Yay it’s Friday! We made it to the end of Week 8! As we continue with remote learning, remember to take breaks from your screens. One way to rest your eyes, while taking well-deserved time to relax, is to immerse yourself in the beauty of music.
As simple as it sounds, listening to music can be an effective way to boost your mood, increase motivation, and relieve stress. In fact, music can be used as medicine. Music therapy is clinical care provided through interactive music activities that promote health and well-being. Music therapy can be used to help people in numerous ways, such as to manage pain, anxiety, and stress. A fun and creative way we can tap into music for stress relief at home is by making our own therapeutic playlists.
To begin, let’s reflect on our current mood. Then, think about the emotional state you would like to attain. As an example, I will be creating a playlist to improve from a stressed state to a relaxed one.
Next, make a list of songs that you enjoy. Sort out your favorite tunes into categories of various moods. Try to select songs with lyrics that align with your feelings or songs that are instrumental. Pick songs that speak to you emotionally. You can even try to figure out why some songs make you feel certain ways to help you find new tunes to add to your therapeutic playlists.
We can now fill our playlist with songs that match our current mood and songs that will lead to our desired one. Look at the tempo, or the pace of the musical piece, volume level, and instrumentation type of your tunes. Using these three qualities, choose songs that fit your mood now and the mood you want to achieve. For my stress relieving playlist, I will select from my favorite orchestral, wind ensemble, and solo pieces that I find most comforting and calming.
Finally, we can arrange our playlist to help us transition from our current emotional state to our intended one. Order your tunes in a way that progressively guides you from your current mood to the mood you want. Aim for a playlist that totals to at least thirty minutes to give yourself enough time to process the music.
Congratulations! You just designed your very own therapeutic playlist! Here is the relaxation playlist that I created for myself: Meigan's Relaxation Playlist.
Now that you have your playlist, take some time from your day to sit back, close your eyes, and relax. Press play. Allow the melodic passages to fill your head and let your mind wander away from your to-do list just for a moment.
Sources:
“American Music Therapy Association.” What Is Music Therapy | What Is Music Therapy? | American Music Therapy Association (AMTA), www.musictherapy.org/about/musictherapy/.
“Music Therapy.” Music Therapy | UCLA Health, www.uclahealth.org/mattel/music therapy.
Rook, Jenni. “6 Ways Music Eases Anxiety.” Anxiety.org, 29 Oct. 2016, www.anxiety.org/music-therapy-stress-reducing-playlist.
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