HERE IS THE LINK FOR the WEEK 3 SURVEY
https://forms.gle/BWNTUYmmvE14LVNo8
The WEEK 4 challenge is:
HEAL Your Soul with Music!
A few days ago, I was telling Bill that I was having a hard time deciding which challenge I wanted to do after the sleep challenge and he said "Have them WAKE UP!" and the first thing that came to my mind was MUSIC!! I love waking up to beautiful music, and the way it makes MY SOUL FEEL ALIVE!!
You'll find my favorite songs and I'm giving you a sneak peek at the MYSTERY CHALLENGE POINTS for next week AHEAD OF TIME at the end of this email!! Keep reading!!
So this week's challenge is to fill your day with music every day this week! To get a point each day do ONE or more of the following: (one cheat day allowed)
* Listen to music (at least 15-30 min. a day- or MORE!!) while getting ready for the day, walking the dog, driving in the car, exercising, at work or at home!! (instead of the news, podcasts, books or silence) OR....
* Play an instrument (at least 15-30 min. a day or MORE!!) If you have a piano, guitar or any instrument you used to play that is getting dusty, GET IT OUT and PLAY! OR...
* If music is already a BIG part of your life, see if you can stretch yourself in some way! Maybe SING ALONG, write a song, or share some songs with us, or listen to it for longer (or louder?) than normal! Roll those windows down!
Music was a huge part of my childhood. My sisters and I all sang in choirs and small groups because my parents sang! One evening, when my parents were in college, my dad saw my mother singing in small ensemble at an event they were both attending. My dad turned to his buddy and told him, "I'm going to marry that girl!" HE DID! I'll never forget watching my parents rehearse and perform "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof when I was a little girl. Music was always reverberating through our home. We had Disney records, Captain Kangaroo, Tiajuana Brass, and many more but the most oft played were the The Four Freshmen records! They seemed to play ALL THE TIME over our huge speakers that we had upstairs and downstairs and their beautiful, tight harmonies- that influenced the Beatles and the Beach Boys- would flow through the house. My dad would croon at the top of his lungs. We did too! I love those songs to this day and they bring back such sweet memories! My sisters and I have been to see them in concert with my parents a few times. It's great to sing along with all the old folks! HAHA!
Our bodies and souls are made of matter & energy, which is in constant vibration. Music has a profound effect on us. The right music can HEAL, SOOTHE, and BRING US TOGETHER! This is why we sing at my retreats! I also, personally, have found many answers to difficult questions, and reassurance that GOD LIVES and LOVES ME, in music. I want to share some of those stories with you on our Zoom call tomorrow. 3:00pm AZ TIME!
HERE IS THE LINK FOR THE ZOOM CALL! https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82700726779
I found a fascinating article about the healing power of music. He references TONS of studies in his research. Here is the link to the whole article. Some of his thoughts are just theories but it leads to some great insight... http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2074-77052017000100016
Below are are a few cool sections if you don't want to read the whole thing:
I also recorded it on Sound Cloud for you HERE
A brief historical introduction to music as a spiritual and physical healing tool
The idea that music can and does affect us neurologically and spiritually in positive ways to bring about healing if rightly presented is historically well documented. For example, many great figures of antiquity such as Galileo, Orpheus and Pythagoras, writes James (1995:99), offer 'evidence through their extensive body of classical literature, asserting the miraculous power of music to move the spirit, heal the body, and influence sublunary affairs'. Music, according to Misic et al. (2010:839), '… has been a medium of therapy for centuries, and there are many examples of the curative or healing powers of music in the historical records of different cultures'. In Musica Humane, for example, Pythagoras - the Greek philosopher and mathematician - suggested that there is harmony or inharmonious resonance (harmonic frequencies) between soul [mind] and body [brain] (cf. James 1995:31). Further, Plato, regarded as one of history's most influential philosophers, stated, as referenced by Carroll (2011:171-178), that 'Music is medicine to the soul' and 'Through music, the soul learns harmony and rhythm and even a disposition to justice' (cf. Thompson 2014:130-131).
Since ancient times, music has been recognized for its therapeutic value. Greek physicians used flutes, lyres, and zitters to heal their patients. They used vibration to aid in digestion, treat mental disturbance, and induce sleep. Aristotle (323-373 BCE), in his famous book De Anima, wrote that flute music could arouse strong emotions and purify the soul. Ancient Egyptians describe musical incantations for healing the sick. (pp. 43-45)....
It is evidently clear that over the centuries, music has held a special place in civilisation. The quandary, according to Wimberly (1997:103), is that insignificant consideration is assigned to the spiritual and physical healing power of especially, religious songs. Music, as a vehicle for self-empowerment and spiritual wellbeing, can be found in the traditions of many cultures yet often ignored in contemporary societies. For example, Bealieu (1987) writes:
In India, it is said that the universe hangs on sound. Not ordinary sound, but a cosmic vibration so massive and subtle and all-encompassing that everything seen and unseen (including man) is filled with it. (p. 35; see also Reck 1997:7)
The sacred sound referred to here, as presented by Lochtefeld (2002:482), is called Om or Aum. It is considered a spiritual symbol and a vibrational mantra in all Indian religions and allegedly encompasses all words and sounds in human language, including music. As presented by Bealieu (1987) and Reck (1997), it is regarded as the basic (vibrational) sound of the universe.
Nevertheless, there is significant movement towards understanding the healing power of music. To employ the words of Scarantino (1987:73), 'Music works. It soothes. It comforts. It reaches deep down and touches us on a biological and emotional level, including on a spiritual level'. To complement this, Wimberly (1997) stresses:
Whether physical, psychological, relational or spiritual, healing is a dynamic and mysterious process that happens. It is given by God who created us and who seeks to help us arrive at healing and wholeness. (p. 104)
Therefore, and as further argued by Wimberly (1997:100), the use of music to promote healing is not new, 'Healing shrines and temples of old employed hymn specialists and prescribed music for the emotionally ill'. In ancient Greek culture, as stated by Goldman (2002):
… the god Apollo was god of both music and medicine. There were healing temples which focused on music as the main force for harmonising the body and spirit, thus affecting cures. (p. 28)
One also finds that music, in particular, was employed in various instances to heal and deliver people in biblical times. As expressed by Meymandi (2009:43-45) there are hundreds of references to music throughout the Old and New Testaments. For example, David's use of the harp to soothe the madness of Saul (see 1 Sm 18:10). LeAre (1981:11) also rightly indicates that 'on the toughest night of His life, before going out into the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus and His disciples sang a hymn' (Mt 26:30). One could rightly argue that singing, for example, is the way the body harmonises itself and brings calmness and peace to troubled minds. For example, McClellan (2000) maintains:
Singing regulates, sustains and deepens the breath, increases the sensitivity of auditory system and refines the internal sensing process. Singing can resonate the entire physical body and the electro-magnetic field, fully engage the mind, and give the emotions a vehicle for expression and produce an overall sense of wellbeing. When we combine the singing of sustained pitches with specific vowels and directed concentration we can, in addition, revitalise our internal organs, tone our endocrine gland system and calm our nervous system. (p. 71)
On this Musicologists agree, because they state, as expressed by Pereira et al. (2011), that music is a form of language or communication that directly accesses the emotions, with or without intermediating words and rational thought. The question now is: how does music promote healing, especially towards stress and anxiety?
The efficacy of music to reduce stress
Music therapy has an empirically demonstrated efficacy as an independent treatment for reducing stress, the major cause of depression (see Chan, Wong & Thayala 2011:332-348), anxiety (see Li et al. 2011b:1145-1155) and pain (see Li et al. 2011a:411-419). As revealed, music evidently has special characteristics which exert positive or negative effects on people, by stimulating the autonomic nervous system and central nervous system. How this is achieved will now be further advanced.
Music's rich history as a healing tool was briefly unveiled, to reveal its importance in human structure, and show that in a sense it is the physical part of the spiritual. Unlike many other stimuli, music can often evoke emotions spontaneously without external associations. Music, as the 'carrier wave', can bring the human body's inharmonious chemicals back into harmony (order to chaos and conflict), thus reducing stress and related emotions, which are the major cause of sickness. In this case music, as a tool, can be used to affect emotion, alter mood and arouse intense biological responses.
Further, and as presented by Leaf (2013:33), 'Research shows that 75 to 98 percent of mental, physical, and behavioural illness comes from one's thought life'. She further states, 'This staggering and eye-opening statistic means only 2 to 25 percent of mental and physical illnesses come from the environment and genes' (Leaf 2013:34). Stress, according to Slavich and Cole (2013:331-348), can slow the healing of wounds and weaken the immune system, making infections and disease more dangerous. In fact, according to Bauer (2003):
Stress and depression change the activity of genes not only in numerous immune messenger substances (cytokines), but also within the cells of the immune system (for example T-cells and natural-killer cells). (pp. 84-88)1
Interestingly, diseases within a human body, according to Beck (2007:69), may also express an internal disharmony that has to do with one's (unconstructive) relationship with God. Disharmony of this kind negatively affects the immunological system and influences one's genes. On this, Slavich and Cole (2013:331-348) conclude that the impact of stress on health can be mapped to genetic changes and the brain, as will now briefly be explored.
Neuroscience and harmonic frequencies
As presented by Leeds (2010), a sound researcher, educator and music producer:
The quantum leap in understanding music and the nervous system, and the ability to administer precise frequencies for specific physiological applications, comes forward through high technology advances of electroencephalography (EEG) - recordings of electrical activity along the scalp produced by the firing of neurons within the brain - and through the invention of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). (p. 90)
Neuroscience further informs us that not only are our brains flexible to change - a term called neuroplasticity - but that this change especially happens when listening to music which as presented, are complicated mathematical harmonic frequencies which, when converted to energy, affect the human body in various ways. For instance, Watanabe (2012) claims:
Music has the ability to spark memories and evoke powerful emotions. The past decade has seen an exponential increase in studies of music and emotion. So far, most studies exploring the psychological and neural basis for the impact of music on our emotions have focused on perception, induction, and recognition of basic emotions, such as happiness and sadness. (pp. 1497-1498; see also Pereira et al. 2011)....
Through these meticulous studies, scientists now have empirical evidence that shows that the human brain reacts to music (harmonic frequencies) in various ways and relays this to different parts of the human body by transduction, to create, as previously explained, a positive or negative chemical response. One of the positive ways is that certain musical vibrations may realign the chemical imbalances within the human body and bring about healing for certain maladies (see Akiyama & Sutoo 2011:58-60). Here, Gaynor (2002) makes a profound statement about the healing power of music, and he states:
Sound is a uniquely potent form of energy medicine that entrains us to the vibrations of our own essence and that of the Universe. Sound is also the simplest, most direct route I know to achieve the sense of profound calm that allows us to move into that peaceful inner place, that I call our essence. (p. 189)
Conversely, listening to music that promotes negative chemical responses can cause our bodies stress and harm. For instance, in studies conducted by Zhang et al. (2012:1573-1578), they show that negative, or 'frightening', music can quickly provoke negative emotions in listeners. ...
Undoubtedly, and as expressed so far, music as a tool to communicate emotion and modulate mood can arouse powerful reactions. Unlike many other stimuli, music can often and unexpectedly stimulate various emotions in the absence of external associations (cf. Blood et al. 1999:382-387).
I hope you are feeling MEGA inspired to see what a difference MUSIC can make in your life!!
Here are some my FAVORITE SONGS and a link to my best sound cloud lists! Each one has a story! I will share some of them with you on the
ZOOM Call!
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82700726779
Brand New, by Ben Rector
Greater is He, by Blanca (I LOVE BLANCA!)
Fill the World With Love (from the Musical "Goodbye Mr. Chips") by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (now The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square)
HERE IS the LINK FOR MY SPOTIFY PLAYLIST "Music for my Soul"
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45zaZz9LGECHx98KZpVLXd?si=a28d7ba740d340bf
Tava Udall made a Spotify playlist called "TREE OF LIFE" for the last challenge I ran. It's AWESOME TOO!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4WbrezOpcp4W7MdFxB4UgD?si=9e5ff2d07bca4e11
If you don't have SPOTIFY download and sign up for free (or pay $10 a month for premium- they have family accounts too for $15.99/mo) at this link
https://www.spotify.com/us/download/android/
AS PROMISED: I'm giving you sneak peek at the MYSTERY CHALLENGE POINTS for next week RIGHT NOW!!
DANCE!!!
Have a dance party (or moment) with yourself or friends or family and give yourself 3 POINTS! JUST DO IT!! IT FEELS SOOOO GOOD!!! No one has to see!!
