Daily Mail, Monday, August 12, 2019 Page 45by Rachel Carlyle
A
nyone who’s ever been
dumped by a boyfriend
then sat in their teenage
bedroom playing I Will
Survive at full blast canattest to the healing power of music.
But research is taking music’s curative
properties to whole new levels — you can
now buy tracks specifically designed to
help you concentrate, sleep, even soothe a
headache or control chronic pain.
‘We are only just beginning to tap into the
vast therapeutic power of music, which
research shows causes more areas of the
brain to light up [when scanned] than any
other activity,’ says Lyz Cooper, founder of
The British Academy of Sound Therapy.
Research is ongoing, but we know that dif-
ferent frequencies of music tell the brain to
do certain things. For example, a high-fre-
quency sound, such as an alarm or scream,
will trigger the release of adrenaline, the
hormone that prepares you for action.
‘A low-pitched sound, like a deep voice or
bass drum, relaxes you,’ adds Cooper.
‘That’s because our brain detects a lower
frequency as a slower sound wave, which
can actually slow down the brain itself.’
‘There’s a phenomenal surge of research
into this at the moment, although we don’t
yet know exactly which frequency has what
effect, so it pays to be wary of some of the
wilder claims,’ says Cooper, who is also a
therapeutic music researcher and author of
What Is Sound Healing? (Watkins, £7.99).
However, it’s not unthinkable that we’ll
get to a point where doctors prescribe
different kinds of music for a variety of
conditions and we’ll have playlists for every
ailment or mood.
‘I think we’ll have wearables which
measure our brainwaves,’ says Cooper.
‘They’ll tell us when we’re stressed and will
detect exactly the correct level of relaxing
music to calm us down.’
In the meantime, here’s some music to
add to your medicine cabinet...
From melodies for memory to concertos for
concentration, it’s time for a new playlist...
Five ways
that music
really can
transform
your life
Mind-boosting
marvels of Mozart
IF yoUR teachers told you to
revise to Mozart, rather than
Madonna, they weren’t wrong; the
right kind of music can aid con-
centration. And researchers are
now producing music to tune your
brain to concentration mode.
one company, Focus at Will, a
favourite of high-achievers in
Silicon Valley, asks you to take a
personality quiz, then recom-
mends its playlists of instrumen-
tal music — such as classical
piano, up-tempo running-type
tracks and the sound of water
sloshing — to match your
brain type.
‘If you’re one of the 20 per cent of
type-A high achievers who are
very productive, you also tend to
be easily distracted,’ says founder
Will Henshall. ‘you’ll need more
energy in the music. These are the
kind of people who get enraged by
“relaxing” whale music.’
Focus at Will has two million
users and promises a four-fold
increase in concentration.
Research among users shows their
concentration rates rise from 20
to 25 minutes to 75 to 80 minutes.
Most use it for about six hours a
day during the working week. one
study also found it improved
mood. However, for some reason it
doesn’t work at all for one in three
people, says Henshall.
O Focusatwill.com: There’s a
14‑day free trial, and after that
it’s £8 a month.
Symphony to
send you to sleep
A genTLe lullaby might help you
nod off, but Brain.fm’s music is
engineered by artificial intelli-
gence to get you more of the
refreshing ‘slow wave’ sleep, or
deep sleep.
In one (albeit tiny) study, volun-
teers listening to the instrumen-
tal, beat-driven tracks through
the night experienced 24-29 per
cent more deep sleep. This is
when waste products are flushed
from the brain and memories
are encoded.
It works using low-frequency
music — in other words, a low-
pitched sound or low notes, which
encourage the brain to slow down,
and also boasts an innovative ‘3D’
sound to create the feeling of
being rocked in a hammock.
‘The sound is engineered so it
appears to move around you — a
bit like surround sound in cinemas
— as if you are being physically
rocked. We believe this virtual
rocking helps you to sleep deeper,’
says Dr Kevin Woods, director of
science at Brain.fm.
The music is designed to be
played all night through head-
phones (it doesn’t work without
them), so Dr Woods recommends
headband-style ones designed to
be slept in.
O Brain.fm: A subscription costs
£4.99 a month or £39.99 a year,
with five free taster sessions.Melodies to help
you remember
MUSIC is linked to our memories
in all kinds of weird ways. For
instance, people in the later stages
of dementia can still remember
songs from their childhood and
are able to play the instrumentthey learned as a child, even when
they can’t recognise their own
families, says Lyz Cooper.
In a small U.S. study, setting
words to music helped people
with Alzheimer’s remember them
far better than when they were
just spoken.
Again, it may be something to do
with our brainwaves. Research
has shown that when the brain is
storing memories or learning new
information, it generates brain-
waves at a frequency that’s higher
than the ones associated with
deep relaxation.
older adults suffering cognitive
decline have lower levels of these
types of brainwaves. So the theory
is that if you stimulate the brain
with these higher level waves, you
may be able to improve memory.
The research is in its infancy, but
there’s now music of exactly this
frequency specifically aimed at
improving your memory, although
there isn’t yet concrete evidence
that it works.
The Memory enhancer tracks
from Binaural Beats Meditation
(£7) use this frequency — fairly
low-pitched music with strings
and a harp-type instrument,
which meanders gently along for
either 30 or 60 minutes.
O binauralbeatsmeditation.comEase stress with
a soothing sonata
LISTenIng to calming music can
lower blood pressure, heart rate
and anxiety levels, and lift your
mood, research reveals.
An intriguing study in new york
showed that patients having a
cataract operation, who listened
to music before, during and after
surgery, felt calmer and had much
lower blood pressure afterwards.
It even works with unconscious
patients: in one study, they
required fewer sedation drugs if
they were listening to the slow
movement of Mozart piano sona-
tas, and also had lower levels of
the stress hormone adrenaline.
There’s no clear consensus about
which music works best, although
most studies are done with slow,
classical music.
Soul Medicine takes a novel
approach to lowering stress levels.
Its music, a kind of mystical spa
type, is tuned to a slightly differ-
ent frequency than the worldwide
standard pitch of A=440Hz.
Verdi liked to compose music in
A=432Hz, and some musicians
feel it has a richer, calming sound.
In one study, volunteers’ heart
rates fell after listening to music
at that lower pitch compared to440Hz. According to Denise
Leicester, a sound healer and
founder of Soul Medicine, music is
mathematically more in harmony
with the earth (which vibrates at
8Hz) when it’s tuned to A=432Hz.
A study looked at blood profiles
of volunteers after listening to
Soul Medicine, and discovered
increased activity among white
blood cells, indicating a healthier
immune system and increased
ability to deal with stress.
O Soulmedicine.me: £20 per
album or £6 per trackLow-frequency
to help kill pain
MUSIC can access the same
neural pathways as painkilling
drugs, and prompt the brain to
produce its own natural opioids,
research has proven.
Amazingly, people listening to
music after hernia surgery request
one-third the amount of morphine
of those with no access to music.
generally, the kind of music that
works best on pain is fairly low fre-
quency, says Peter Lix, founder of
Binaural Beats Meditation, which
has produced a specific pain relief
music download lasting either 30
or 60 minutes, costing £7.
‘We use low frequencies that take
the brain closer to deep relaxation
and sleep. Research shows people
become less anxious and fearful
about pain in this state,’ he adds.
Lix uses ‘binaural beats’ in his
compositions: this is when music
at a slightly different frequency is
fed into each ear through head-
phones. The brain responds by
interpreting the two different fre-
quencies as one new frequency. It
then produces brainwaves at that
new frequency.
A small 2016 study of 36 adults
with chronic pain revealed that
listening to binaural beats at that
frequency, for 20 minutes a day,
resulted in a huge reduction in
pain severity after 14 days.
O binauralbeatsmeditation.comLife’s
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