Music is my escape

I woke up feeling very overwhelmed and stressed. It was 5 AM and I was already on the verge of having a breakdown. I kept telling myself that today will be a good day and that I can handle this. I was still feeling this way when my husband woke up. He gave me a hug and told me that everything will be alright. He turned on some tunes and we got in the shower.

On our way in to work we listened to the radio, chiming in on the comments and questions from the DJ. We talked and sang along to the songs on the radio. By the time we got to work I was feeling just a little bit better, but it was not enough to last me all day. I got to work and tried to figure out what more I could do to ensure that the rest of my day got better. I put on my headphones and started working. A song came on my Pandora radio station that I hadn't heard in a long while. This made me smile. The song brought up some memories of when I was younger. I remembered the stress that I felt as a child and how I felt with it back when. I would sit up in my room and just listen to my favorite CD's and try to remember all of the lyrics in a song. I started to notice a trend and decided to keep at it.

When I am feeling very stressed and anxious I tend to avoid as much as possible. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to work. I don’t want to listen to music. I don’t want to do much of anything, let alone be productive in any way, and this was how I was feeling. I knew that I needed to do something to help ease my mind and get me back on the right track. I turned off my Pandora, and pulled up my YouTube then searched. I searched for all the songs that I used to listen to when I was younger, the songs that helped me get through my teenage years. This did not stop until well after I came home, and was ready for bed. I was feeling much better. When we got home, we prepared for the night, we fed our pets and made the bed. We sat up for over an hour taking turns playing old songs that we could sing and dance to, songs that had meaning and made a difference in both our lives. I did it! I successfully changed the day around and had a great night, not to mention I had the best nights sleep.

If you are wondering why this is, here are some things that you may want to know. Music has a unique connection to our emotions through the brain. Listening to music causes the brain to release what is referred to as 'Dopamine', which is just a fancy word for the feel good chemical that your brain releases to the rest of your body. Dopamine motivates you in many ways, and rewards you with the release that your body needs. Still not convinced? There are other physical benefits of listening to music. Music has been known to reduce stress, anxiety, lower blood pressure, and positively affect your mood. Listening to music can help with memory as well. The university of California at Irvine found that students, test scores significantly improved after listening to music, specifically Mozart in this study. This is called 'The Mozart Effect'.

So what are some ways that you can introduce music into your daily life? It is such an easy thing to do, but as I mentioned earlier, sometimes you simply don’t want to do anything. Try to start easier, and put on a song that you love to sing and dance to. Start off by playing music in the morning when you wake up. Listen to music in the car and at work. Don’t be afraid to belt it out and sing along. Who knows you may be headlining the next karaoke night!