You probably know all there commendations that there are for keeping your mind and body healthy. Eat a clean diet, make sleep a priority, exercise, reduce stress. We all know these things, but they're not always easy to do. So I'm frequently asked what else have you got? Well, here's another one. Learn to play a musical instrument. And I'm gonna tell you why that helps. I'm Dr. Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist and I make mental health education articles.
Playing a musical instrumentis one of the best things that you can do to exercise your mind and improve your overall mental state. Playing an instrument is very different though, from listening to music. Listening to pleasant music is great, but it's a passive process that uses mostly your auditory nerve path ways in your brain. So think of it as unidimensional, but reading and playing music involves activation of motor pathways in the brain, as well as the sensory path ways of auditory, visual and somato sensory. Somatosensory is touch. So, we're talking a 4D experience here.
When researchers looked at the brains of piano and violin players, they could see portions of the brain corresponding to hand development, being more developed than in people who did not play instruments. The radiographic finding for this is called the omega sign. This part of the brain represents the area that controls the movement of your hand.
The right side of your brain controls your left hand and the left side of your brain controls your right hand. So in one of these studies,they looked at the brains of piano players and violin players. Piano players use both hands to play and violin players use predominantly one hand, usually the left to do the intricate work of generating the notes.
The right hand controls the bow movement, which apparently is a less complex task. So the brain scan of the pianoplayers showed the omega sign of advanced developmenton both sides of the brain and the violin players only had the sign on the right side of the brain corresponding to that left-hand work. Why does this omega sign matter? Because it shows us that this complex activity actually changes the brain structure. Think about what's going on.
You use your visual cortex to see the music and the notes, and then you use other brain structures to interpret those symbols. Translate them into notes that are expressed on your instrument. Then you use your hands in a way to create the notes and your auditory path way.
Communicates with your higher brain to confirm that you created the note. Then you make a judgmentas to whether or not those notes were correctin pitch and volume. That's a lot of coordination and things happening within seconds. And it's a lot of work for your brain, but it's good work. And all of that control and coordination affects the motor development of your hands.
But that's not all, playing music also changes areas of the brain that control behavior and executive functioning like working memory,controlling your attention, organization and planning future activities. I talk about problems in this area of executive functioning in this article.
Executive function problem scan hurt you to your core as far as affecting how you feel about yourself and how others perceive you. A quick fix for this is medication like stimulants and antidepressants, but medications come with side effects. So why not address the issueat the brain wiring level? Neuroplasticity is the ability for the brain to change its structurein response to the things that we do.
Practicing mindfulness is an activity that improves anxiety and depression through neuro-plasticity. I talk about that in this article. An organization that has taken this information and used it therapeuticallyis Guitars For Vets. They have a program where they provide free guitars and individual and group musical lessons to veterans suffering from mental health disorders. They say on their website that they studied a group of vets who attended their program for six weeks. And the results were that the vets expe.
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