Audrey Hamilton: What kind of music helps you relax?
Maybe something classical? <classical music> How about this? <rock music> Different kinds of music can certainly alter how we feel or even how fast our heart beats. But, what
effect does music have on our brains or even our health? In this episode, a neuropsychologist discusses how research is changing the way we understand the power of music. I’m Audrey
Hamilton and this is “Speaking of Psychology.”
Psychologist Daniel Levitin is a professor of psychology, behavioral neuroscience and music at McGill University in Montreal. A former rock musician and studio producer, he now studies
the neuroscience of music and how music impacts our mental and physical health. He’s also the author of the bestselling book “This is Your Brain on Music.” Thank you for joining us, Dr.
Levitin.
Daniel Levitin: Thank you for having me.
Audrey Hamilton: I don’t think it’s surprising to
most people that music can impact us emotionally. You know, music moves people. But when it comes to our health, such as pain management or stress, how does music impact our brains? Can
music even replace medicine in some situations?
Daniel Levitin: Well, it depends on what you mean by
medicine. Lots of things that we do affect our physiology – exercise does and so we can say that exercise replaces medicine when it has the desired outcome in terms of our physiology –
our mental and physical physiology. And we've seen evidence now that music can alter brain chemistry and even the production of cytokines, immunoglobulin A, and other components of a
healthy immune system.
Audrey Hamilton: When we talk about music therapy
and music interventions, what is the difference? In other words, what does the term “intervention” mean?
Daniel Levitin: In the literature, there’s a
tendency to talk rather loosely about music therapy without respecting the definition of music therapy by the American Music Therapy Association. So, I've tended to use the word music
intervention as a term more broadly to talk about musical interactions that aren't necessarily music therapy. Just to clarify, music therapy is the evidence-based use of music in clinical
situations that help people reach desired health outcomes. And it’s normally practiced by a licensed music therapist – a music therapy practitioner – and there are special training
programs for that. So, if we use the word music therapy generically the way we use Kleenex to refer to any tissue, we’re not being precise. So, a number of us in the field have opted for
the word reserved music therapy for things that fit that definition that involves a licensed music therapist and to use musical intervention just to mean anything else. So, if somebody is
listening to music or they’re engaged in guided imagery or they’re playing an instrument in a therapeutic context or an experimental context – but it doesn't conform to the definition of
the American Music Therapy Association – then it’s music intervention.
Audrey Hamilton: Can you give me an example of what
a music intervention – I mean, I know you said it’s a very broad term – but, in your research, what would you consider a music intervention?
Daniel Levitin: Well, a music intervention would be
in a hospital where you’re doing an experiment and you might randomly assign some people in a pre-operative staging area to relaxing music and other people to a Valium and other people to
a placebo. That’s not being, if it’s not conducted by a licensed music therapist and it’s not following their protocols, then it’s an intervention and not music therapy.
Audrey Hamilton: But, a lot of what the work that I
know that you have analyzed and looked at and conducted yourself is focusing on just more evidence-based research on how music affects us.
Daniel Levitin: You know, I’m glad you mentioned the
evidence-based part because there’s been a lot of pseudoscience and just a lot of anecdotes about music, but relatively little actual experiments – true experiments in science. But the
direction that it’s going is that in the last five years, people are increasingly conducting controlled experiments with proper controls and with proper methods. And we’re finding that
early evidence, you know there’s not a whole lot of work on which to base this, but early evidence says that music can alter pain thresholds. It can increase immune system functions.
There’s stronger evidence that it can affect mood and heart rate and respiration rate. So, fast stimulating music stimulates the production of adrenaline and other hormones that get your
heart racing faster and your pulse increases and blood pressure increases and then soothing, relaxing music has the opposite effect.
The interesting thing here is that what I am calling stimulating or relaxing music is relative. It’s subjective to the listener. It doesn't work so well if the experimenter or the
therapist says I’m playing you some stimulating music. The person has to find it stimulating themselves.
Audrey Hamilton: How do you determine that?
How do you determine what someone finds more relaxing then another person?
Daniel Levitin: We usually just ask them. We ask
them to bring in a piece of music that they find stimulating or relaxing. So, that part of it is subjective and people are pretty good at that.
Audrey Hamilton: What do you find the most
intriguing about where this research is going?
Daniel Levitin: I think that it’s in some cases it’s
going to confirm intuitions that many people have about how music can function in their lives, so we’re already in a place and a time where people are using music as medicine. They’re
using music much as they use drugs. The average person hears five hours of music a day and many people instinctively reach for a certain kind of music to suit certain occasions, so if
you’re having a party, you play one kind of music. If you’re relaxing after a long day at the office you play another kind of the music. The kind of music you play when you’re trying to
wake up in the morning is different from the kind you play when you’re trying to go to sleep at night. Now, not everybody does this but a large number of people report in surveys that
they’re in affect, programming music to suit a desired mood outcome and so in that sense they’re using music for mood regulation.
Audrey Hamilton: Right. Is it really the music
that’s affecting us or is it the act of listening to music, you know, sometimes people listen to it for distraction purposes?
Daniel Levitin: There has been some work where
people try to find something that’s equally distracting, so you can hold distraction constant and potentially engaging, something equally potentially engaging. And, it seems as though – I
wouldn't say music has special properties – but, it has the ability to distract or engage in ways that other stimuli don’t.
It’s a very complex multi-dimensional stimulus. There’s a lot going on there. You've got rhythm and you've got timbre and you've got pitch and loudness and they’re all changing. They’re
correlated changes, but their changing and so it’s a very highly structured medium.
Audrey Hamilton: You often hear about how listening
to classical music, you know, can make us smarter, even babies. Is that true? What have you learned about how music affects our cognitive abilities?
Daniel Levitin: I think you’re referring to the
paper that came out many years ago by Rauscher and her colleagues that music, listening to Mozart for 20 minutes makes you show improvement on IQ tests, was the headline. And there have
been a lot of studies by a number of people, including Bill Thompson and Glen Schellenberg and others that have pretty much debunked that. But, there are tantalizing clues in the
literature that music is doing some things. I think the people in the field disagree about the size of the affects and the importance of it. But, the emerging picture is that it’s not so
much listening to music but learning to play an instrument and being a player can confer some advantages in other areas. It seems to provide attentional training and on a social side,
kids who play in musical groups in elementary school, in grammar school, tend to be more well-socialized. And you can sort of spin a story about why that might be, although that doesn't
mean it’s science. A kind of post-facto story would be, well, if you’re playing an instrument in a little ensemble, you've got to coordinate your actions with other kids. You've got to
listen to what they’re doing in order to make your part fit. And so, you've got to step outside yourself and become a little bit more empathetic. In that respect, it’s kind of like team
sports that may confer the same advantages as opposed to passive listening, which doesn't appear to confer those advantages.
Audrey Hamilton: Hmm, that’s interesting. Well,
thank you so much, Dr. Levitin. I really appreciate you taking the time and this has been very, very interesting. Thank you.
Daniel Levitin: Thank you.
Audrey Hamilton: For more information on Dr.
Levitin’s work and to hear more podcasts, visit our
website. With the American Psychological Association’s “Speaking of Psychology,” I’m Audrey Hamilton.
Cabinet
Troubadour
Musicothérapie
Neuropsychologist