What can music do for us?

What can music do for us? 9 PROBLEMS THAT WE CAN SOLVE WITH THE AID OF MUSIC

Music has many different applications; We use it to improve our mood, to do sport, to increase our motivation, to dance, in moments of social gathering, etc., but it has other uses, more peculiar uses and even scientific and medical, which are not only interesting, But have very positive effects. For example, music is used as a therapy for people with dementia or Alzheimer's, who react positively when they listen to their old favorite songs, coming to remember lyrics and even answer questions about their past. What other unknown applications does music have?

1. Helps premature babies

Babies who are born prematurely usually have weight problems, as they have not reached the adequate during gestation due to being born prematurely. To help them gain weight and strength, many hospitals turn to music, which reduces the pain that newborns may have, which helps them to feed themselves better and thus gain weight. In addition, experts say babies are easily calmed when they listen to Mozart's music, which implies a reduction in their energy expenditure, which also helps them increase their weight.

2. Plants grow better

Music not only helps babies grow, but plants also grow better, stronger and healthier if we put music on them. In the book The Sound of Music and Plants (1973), Dorothy Retallack relates her experiment with two identical groups of plants; The first group put relaxing music, while the second put rock music. At the end of his study he realized that the plants that had been exposed to relaxing music were uniform in size, leafy and green, and had grown in the direction of the sound source. In contrast, plants exposed to rock music were tall, but their leaves were drooping and faded, and had grown away from the musical fountain.

3. Heart problems

Music can help patients who are recovering from heart disease, such as heart attacks, and surgeries, because listening to it reduces blood pressure, heart rate and anxiety. In addition, experts say that listening to songs that produce feelings of joy increases vascular circulation and expands blood vessels, which helps maintain good vascular health.

4. Sports Performance

Did you know that listening to music while playing sports can improve your sports performance by up to 20%? Music causes, in a natural and healthy way, the same effect that we would get consuming stimulating or exciting substances, what is known as doping in the sports field. The best results are achieved by listening to fast beats during intense and more relaxed workouts for stretches and low impact sports.

5. Deafness

Music can not cure deafness, but it can help prevent it. In a study of 163 adults, 74 of whom were elderly and musicians, the participants' hearing capacity was assessed through several tests. At the end of the study, it was verified that the professional participants in music processed better the sound than the rest, even with the age difference between the groups (70 and 50 years).

6. Recovery of brain damage

One and a half million Americans suffer brain damage every year and about 90,000 of them have to contend for a long time against the sequelae it causes them, such as limited movement and speech ability. To combat these terrible consequences, experts have begun to use music as a treatment, stimulating through it the areas of the brain that control these two functions, that of movement and speech.

The results are encouraging; Patients with Parkinson's or who have suffered a stroke are able to regain balance and a symmetrical and safe step thanks to the rhythm, the beatings and the tone of the music. At the same time, the rhythm and tone of the melodies can also help the patients to sing the words that, in a normal conversation, are not able to pronounce. Music therapy is also positive for children with autism who can not speak, since music helps them to articulate words.

7. Affects adolescent behavior

How does music affect, specifically the lyrics of the songs, to the behavior of the adolescents? The researcher Tobias Greitemeyer set out to find out; To do this, in 2008 he conducted a study with two groups of young people. He exposed the first group to songs whose lyrics contained messages of help and social collaboration, such as Michael Jackson's Heal the Word. The second group listened to songs with more neutral messages. Subsequently, the researchers accidentally dropped a can filled with pencils in the presence of each of the groups. The teens of the first - who were listening to positive songs - quickly approached to lend a hand to pick up the pencils and even collected 5 times more than the youngsters in the other group.

8. Helps improve reading ability

Can music improve reading skills? A 2009 study compared the academic evolution of two groups of young people of second grade and of similar demographic origin, who were suggested to learn to play a musical instrument. In this way, one of the groups learned musical notation, visual reading of music and other skills, as well as their usual subjects. The other group continued their academic year without receiving these lessons. At the end of the year, the literacy level of each group was examined: the final scores of the group that studied music were significantly higher than those at the beginning of the year, especially in vocabulary tests; While those of the other group of students only slightly improved.

9. Music and wine for the senses

There are already some wines whose label recommends what kind of music should be heard while tasting, and is that a group of researchers have discovered that some types of music can enhance the taste of wine by up to 60%. In the study, wine tasters classified the different types of the beverage and its flavor taking into account a key factor: what music was playing while drinking. Thus, white wine seemed to be up to 40% more refreshing if accompanied with cheerful and fresh music. The taste of the red wine was classified in a 60% more powerful when accompanying it with music strong and powerful.