“When work is pleasure, life is joy!”

I would like to make an adjustment here and change the word “work” with the word “music”.  I believe music and the melodies can act as antidepressants, and there are numerous studies that testify this, here I would like to present a few ideas how our “invisible” friend music can help people to cope better under pressure and “renew” our emotional power when feeling down.

Music and cancer patients

The enjoyment of music, as explained by psychologists helps individuals to gain insight into the higher thought processes, it is a certain area of the cerebral cortex which is responsible for thinking, judging, imagining and creating. Cancer or the big “C” on the other hand is one of the most undesired illnesses, it comes with pain, lethargy, apathy and we know many times brings us one step closer to death.

Supportive music has been shown to be beneficial for cancer patients who are undertaking chemotherapy, as it is known that chemotherapy is unpleasant, patients usually suffer from fatigue, feeling sick, losing hair, losing appetite. Supportive music can help patients to prepare for treatment, to feel motivated and energized. (Burns et al., 2018) Especially preferred music has been shown to be effective to contain patient’s positive emotional experience, songs that help them to remember pleasant times.

Perhaps this can be a genuine argument for the often-criticized hedonism, that when one goes through the unpleasant, off-putting treatment for cancer, one shouldn’t restrict him or herself from the preferences and pleasures of the mind as well as the body. Indeed, hedonic psychologists incorporate a broader view of hedonism. (Kahneman et al., 1999)

Music and fibromyalgia

This relatively mysterious illness which is a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body is known to affect around 3% of the world population. The causes are unknown, but the symptoms are well known, from headache to tiredness and from insomnia to brain fog, it dampens the quality of life for those who suffer from it.

A few studies have already demonstrated the effectiveness of group music on people who have fibromyalga. Among one of them have emphasized the reduction of anxiety especially in women, and it also reduced pain intensity and subsequently the depression that comes with it (Torres et al., 2018).

No living being on Earth likes suffering and this illness is all about that, some people are inclined to happiness, but most people embrace the eudaimonic concept of well-being which offer people to live in accordance with their daimon, that is with their true self. (Waterman, 1993) The energizing effect of music gives you a helping hand with that.

Music and motivation

Music is known to be uplifting, it helps your positive moods to shine through the dark aspects of your everyday life. Of course, not every type of music is positive, some are deliberately composed to sound sad and blue. And that is all right, sometimes it is better to cover our sadness with melodies and harmonies. But for those who seek motivation in their lives, the more positive side of music will do the job. In a study that measured the motivational factor of music for cardiovascular patients and how music can enhance their recovery exercises, has shown that patients felt more motivated to do physical exercise while listening to music. For instance, they reported that music can reduce the physical stress of exercise or they felt more motivated to exercise more vigorously. Moreover, they said that time seemed to pass faster with music and the whole rehabilitation was more enjoyable if music was included. Some even said that music is a “great distraction”. (Bowles et al., 2019) If music is a remarkable motivational factor, then we can easily conclude that music should be part of a repertoire of psychological health-boosting phenomena for everybody, as motivation is according to Ryan & Deci (Ryan & Deci, 2000) an essential part of psychological growth.

Are you a composer?

We live in a world full of frustrations, we have dreams, wishes and ideas and when these are blocked, frustration sets in and that can lead to angry and aggressive thoughts and feelings, which ultimately decreases our vitality and wellbeing. Then aggressive behaviours, that is the idea of acting out these angry thoughts will further decline our wellbeing and perhaps our freedom as well if we opt to do illegal things as a consequence of that. Now there are three major aggression inhibiting factors and these are fear, morality and education. However, I would argue that there is another factor and that is art, or music more precisely. Which isn’t necessarily an inhibiting factor, rather a positive enabling factor. Research indicates that composing music contributes to positive affect states and it represents one of the empowering conditions for humans to flourish.(van Goethem & Sloboda, 2011).  Even though it has been concluded that our subjective wellbeing is largely determined by our genetic makeup and it is usually stable across our lives, (DeNeve & Cooper, 1998) people more often than not search for need-satisfying environments rather than frustration diminishing environments. It is demonstrated that both hobby and professional music-making offer a need-satisfying environment for the composer (Koehler & Neubauer, 2019).

Although for most people the walk of life is a hard one for sure, it requires great effort to solve problems as life throws us into traps, we should make the most of the opportunities. It has been demonstrated that happier people tend to construe the same life events in a more positive way than those unhappier (Lyubomirsky & Tucker, 1998) furthermore those with relatively higher Subjective Wellbeing tend to be less responsive to negative events and be more self-enabling people (Lyubomirsky & Ross, 1999). Perhaps, one hidden key to attain these positive subjective states is to listen and compose music. Perhaps, this is a good way to increase our positivity ratio. And while you can’t attend concerts and festival (for now!) due to covid19, don’t be shy to turn the volume up while listening to your favourite songs and ask your partner to dance in your garden.

Bibliography:
Bowles, L., Curtis, J., Davies, C., Lengerich, A., & Bugajski, A. (2019). The effect of music on mood, motivation, and exercise among patients in a cardiac rehabilitation program: A pilot study. Nursing Forum, 54(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/nuf.12334
Burns, D. S., Meadows, A. N., Althouse, S., Perkins, S. M., & Cripe, L. D. (2018). Differences between Supportive Music and Imagery and Music Listening during Outpatient Chemotherapy and Potential Moderators of Treatment Effects. Journal of Music Therapy, 55(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/thy001
DeNeve, K. M., & Cooper, H. (1998). The Happy Personality: A Meta-Analysis of 137 Personality Traits and Subjective Well-Being. Psychological Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.197
Kahneman, D., Diener, E., & Schwarz, N. (1999). Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology. Health San Francisco.
Koehler, F., & Neubauer, A. B. (2019). From Music Making to Affective Well-Being in Everyday Life: The Mediating Role of Need Satisfaction. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000261
Lyubomirsky, S., & Ross, L. (1999). Changes in attractiveness of elected, rejected, and precluded alternatives: A comparison of happy and unhappy individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(6). https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.76.6.988
Lyubomirsky, S., & Tucker, K. L. (1998). Implications of individual differences in subjective happiness for perceiving, interpreting, and thinking about life events. Motivation and Emotion. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021396422190
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68
Torres, E., Pedersen, I. N., & Pérez-Fernández, J. I. (2018). Randomized Trial of a Group Music and Imagery Method (GrpMI) for Women with Fibromyalgia. Journal of Music Therapy, 55(2). https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/thy005
van Goethem, A., & Sloboda, J. (2011). The functions of music for affect regulation. Musicae Scientiae, 15(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/1029864911401174
Waterman, A. S. (1993). Two Ways To Be Happy. Clinician’s Research Digest, 11(7).

About Roland Majla: Hi, my name is Roland, a student at Buckinghamshire New University studying Applied Positive Psychology MSc and I am from the enchanted land of Transylvania. Yes, this mythical place from Bram Stoker’s book actually exists. And I am a hopeful, travel and music-loving individual on a hunting journey, yes “hunting” for positivity on the land, air and sea, and then offering the “prey” for the hungry hearts and minds out there.

‘We Are The Positive Psychology People’

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Wellbeing and music

The academic literature on positive emotions and wellbeing in general up until the 1980s has not produced more than 800 articles annually. (Myers & Diener, 1995) However, with the advent of Positive Psychology in the 1990’s this, fortunately, has changed for the better. A new field has emerged in the field of Psychology that reminded Cicero’s quote “There’s no fool who is happy, and no wise man who is not”.

The positive effect of music is, fortunately, gaining momentum, there is now clear evidence that music lowers anxiety, increasing mood and quality of life and it helps with coping during stressful times. (Daykin et al., 2018) An interesting study also shows the beneficial effect of music on refugees and asylum seekers, that for instance activities involving music such as singing and dancing positively affected people’s ability for developing effective emotional expression which in turn boosted self-awareness and connectedness. (Millar & Warwick, 2019). Also, music facilitates wellbeing through intra-personal factors, such as self-identity and emotional intelligence; through inter-personal factors such as socialisation and creating strong social bonds; and through agentic pathways, like helping the individual to express him or herself. (Popay & Williams, 2005)

I don’t think I will ever forget how two distant friends of mine became very close friends to me, and this was partly my “fault” and partly music’s “fault”. It was when I introduced them or rather “infected” them the wonderful music of a band, that became one of our favourites from that time on. It fascinates me how the power of music can bring people together. 

Emotions and music

Researchers and psychologists have developed the concept of Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) in order to measure the individual’s life cognitively and affectively. It has been documented that usually people scoring high on SWB are more energetic, creative, sociable and more trusting. (Veenhoven, 1988)

Music is being identified as the protector of the self, or as once described as the “technology of the self” (Denora, 1999)because it has the capacity to aid emotional recognition. Moreover, it is understood that association of emotions with music will bring about emotional self-regulation. Furthermore, the positive influence of music on emotions can change mood, stress levels and cortisol levels. (Fancourt et al., 2016)

Identity and music

It was documented that music has its unique ability to positively affect self-esteem and self-identification. And throughout the history, music in society has been a powerful factor contributing to the development of cultural identity. (Rund, 1997) Strong cultural identities can buffer against stress and discrimination.

I can firmly testify this, usually, those growing up in a post-communist collectivist country with reduced possibilities to freedom of expression and increased deconstructive criticism towards those who dare “to think outside the box” had to learn to be something that I would call the “resilient rebel”. But belonging to an artistic sub-culture had a positive effect on me, the idea of belonging to people who are like me had an uplifting effect on me. Various data suggest (although debatable) that in general collectivist cultures may experience lower SWB than do individualistic cultures. (Diener et al., 1995) Nevertheless, music aided me with a kind of “emotional shield”, and it had contributed to form an identity in the face of adversity.

Health and music

Music is healthy, period! But no, don’t take my words for it. Listen to the experts, in an experimental study it was examined how the physiological processes take place between the brain and the body during a choir practice. It was shown that there was a significant increase in salivary immunoglobin A, which is an antibody agent within the immune system and significant decrease in stress hormone cortisol.(Kuhn, 2002) Likewise, the musician’s pain threshold had increased, the study shows that singing helps the body to release β-endorphins and indeed other reports illustrated an increase in oxytocin levels, which is known as the “trust hormone”, inciting prosocial behaviour. (Grape et al., 2003)

I think we all agree that having higher than average self-esteem, being optimistic, joyous, having better mood, lower levels of stress and in general having better subjective wellbeing (SWB) is desirable. And this “invisible art” as music takes no solid form, has no smell or taste, totally transparent yet it’s everywhere, is our little helper, it helps to thrive and grow. The effect of music on the physiological and psychological processes of the body, shows similarities with the traits of happy people, these individuals usually display a self-serving bias just by believing themselves to be more morally and ethically educated, to be happier, less prejudiced and better able to socialize with others. (Janoff-Bulman, 1989) We cannot change our genetics, and sometimes we cannot even change our circumstances, but there is one thing we can change and that is the person we find in the mirror. We can change our mood and we can change our way of thinking; I feel that to me music, this “invisible art” is my shield and my sword in this world.

“The aim and final end of all music should be

 none other than the glory of God and the

refreshment of the soul.”

Johann Sebastian Bach

This quote sounds a bit religious, but metaphorically speaking God resembles music, simply because they are both invisible. However, I put an emphasis on “the refreshment of the soul” expression, music indeed can be very refreshing and numerous studies support this, in fact, the psychological benefits of music proved to be good enough that over time a new area has been developed in the field of psychotherapy and that is music therapy.

References:

Daykin, N., Mansfield, L., Meads, C., Julier, G., Tomlinson, A., Payne, A., Grigsby Duffy, L., Lane, J., D’Innocenzo, G., Burnett, A., Kay, T., Dolan, P., Testoni, S., & Victor, C. (2018). What works for wellbeing? A systematic review of wellbeing outcomes for music and singing in adults. In Perspectives in Public Health (Vol. 138, Issue 1). https://doi.org/10.1177/1757913917740391

Denora, T. (1999). Music as a technology of the self. Poetics, 27(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-422X(99)00017-0

Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Smith, H., & Shao, L. (1995). National differences in reported subjective well-being: Why do they occur? Social Indicators Research, 34(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01078966

Fancourt, D., Williamon, A., Carvalho, L. A., Steptoe, A., Dow, R., & Lewis, I. (2016). Singing modulates mood, stress, cortisol, cytokine and neuropeptide activity in cancer patients and carers. Ecancermedicalscience, 10. https://doi.org/10.3332/ecancer.2016.631

Grape, C., Sandoren, M., Hansson, L. O., Ericson, M., & Theorell, T. (2003). Does Singing Promote Well-Being?: An Empirical Study of Professional and Amateur Singers during a Singing Lesson. Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, 38(2). https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02734261

Janoff-Bulman, R. (1989). The Benefits of Illusions, the Threat of Disillusionment, and the Limitations of Inaccuracy. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.1989.8.2.158

Kuhn, D. (2002). The effects of active and passive participation in musical activity on the immune system as measured by salivary immunoglobulin a (SIgA). Journal of Music Therapy, 39(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/39.1.30

Millar, O., & Warwick, I. (2019). Music and refugees’ wellbeing in contexts of protracted displacement. Health Education Journal, 78(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/0017896918785991

Myers, D. G., & Diener, E. (1995). WHO IS HAPPY? Psychological Science, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1995.tb00298.x

Popay, J., & Williams, F. (2005). Balancing polarities: Developing a new framework for welfare research. In Welfare Research: A Critical Review. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203979365-19

Rund, E. (1997). Music and identity. Nordisk Tidsskrift for Musikkterapi, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/08098139709477889

Veenhoven, R. (1988). The utility of happiness. Social Indicators Research, 20(4). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00302332

About Roland Majla: Hi, my name is Roland, a student at Buckinghamshire New University studying Applied Positive Psychology MSc and I am from the enchanted land of Transylvania. Yes, this mythical place from Bram Stoker’s book actually exists. And I am a hopeful, travel and music-loving individual on a hunting journey, yes “hunting” for positivity on the land, air and sea, and then offering the “prey” for the hungry hearts and minds out there.

‘We Are The Positive Psychology People’

The post Music and Wellbeing appeared first on The Positive Psychology People.

The after lunch slump

We have attended the annual conference a few times.  It is a fantastic, well-organised event that has motivational speakers, exciting business changes and recognition for those who have achieved various milestones within their business.  However, no matter how uplifting the event, the inevitable after lunch crash makes an appearance.  You try to fight it but the yawning starts as you try to stay focussed – we’ve all been there!  So when the leader of the team building exercise came on stage, he had his work cut out to grab our attention and get our buy in for what was to come.  This was not a problem and he had our engagement within seconds.  I remember thinking “this is different for this event”.  It was very clear that we were about to experience the energiser of all energisers.

Grabbing our attention

The team leader was able to grab our attention with a simple clapping exercise, breaking down the auditorium in to smaller but still large groups.  The clapping in your group was done on his signal, with the objective being in time.  Of course this did not happen and the feedback was delivered, sometimes to individuals with an appropriate level of humour, which had us all laughing from the outset.   After a few minutes of bringing us together with various clapping routines, we were still not in sync.  Then we were told that by the end of the 45-minute session, we would create an orchestra that would play a piece of music in time, as one team.  We were both intrigued and excited.  How were we going to achieve this?

Bring out the Boomwhackers

The answer was with Boomwhackers.  Boomwhackers are light, coloured plastic percussion tubes in varying sizes.  Tapping the tube on the palm of your hand creates the sound in the form of a musical note.  The various sizes cover the range of notes.  Once introduced to the Boomwhackers, the next task was to distribute one to each of the 3500 delegates in less than two minutes – a teamwork task within a teamwork exercise.  Additionally, we were challenged with beating the time of the task from the conference the day before.  Volunteers appeared down each side of the hall with large bin bags stuffed with the tubes.  Everybody embraced the challenge, working fast to take a tube and pass the rest on.  Our determination led to success and we beat the previous day!

Building through leadership

Now it was time to build the piece of music, bringing it to a grand finale.  One by one, a team member from the company running the exercise came on wearing a coloured T-shirt that matched the colour of one of the Boomwhackers.  When your colour came on stage it was your turn to learn your note and how it was to be played.  Some were a single tap and others more.  As the number of team members grew on stage, so the piece of music started to develop and come together.  Every person in the hall focussed on their part, looking to their on-stage team member to guide them.  The team leader, who constantly had us laughing with his feedback on our rhythm and musicality, coordinated all this. We were completely enthralled with what we were doing.  Music can be so uplifting and being part of creating the music was giving us a real buzz.

The Grand Finale!

Just when we thought that we were coming to the end and feeling proud of our achievement, an additional section was added to the piece.  Several of the head office personnel came on stage with drums.  They were going to add a section halfway though what we had already developed.  More fun and laughter ensued as they went through a pretend mini version of what we had done with the Boomwhackers.  Whilst it was clear they had rehearsed prior to the event (their element was much more complex) it still added to the experience.

The 45-minute session was drawing to a close.  In such a short space of time we had transitioned from a large uncoordinated team to a real time orchestra.  It was time to play our piece from start to finish with the last note to be a single tap of our every Boomwhacker in the room at exactly the same time.  For the final time, the team leader gave us our cue and the orchestra began to play.  It was truly a magical sensation as the whole piece played beautifully right up until that final note.  Would anyone miss hit and throw the whole piece out?  The team leader brought his arms down in one final swoop as the auditorium brought their Boomwhackers to the palms of their hands – BOOM! Silence! Roars of cheers and applause!  We had done it!  Success was ours.

This event was provided by Creative Team Events – www.creativeteamevents.com

About the author: Stuart Dickson’s passion for personal development began in September 2013, when he joined a Network Marketing Company.  Part of his development is increasing his spirituality and the many ways of doing this.  His first blog, Happy Monday People was born from a project that came about from his personal development journey facebook.com/Happylifepeople

‘We Are The Positive Psychology People’

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