Composing Music to Heal Our Bodies

I get to brag about this one since some of the research is going on in my hometown, Cleveland Ohio. At our famous Cleveland Clinic Dr. Ali Rezai, director of the Center for Neurological Restoration, collaborates with The Cleveland Orchestra to compose classical pieces to play for patients during brain operations.

(I can personally attest to the healing force of the Cleveland Orchestra.)

In an article on MSNBC, author Bill Briggs points out that hospitals from Massachusetts General to the Mayo Clinic, are looking to music in the treatment of ailments from brain disorders such as Alzheimer's to cancer.

Dr. Claudius Conrad, a senior surgical resident at Harvard Medical School points out that "research has already shown that if you play a piece — like Mozart — at a certain slow beat, the listener will adapt their heart beat to the beat of the music.”

A study done at the University of Munich showed that critically ill patients required fewer sedative drugs when they listened to one hour of Mozart piano sonatas. Additionally patients showed a 50% spike in pituitary growth hormone, which is known to stimulate healing.

And here is proof of just how far medicine is going in adopting natural healing techniques. Dr. Michael Miller, director of the center for preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, recommends "listening to joyful music as part of an overall prescription for maintaining good heart health.”