peace of mind | Musik als Medizin 10

MUSIC AS MEDICINE Using music as medicine has a long tradition. Since the Stone Age, people have tried to heal illnesses with music and rhythm. "Most healers among indigenous peoples used drums and singing to cure mental and physical ailments," writes Rüdiger Braun in his book "Our 7 Senses – The Keys to the Psyche." Ancient Egyptian papyrus scrolls praised the healing power of music, as did the Old Testament of the Bible. "In the Middle Ages, every aspiring physician had to study music," the book continues. We perceive music and rhythm as beneficial, probably because we ourselves are rhythm. We breathe rhythmically, walk rhythmically, and our heart beats sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Internal clocks in all body cells ensure daily fluctuations in organ activity, from the immune system to digestion. Our brain, too, oscillates and thumps in a wave-like rhythm, an ebb and flow of electrical activity through which nerve impulses are transmitted. Neuroscientist and pianist Jessica Grahn from the University of Western Ontario researches the connection between the brain and music. At this year's evening lecture of the annual meeting of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in Halle an der Saale, which the Canadian researcher delivered at the end of September, she addressed the topic of "Rhythm, Timing, and Movement: How the Brain Reacts to Musical Rhythm." Grahn explores questions such as: Why do certain rhythms, certain beats, almost automatically make us snap our fingers, tap our feet, or move our head and body from side to side? How is it that we can perceive a regular temporal pattern, a basic beat, in what we hear, and why can this be useful for people with movement disorders? This ability is highly complex and requires the interplay of many different brain regions. It connects people of all cultures who move to the rhythm by drumming, singing, and dancing. At the same time, this ability is evolutionarily very old. Some animals, such as sea li