Some of my favorites by Enya.

In my last post I mentioned about new age music which is using for mind relaxing and I gave some of the examples  from Enya’s albums.

Enya is one of my favorite music artists. I think her songs can calm down my mind. As a music lover I like various types of music.Eastern classical, western classical, hip hop, Reggae, jazz and Baroque are some of them. (Baroque is a music type that can be directly used for the mind relaxing purposes. During my research I compelled to find more facts about baroque music and  hope to talk on  them in my future posts.).

I think the type of music that can entertain us is differ according to our mood. For example if I’m in a cool and happy mood I may feel to listen some hip hop or rock music. If I’m feeling sorrow, I prefer to listen slow classical  music. If i feel tired or bored I like to listen Enya’s music. It can refresh and relax my mind. I believe that taste of the music differ to person to person. So it is up to you to find what are the most suitable music for you for a  particular moment. Listening  high quality music with a high quality player, speakers or  head phones will provide you the maximum benefits of listening. 

Given below are several songs of Enya which I prefer very much. please check whether you too like them.:)

 

 

 

Enya’s music

During my last posts i talked a lot about the music therapy. my last post explained the music types that can be used for mind healing. today I’m going to give some of the examples . In my last post i mentioned about new age music. Enya is a musician who uses new age music for her creations.  Enya first became widely known when her 1988 album Watermark was released. Her follow-up, Shepherd Moons, was even more successful, selling over 10 million copies despite its slightly lower grade of ethereal enchantment. In 1997 she released Paint the Sky with Stars, an assortment of her best work from these two early albums plus gems from 1995's The Memory of Trees and the soundtrack to the BBC series The Celts. The most melodic and atmospheric examples of Enya's lovely Celtic-flavored songwriting shine on this disc. Overall, an outstanding collection from an artist who gives New Age a good name.

Personally I prefer her music . Also I think they will really help to calm down your mind. So you can try on these sample music and  see whether you like them.

 

‘Watermark’ by Enya

‘Shepherd moons’ by Enya

Stress relief music

 

Music is extremely a vast area that is  full with lots of variations. It depends on various countries, cultures, religions etc. But the most interesting thing is music is universal thing . That’s why we can feel and taste any kind of music which belong to different country or a culture. For example, sometimes we may not understand even a word of our favorite song. But we can feel the overall idea or the theme of that song. That’s why we can say that music is an universal language.

There are various various music types which are coming from various regions of the world. when considering about the music types that can be used for stress controlling, actually there are are many of them. Mainly three kinds of music types are used for stress releasing.

New Age music

'New Age music is music of various styles, which is intended to create inspiration, relaxation, and positive feelings, often used by listeners for yoga, massage, inspiration, relaxation, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management'

The melodies are often repetitive, to create a hypnotic feeling, and sometimes recordings of nature sounds are used as an introduction to a track or throughout the piece. Songs of up to 30 minutes duration are common.

New Age music is defined more by the feeling it produces rather than the devices used in its creation; it may be electronic or acoustic, or a mixture of both. New Age artists range from solo or ensemble performances using Western instruments such as piano, acoustic guitar, flutes, harps and many others, to electronic musical instruments, and Eastern instruments such as sitar, tamboura, tabla; and instruments from all other parts of the world.

Classical music

In here it is considered about the western classical music. It is given the extremely broad variety of forms, styles, genres, and historical periods generally perceived as being described by the term "classical music," it is difficult to list characteristics that can be attributed to all works of that type.

It is described that classical music as anything that "lasts a long time,"  however, there are characteristics that classical music contains that generally few or no other genres of music contain.

Classical and popular music are often distinguished by their choice of instruments. the string instruments including violins, violas, cellos, double basses and harp; woodwind instruments; brass instrument; and many diverse percussion instruments are used in classical music.

Especially in opera, the human voice is highly used.

Psychedelic music

Psychedelic music is a term that refers to a broad set of popular music styles, genres and scenes, that may include psychedelic rock, psychedelic folk, psychedelic pop, psychedelic soul, psychedelic ambient, psychedelic trance, and others. Psychedelic music can occur in almost every genre of music, including classical Western art music

Psychedelic rock evolved in the 60s as an offshoot of the rock and roll movement combining elements of rock, electronic music, eastern influences, and other diverse elements, inspired by the use of mind altering drugs like cannabis, mescaline, psilocybin.(Reference-  www.wikipidea.com)

Other stress controlling methods

There are many methods which can be used for controlling the stress level of human brain. Let’s simply have a look on those methods.

Meditation

Many religions contains meditation in the purpose of healing minds of the people. Also it can be practice out side of religious concepts.

Meditation helps you to achieve you a higher state of consciousness, to greater focus, creativity or self-awareness, or simply a more relaxed and peaceful frame of mind.

Deep breathing

deep breathing is a easy method of getting relaxation.

Deep breathing is the act of breathing deep into your body. It is a healthier and good habit of absorbing more Oxygen to your body.

Some of Yoga and other meditation methods use deep breathing techniques in mind relaxing

 Exercises

Physical exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness  and overall health. It is performed for many different reasons. It helps prevent the heart diseases, diabetes and many other diseases. It also improves mental health and helps prevent depression

Spas

The term spa is associated with water treatment .It helps for maintaining healthy body and mind. The spa towns or spa resorts offering such treatment, or the medication or equipment for such treatment.

when we compare the music therapy with above methods, there are many advantages of it. Main advantage is we can listen to music while we are working. It is not necessary  to allocate separate time for this. You can listen to music while you are working or studying. so it is time saving and effective stress relief method which we can use in our day today life.Also it is free from bad after effects.

Changing the states of the human brain by using Audio tones

There are scientific methods that can be used to change the sates of the human brain. Binaural beats are one of famous method of doing it. The basic thing that is doing in here is proving an audio tone that has a particular frequency which is in brain wave frequency range of a particular brain state. For example lets think your brain is in Beta state. You need to go to Alpha state to get relaxed your self. What you can do is provide your brain an audio tone which is in the range of 8Hz-14Hz. But It will not be work. Because human ears will not here the audio tones that are below 20Hz. The sensitivity range of the human ears is between 20Hz and 20000Hz. So how you can provide a tone below 14Hz frequency to your brain? Then you have to use binaural beats. Following picture provides you a clear idea on that.

Figure 2- How Binaural Beats work

According to the example which is describing in this picture, the left head phone will play an audio tone of 500Hz. The right head phone will play a tone of 510Hz. Then the brain will mix the two tones and it will take the difference of 10Hz. Now the brain has a tone that has an Alpha frequency. So the state of the brain will be easily convert in to Alpha. That means you are relaxed.

This is one way of relaxing your mind by using audio tones. This is a basic concept behind the music therapy.

What is stress?

Before look at  how music therapy can be used to control the stress level of the human brain, lets see  have an idea about what is stress.

Stress is a condition which has the ability to suffer the human brain.

There are six separate forms of stress that can be experienced. These are symptomatic in physical, behavioral, emotional, cognitive, spiritual, and relational aspects. Physical symptoms can be concerned as: headaches (specifically tension headaches), nausea, dizziness, sleep difficulties, tight neck and shoulders, racing heart, trembling hands, and restlessness.

Behavioral symptoms can be named as: a definite excess in smoking, bossiness towards others, becoming critical of others, grinding of teeth. Some of the emotional symptoms included such as: crying, anxiety, nervousness, boredom, overwhelming sense of pressure, overwhelming anger, being unhappy for no reason, and very testy.

Cognitive symptoms can be recognized as: forgetfulness, long-term memory loss, inability to make decisions, and constant excessive worry. Spiritual aspects of stress are: doubt, unforgiving,
apathy. Examples of relational symptoms included: isolation, intolerance, resentment, clamming up, nagging/whining, distrust, and less contact with friends.

Actually stress is a specific state of the human brain. There are four main states human brain. The are called Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta. Those brain states are occurred due to different frequencies of the brain waves. The brain wave frequencies relevant for each brain states are given below.

• Beta - 4Hz-30Hz
• Alpha - 8Hz-14Hz
• Theta - 4Hz-8Hz
• Delta - 0Hz-4Hz

Figure1- Brain waves in each brain state

In each of these states the brain responds differently. The activities that you can do are different when your brain is in those states. When your brain is in Beta state you are fully awake. Your mind is sharp and focused. You can pay attention on your works very easily when your brain is in this state. When your brain is in Alpha state you are relaxed. Your awareness will be expanding. Your creativity will be enhanced. When your brain is in theta state you will feel deep relaxation. Also it is a meditative state. Your brain is in delta state means you are in a deep sleep. This brain state will help both your body and mind for recovery processes.

Music therapy

In today’s world using music for healing purposes is called as music therapy. For this we can use classical music or self selected relaxing music.

Music can do wonder and alleviate bodily pains as well as mental stress. We can feel the comfort while listening to the beautiful and soothing music. Music has a great power to heal and the charm of music itself is so soothing that people who are stressed out can get rid of all their pains by listening to some light music

Play the music and sing along with it. It works like magic in the worst of time. Even if you can’t play any instrument, you can listen to music and sing softly with it. It also works while you are stressed out.

Biological response: Whenever the proper sounds were experienced by the listener, amazing right/left brain hemisphere synchronization occurred. It has been observed that the entire human energetic system is extremely influenced by sounds, the physical body and energy stores react specifically to some specific tones and frequencies

Psychological response: According to popular researches, music produces in the physiological response system and many psychological patients revived their senses after listening to the music. Music pertaining to loud drum beats was extremely soothing.

Music is an excellent therapy because is meets with little or no intellectual resistance and does not need to appeal to logic."

According to this statement it is clear that, for any group of people who are in any educational level or any age limit can use this music therapy to get relief from stress.