music Therapy Albums

Music to enhance Concentration and Memory
Music to overcome Depression
Music Therapy for Diabetes
Music to overcome Fear and Anxiety
Music for the Heart
Music for Peace of Mind
Music for Pregnancy & Babies
Music for Sleep and Relaxation
Music to overcome Stress and Strain
Music to Enhance Intellect & Creativity
Music to Reduce Pain and for advance Healing
Music to overcome Headache & Migraine

++++++++++++++

How Music Therapy Works

Sound therapists recognize that certain sounds can slow the breathing rate and create a feeling of overall well-being; others can slow a racing heart, even soothe a restless baby. Sound can also alter skin temperature, reduce blood pressure and muscle tension, and influence brain wave frequencies. Although some sounds (like ultrasonic waves) are beyond the range of the ear, they can have a profound effect on the human condition.

How We Respond to Sound

People respond to sound vibrations in two main ways: via rhythm entertainment and resonance. According to Steven Halpern, Ph.D., of San Anselmo, California, “Rhythm entertainment describes the phenomenon whereby, in the presence of any external rhythmic stimulus, the natural rhythm of the heartbeat will be overridden and caused to pulse in sync with the sound source. This may be the rhythm of drums, or the rhythmic pulse of the music, or it may just be your refrigerator’s motor.

“Resonance refers to the physical phenomenon in which different frequencies of sound (different pitches) stimulate the body to vibrate in different areas. Typically, low sound resonates in the lower parts of the body and high sound resonates in the higher parts of the body.”

Sound and the Brain

Sound is linked to the physical body by the eighth and tenth cranial nerves. These carry sound impulses through the ear and skull to the brain. Motor and sensory impulses are then sent along the vagus nerve (which helps regulate breathing, speech, and heart rate) to the throat, larynx, heart, and diaphragm.

Don G. Campbell, B.M.E.D., Director of the Institute for Music, Health, and Education in Boulder, Colorado, explains, “The vagus nerve and the emotional responses to the limbic system (specific areas of the brain responsible for emotion and motivation) are the link between the ear, the brain, and the autonomic nervous system that may account for the effectiveness of Music Therapy in treating physical and emotional disorders.”

Various elements of sound influence separate parts of the brain. Rhythm, for example, engages the reptilian or hindbrain, while its tempo can alter the sense of time. The human body also has its own rhythmic patterns, and there is growing evidence that the rhythms of the heart, the brain, and other organs enjoy a special synchronicity. Illness can arise when these inner rhythms are disturbed.

Tone engages the limbic midbrain, which governs emotion. According to Campbell, “The real power of sound is in the way the tonal or harmonic aspects influence our emotions and midbrain functions.”

Sound can also be used to help the body regulate its corticosteroid hormone levels, helping to control the severity of spastic muscle tremors, reduce cancer-related pain, and reduce stress in heart patients.

Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide
Complied by the Burton Group
Future Medicine Publishing, 1997

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

What follows comes from this website:

MUSIC THERAPY LINKS THE UNIVERSAL VOICE OF ACADEMIC SCIENCE IN MUSIC THERAPY

The Special Status of the Ear in the Organism

1.  Our ear is the first organ to develop to its full size and become fully functional – approx. 18 weeks after conception, our ear is ‘ready’.

2.  Our ear is the first sensory organ to begin working – from the 8th week of life. We began to hear whilst we were still in our mother’s womb – and at 18 weeks our hearing capability was fully developed.

3.  In order for our nerves to be fully operational, our organism surrounds them with a layer of myelin – the auditory nerve is the first to receive this layer of myelin.

4.  The ear is not only the first sensory organ to start working – it is generally also the last sensory organ to cease functioning.
For this reason, it also plays an important part in the determination of brain death: when various brain centers have already ceased to react to the relevant stimulation, the brain usually continues to react to stimulation of the auditory nerve.
Therefore, the response to stimulation of the auditory nerve is an important criterion in the determination of brain death.

5.  Our ear is the brain’s greatest supplier of sensory energy and, as such, is probably the greatest changer of our brain’s electrical activity.

Our ears, our skin, our eyes, our mouth, and our nose constantly receive sensory stimulation from our surroundings which they then convert into electrical impulses in their sensory cells and pass on to our brain. Thus, in our brain, no sound, no touch, no pictures, no taste and no smells are encountered, just electrical impulses which only become our sensory experiences through multifarious processing steps taking place in our brain. In this way, our brain receives a constant flow of bioelectrical energy from our sensory organs, without which it is unable to function correctly. As to how much energy each of the five sensory organs supplies, medicine science now provides the following amazing answer: of 100% of the sensory energy which enters the brain, 80-90% is supplied by the ear! As such, our ear is probably the greatest changer of our brain’s electrical activity – the central administration of our entire organism.

6.  Our ear has a definitive role in the construction of our brain.

However, the sensory organs do not only supply our brain with energy, but the electrical impulses produced by them also work themselves in our brain, in that they play a definitive role in deciding in which way our brain cells link up or ‘switch’, so that the necessary circuits required for the exchange of data and the management of the infinite number of processes within our human organism are created.
So what does our ear that has been sending electrical impulses to the brain since our 8th week of life, have a hand in building?
Some medical experts suspect that it controls the entire maturation of our brain.
It is, however, certain that it definitively has a determining influence on how each of those areas of our brain develops which control our feelings, our understanding, our speech and our movements. So our ear plays an active part in the most important areas of our brain.

7.  Our ear controls all of our organism’s muscular activity, and plays a part in the distribution of tension and relaxation.

In the regulating circuit of the movement processes, the brain gives the order to the muscles to move and when they are carrying out these orders, the muscles are controlled by the organ of balance in the ear. In this way our ear also determines our body’s tension profile – that is the distribution of the different states of tension and relaxation in the different parts of our body.

8.  Our ear influences the control of our organism’s thermal balance.

The flow of blood of our tympanic membrane is supplied by a blood circulation which is directly connected to our organism’s thermal regulation center in the brain. Studies with Medical Resonance Therapy Music^® have now revealed that certain music structures can decisively change the thermal regulation. Thermal regulation, however, has a significant influence on overcoming illnesses, as is familiar to us with fevers, for example.

9.  Our ear is directly connected via nerve channels with many important organs.

Neural management of our ear concha or flap and our tympanic membrane is largely effected by the 10th cerebral nerve, the so-called vagus nerve. This nerve is also connected, as an important neural manager, with the larynx, the bronchi, the heart, the stomach, the pancreas, the liver, the kidneys, the intestines, and the solar plexus. It also has a definitive role in triggering physiological stress reactions. Thus, via the vagus nerve, our ear has access to transmission lines to important organs in our body, and exerts a direct influence on the regulation of stress.

Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that there are connections within the ear to all areas of the body. Here are just a few of the most important parts of the body which are accessed by ear-acupuncture: the top of the skull, back of the head, forehead, eyes, ears, nose, neck, cervical vertebrae, clavicle, chest, heart, lungs, stomach, kidneys, liver, large intestine, genitals, urinary tracts, hip joints, buttocks, knee joints, joints of the foot and cartilaginous tissue in various parts of the body.
NEWS

“Studies with Medical Resonance Therapy Music^® have now revealed that certain music structures can decisively change the thermal regulation.  Thermal regulation, however, has a significant influence on overcoming illnesses, as is familiar to us with fevers, for example.”

+++++++

I find this most fascinating, true I imagine for both physical and emotional pain:

“A positive emotional reaction to music is of course infinitely valuable to cancer patients, but studies have shown that music therapy can also trigger important physical responses.  Alleviation of pain is one such area, says Dr. Delforia Lane, explaining that the brain uses the same neurotransmitter to send the sensations of both pain and music.  If both elements are received at the same time, neither can reach the brain with full intensity.  Hence pain is felt less intensely, so patients may experience a decreased dependence on pain medications.”

From the Music Center page of the Cancer Consultants website

SEE ALSO:  Music strikes chord on coping with pain [and anxiety]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++