This is the last installment of the 7-Day Emotional Wellness Challenge. We are on Day 7 of 7 we’ve been discussing 7 WAYS TO BOOST YOUR MOOD! If you like to review those posts you can read Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6 blogs by clicking on the link.
Thank you do much for being a part of this 7-Day Wellness Challenge. I hope you are able to incorporate the 7 Ways to Boost Your Mood into your every day life. If you have a question, testimony or feedback to share please click here to do so.
Now let’s get to the final Day 7 tip!
Disclaimer: The following statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The product recommendations in this blog are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease. If you have any medical condition or taking any medications please discuss with your healthcare provider prior to implementing any recommendations.
There is so so much to say about the effects of music and sound on our Spirit, soul and body. Particularly, sound and music therapy which are based on quantum physics principles. Theoretical quantum physics displays the vibrational behavior of matter and light. The foundational theory is that everything in the universe has an inherent probability vibrational pattern. This pattern then allows the physicist to calculate the physical structure of atoms and molecules by how they emit and absorb energy, measured in light waves, in relation to universal vibrations.
You see, everything on the earth and in space has a vibration and a measurable frequency. That includes our body.
Like I mentioned in Day 6’s blog post, sound changed the molecular structure in Dr. Masaru Emotos water experiments. In cymatics, when you put sand on a vibration plate, different frequencies will cause different unified patterns on the plate. When the sound changes, the pattern changes. Positive uplifting music elevates the vibration of the body and can bring alignment.
When God created the universe, it was intricately built on harmonies woven together. From the birds of the air, the land, the waters, the clouds, to the tiny microorganisms that are crucial to our ecosystem are all part of His Grand Design. Just imagine the sound when in the beginning God first spoke the words, “Let there be light” and the speed of light continues on and on. He then created every living thing. The power and authority of God’s voice that created everything on the earth. In my mind I could believe that His voice projected would have sounded like a chorus of all the possible tones even those unheard to the human ear when the angels rejoicing in the background as the God of the universe spoke everything into existence.
In quantum physics, the Pythagoreans when trying to make sense of everything combined mathematics, music, and the understanding of the universe. Mathematical patterns are the foundation the musical scales, tones and sounds also describe the probability waves at the basis of quantum theory.
According to ancient texts, more than 2500 years ago Pythagoras applied his discoveries in music theory to the behavior of objects throughout the universe. He concluded that a pluck a string, and the pitch of the note it produces is related to the length of the string. He discovered the lengths of two strings are a simple ratio—1/2, 2/3, and so on—the notes together sound harmonious. Pythagoras believed that the universe itself hummed with its own harmony—beautiful, divine, and inaudible to human ears. He characterized the intervals between successive orbits, such as those of Mercury and Venus, as either tones or half-tones (the smallest intervals in the musical scale), adding up to seven whole tones that form a perfectly harmonious natural order. And this is just one scientific explanation of how sound is woven throughout creation.
In Biblical times, King Saul had David play music for him because he was struggling with an internal “evil” affliction. Because music was thought to have a therapeutic effect, the king summoned the hero and warrior David, who was renowned for his skill with the harp.
In 1 Samuel, it details the account of he direct correlation between the playing of David’s music and the relief experienced by Saul, a testimony that David’s music must have been very beautiful and also healing to deliver him from this affliction. The music David played had the power to cause the spirit to depart from Saul, and interrupted the oppression that had weighed heavy on him.
The musical abilities of David, made in the image of God, in conjunction with the Bible’s teaching that God sings (Zephaniah 3:17), would lead us to believe that God did not create music but rather that music is a part of His very being. Man’s expression in music could be a part of the image of God placed within him.
Did you know the polyvagal system, which has nerves that connect the brain to all the organs, is toned by soft nurturing voice sounds from the mother during infancy. So the opposite is true that yelling affects vagal tone. It is known to destructive and create trauma which leads to fight, flight or freeze reaction. It can dysregulate the vagal system, leaving people stuck in hypervigilant states, even unknowingly and producing adrenaline or cortisol constantly, which causes damage and wears out the body. Sound therapy has been proven to help calibrate the vagal system and calm anxiety or depression that came from trauma.
Because everything is a frequency. When you can find frequencies that can heal the body when you play them.
A 2019 Italian study on Music Tuned to 440 Hz Versus 432 Hz and the Health Effects found after the subjects were place in a room. on two sessions of music listening on different days. Both sessions used the same music (movie soundtracks) but tuned to 440 Hz on one day and 432 Hz on the other. Each session consisted of 20 min’ listening. They were monitoring the vitals (blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation), perceptions (physical and emotional sensations, for example fatigue and stress), and levels of concentration during the sessions.
When the music was tuned to 432 Hz tuned they found a slight decrease blood pressure values (although not significant), a marked decrease in heart rate and a slight decrease of the respiratory rate, compared to 440 Hz. The subjects were more focused about listening to music and more generally satisfied after the sessions in which they listened to 432 Hz tuned music. The data suggests that 432 Hz tuned music can decrease heart rate more than 440 Hz tuned music.
Unfortunately, most of the music today is at a 440 hz frequency. However, it previously to be 432. 440 is not a natural frequency and studies show it promotes anxiety. Look for healing frequencies. Tammy Sorenson is doing wonderful work in this area combined with her deep faith in the Lord and knowledge of the impact of frequencies to our body, mind and spirit.
When we hear music, the cerebellum synapses and lights up when we hear our favorite songs, triggering increased blood flow to the legs. Researchers believe that is why dance is so closely associated with nearly every genre of music that spans across time and culture. The region of the brain most impacted by almost every type of music in the world is also the area that makes us want to move, even if this is just clapping our hands or moving our heads.
Listening to music releases dopamine and serotonin into the brain, helping you relax and stay focused. Because of this, music energizes you and it improves your mood naturally. It’s great to know that something that so simple can impact your emotions so signifigantly.
A recent study at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands discovered that music has a dramatic effect on explanatory style and perception. The researchers asked test subjects to perform a task in which they had to identify with happy and sad emojis while listening to happy or sad music. Music turned out to have a great influence on what the subjects perceived. Interestingly, even when a ‘neutral face’ with no emoji was shown, the subjects often thought they recognized a happy emoji when listening to happy music and a sad one when listening to sad music.
This finding is particularly interesting according to the researchers. “Seeing things that are not there is the result of top-down processes in the brain. Conscious perception is largely based on these top-down processes: your brain continuously compares the information that comes in through your eyes with what it expects on the basis of what you know about the world. The final result of this comparison process is what we eventually experience as reality. Our research results suggest that the brain builds up expectations not just on the basis of experience but on your mood as well.”
You ever notice the music or sound effects in the background when you are watching a movie or television show or listening to a podcast? Often the sounds, noises and music are created specifically to bring out a feeling or emotion in a certain scene or portion of the story. They want to draw you in and the tones, the sounds and invoke emotion. While the cinematic view of the film may portray one emotion, the musical score is allowed to express a different, underlying emotion or feeling. Some times its providing a sense of foreboding uneasy feeling of unpleasant events likely to follow. Other times it could be providing a sense of pain and anguish, drawing out even the harden person to feel sadness and the rest to be in tears. Music and sound and what we hear has the ability to set the atmosphere in ways unlike any other sense we have. In his book, Emotion and Meaning in Music (1956), Leonard B. Meyers states that “emotion or affect is aroused when [an expectation] is arrested or inhibited” (p. 14). In other words, similar to George Mandler’s (1984) theory of emotion, when something unexpected occurs, it triggers a cognitive attempt to explain the incongruity; this state often results in biological arousal of the autonomic nervous system and an associated emotional response.
So since music can bring on powerful emotions and feelings, use to to change the atmosphere when feeling overwhelmed or stressed to make you feel peace, joy, and happiness.
Robin Perry Braun, MPsy, is one of the leading pioneers of integrated wellness in the Christian community, teaching individuals how to become the healthiest versions of themselves possible.
She is an ordained minister and certified Integrated Life Process Practitioner. She has developed her own certified modality and is training others globally to practice this model. Over the last 25 years Robin has been educating herself in techniques that work to bring healing to body, soul and spirit She is passionate about educating people in holistic wellness by teaching how to understand ourselves from a quantum energy perspective and learning how to live a life that’s thriving not just surviving. Which is our God-given destiny.