This is serious.
And I almost didn’t believe it when I first read it.
A few years back, Yamaha and Applied Biosystems sponsored a study on the health benefits of playing an instrument. The conclusion is startling:
playing a musical instrument can reverse multiple components of the human stress response
Yes, this literally means that playing guitar or singing can fight the harmful effects of stress.
And it’s no secret that stress can be linked to chronic health problems ranging from heart disease to cancer, and from diabetes to inflammatory diseases.
This was a legitimate scientific experiment
In Phase 1 of the study, subjects were asked to do a frustrating puzzle exercise. In Phase 2, they were randomly broken into three groups and did one of the following:
- continued the puzzle exercise,
- relaxed by reading newspapers or magazines of their choice, or
- participated in a recreational music making session
Some important details of the study you must know:
- none of the subjects considered themselves “musical”
- recreational music making was 3x more effective than just relaxing and reading
- recreational music can reverse the body’s response to stress at the genomic level
This blows my mind.
Music is so powerful that it can reverse our natural, human response to stress. It can alter genetic switches in our bodies to help fight off chronic health issues.
Health problems that could kill us.
Recreation is key
It’s important to emphasize that the study used recreational music making sessions.
Improve your life by learning in an environment focused on encouragement and fulfillment. Fixate on mastery and performance and you could end up more stressed out.
Neither I nor the study suggest dropping exercise and a healthy diet in favor of an instrument. But the data make a compelling case for picking up an instrument to blow of some steam.
Give it a try. Your life may depend on it.
Question: What’s your experience with recreational music making? How does playing an instrument improve your life?
** The featured image for this post is courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net / Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot