Can the Right Music Reduce Stress?
Kaylene Nelsen, Assistant City Editor
Utah Daily Herald
Can the right music really reduce stress? Wayne Musgrave thinks so and so do the doctors at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center Behavioral Medicine (UVRMC). Musgrave has been involved in the music production business for many years.
Last year he developed 50 tapes for a psychologist to use in treating stress and related problems. Now, he is personalizing the tapes to meet the individual needs of patients referred to him by UVRMC doctors.
"We've had some very favorable response to this," said Bruce Busenbark, program director for the Adult Psychiatric and Behavioral Medicine Unit at UVRMC.
"Since time immemorial music has had an impact on people. It shapes their ideas and feelings," Busenbark explained. "Few people understand the message it can carry, how persuasive it can be, how healing it can be."
He also pointed out the medical fact that music addresses the right side of the brain, the same area where most emotions are centered. Music can then have a more significant impact on such things as stress, pain and other emotional problems.
Musgrave has also studied the affect of music therapy and worked with Dr. Steven Halperin, known as the father of music therapy. "It's basically my idea to personalize it, though," he explained.
Watching the affect of music on his own children, Musgrave developed a tape for use with babies and toddlers to calm them down. "If it works for children it should work for adults," he said, pointing out the tapes he made for a California psychologist last year. "Then I came up with the idea to personalize it.” Musgrave interviews patients in his music studio filled with a synthesizer, speakers and other electronic equipment.
He finds out the kinds of music and tones the patient likes, favorite instruments, pleasing sounds such as beach or mountain sounds and pleasant experiences. Then he mixes those sounds and music into a 45-minute tape.
"My thing is pop a cassette instead of a pill." One patient used his tape immediately following surgery. "It helped him think about pleasant relaxing times rather than the immediate pain," Musgrave said. A patient trying to work with pain control would get a specialized tape. Music and sounds are used to assimilate the pain and then the music gradually moves to a calmer level. The patient tries to move the pain to a more manageable level as well. "We create an atmosphere of comfort. We can't take the pain completely away," Musgrave said. "You have to learn how to use your mind in a way you normally don't. We take the pain and lessen it through sound.”
Musgrave is pleased with the acceptance his idea has been given at UVRMC. He sees at least three patients a week. Developing a tape takes about two hours. "The doctors loved it so much they wanted me to do it for them. The reason they're sold is because patients say it works."
"Marrying music to a particular picture or scene" is something Musgrave has had a lot of experience with. He has recorded religious, popular and Christmas tapes that sell on the commercial market. He has also scored music for films. But doing the individualized tapes has given him more satisfaction than his previous work. "I toured with a group. The gratification you receive from that is applause. It's over quickly, the applause is gone. This way I'm using my talents, my music, helping people on a one-to-one basis. I don't really need that approval anymore."