Another question I get asked fairly often is how music (and music therapy) can help in coping with anxiety and stress. Many of us experience everyday stress on a regular basis, and using music can be an easy way to cope. Listening to relaxing music: ~lowers blood pressure ~returns heart rate to normal range ~slows […]
On most days I’m a fairly well-organized person– got my to do list, created my agenda for the day, have a general plan for my schedule and all its’ moving parts. And then there are other days. Those days when my mind simply refuses to pay attention to the to do list…. or the agenda… […]
In November, I’ll be co-presenting a continuing education course for other music therapists at our national conference. One of the main components of the course is mindfulness, and it’s a topic that I’ve felt is increasingly important in our daily lives. In the past few years, mindfulness and meditation have become more popular—trendy even. Research […]
“Can music therapy help people deal with anxiety?” This is one of the most frequently asked questions I receive about music therapy. And the answer is a resounding “yes!” Here are the details (and a video!)– Research studies have shown that music therapy is effective at reducing muscle tension, decreasing anxiety, and feelings of agitation. […]
A few years ago as part of my GIM training program, our class participated in a sweat lodge. Since another woman and I would not be going into the actual lodge during the sweat, we had a bench placed several yards away. It was on the edge of a pond where we could pray and […]
A professional acquaintance of mine always (seriously, *always*) seems to be in a terrific mood– upbeat, friendly, encouraging, supportive. I asked him once if he woke up in a good mood every day, and he replied, “nope, but I choose to have a great day every day!” An increasing amount of research is demonstrating the […]
A couple of weeks ago I asked the followers of my Facebook page for suggestions on what they’d like to read about in future blog posts. One of the first suggestions was medication compliance, so here it is! Medication Compliance Let me start off by saying that this issue is bigger than it initially sounds, […]
First of all, my deepest and sincerest apologies for not doing a better job of keeping the blog up-to-date in recent months. It seems that life got in the way, and blogging fell off my to-do list. Truth be told, blogging isn’t my favorite thing to do. I often struggle to come up with topics, […]
The past couple of weeks I’ve been teaching a Lifetime Learning course on music and wellness at the local university. Near the end of last week’s class, one of the participants asked if I could talk to them about how to use music for healing. We had a terrific discussion about it, and I thought […]
After 4 years of post-master’s training and education, I’m now the only person in all of Alabama (and Mississippi for that matter!) who is qualified to practice Guided Imagery and Music (GIM). GIM is a specialty area of music therapy. You can read more about it in some of my other blog posts. So here’s […]
