Learn how to combine two enriching practices to gain a new positive outlook on life.
Music Therapy is already a positive and enriching practice, but combined with positive psychology, you can create an entirely new, transformative perspective for yourself. But what exactly are these two practices and how do they fit together?
In this post, we’ll discuss the following:
Music Therapy is the medical use of music interventions to accomplish patient-specific therapy goals. Music can have significant effects on us, and music therapy utilizes these effects to help patients through problems and conditions. Music therapy involves interventions like listening to music and creating music in order to release emotions in a healthy way.
Music is something that can generally, and physically, improve our moods. If you listen to music often, you’ll attest that when a good tune comes on, it’s hard to feel gloomy as you’re dancing and singing along. Turns out this isn’t just a coincidence. There is real scientific evidence that listening to music increases dopamine levels in the brain. Music therapy is a practice that utilizes this to treat patients with conditions like depression, anxiety, and more!
When attending music therapy sessions, patients will participate in the following:
Positive Psychology is the study of what makes us happy. It’s a practice that strives to understand how we reach well-being in order to reach it. Usually, therapy involves focusing on problems, but with positive psychology therapy, the focus is on cultivating good. Positive psychology interventions involve doing activities in order to emphasize and encourage positive feelings.
More specifically, positive psychology aims to emphasize strengths and morals in people rather than problems and flaws. People who find themselves feeling depressed or anxious tend to lose sight of their redeeming characteristics, and instead can’t help but focus on everything that is going wrong.
Our moods are affected by what we focus on in day-to-day life, so focusing on negative things will cause worse moods. The opposite is also true, which is where positive psychology comes in. The practice helps patients begin to focus on the positive and in turn, improve mood.
Positive Psychology is applied in the following ways:
We’ve established that Music Therapy involves improving someone’s mood through music-related interventions and positive psychology involves focusing on cultivating positivity, but how do they combine?
Definition-wise, music therapy can be seen as a component of positive psychology. It can be used as such as well. Positive psychology involves cultivating positive feelings, and music just so happens to be a great tool for that.
Music is a positive aspect of our lives that improves our mood, so implementing it as a component of positive psychology can help enrich and diversify the therapy experience.
There are studies that have proven the effectiveness of integrating both music therapy and positive psychology by using adolescents and teens as subjects. It is worth noting that this method works especially well in this age group due to how it makes therapy a generally more interesting experience.
Ordinary therapy and other forms of psychology can be less effective with young people due to the mundane nature of the sessions. With positive psychology and music therapy, therapists can create a fun and exciting therapy experience that appeals much more to young people and those with shorter attention spans.
In one particular study, adolescents with anxiety were given positive psychology therapy aided by music therapy, and the results were undeniable.
The study was conducted with a sample of 9th-grade Chinese students in Hong Kong who suffered from anxiety and depression. The students met weekly for 90-minute sessions after classes. The sessions were led by a therapist with experience in positive psychology interventions and a certificate in music therapy.
The main goal of the study was to increase hope and foster problem-solving ability in the students. To do this, the sessions included the following activities:
After the study had concluded, the results were measured by asking the students to rate certain abilities on different emotional well-being scales through a questionnaire. According to these surveys, the experimental groups reported increased feelings of hope, confidence, happiness, and problem-solving abilities
Though there is most evidence to prove that positive psychology + music therapy is most effective in adolescents, it can be effective in all age groups. It can even be useful for dementia patients and the elderly. Music therapy can help seniors not only get into a better mood but it can also help prevent memory loss. If seniors frequently listen to music they listened to in their younger days, then it can stimulate the brain and help them continuously recall memories. On the positive psychology side of things, everyone needs a mood boost, especially old folks who find their bodies not working as well as they used to.
We’ve gone over the specifics and the evidence that positive psychology + music therapy works wonders for patients, but you don’t have to go to the doctor’s to experience the benefits of these practices. There are plenty of ways to implement these kinds of practices into your day-to-day life!
We’ve discussed how music therapy + positive psychology works in a controlled medical environment, now let’s talk about how you can make changes to your routine, even in small ways, to help increase your mood through music and positivity.
The easiest way to improve your mood with these practices is to just listen to the music you enjoy! Music makes us feel good, and so incorporating music more into your life will make you feel better — it’s as simple as that! Ways you can increase this musical mood boost are to dance and sing your heart out. A good active dance session is great for the mind and body — it can supply you with good exercise and a healthy way to release intense emotions.
It’s easier said than done, but not by much! When we’re down in the dumps it can seem like there isn’t anything to be thankful for in our lives, but there always is if you look close enough. The easiest way to incorporate positive psychology into your life is to take some time every day to count your blessings. Make a routine of listing what you’re thankful for and the list will get longer over time!
Creating music is one of the main activities used in professional music therapy. The reason for that is creating music allows us to express our emotions in ways that we can’t with our words. If just talking about your feelings doesn’t seem to work, then expressing your feelings through music might be worth a shot. So take up playing an instrument or singing, your mood might thank you!
The things that affect our moods the most are what we focus on every day. Positive psychology tells us that if we focus on the bright side of life, we’ll be happier. So stop and smell the roses every now and then. Go on a walk and observe how beautiful nature can be, or maybe research some recent positive news. Another way to utilize positive psychology by yourself is to look inward and understand what makes you great. You’re a unique person with admirable qualities, what are those qualities?
A specific way you can combine music therapy and positive psychology in your own life is to go to musical events and make great memories! If you’ve ever been to a concert before, chances are that you think of that concert every time you hear the artist’s music. When we make positive memories accompanied by music, it gives our brains one more good memory to cling to when we’re down. So if you’re able, go out with your friends and dance to some music at a party, a concert, or other event. From then on, when you want to relive good memories, just pop on the songs you were listening to!
Music is a very powerful thing on its own, but when it is combined with the even greater power of positivity, it creates a wonderful concoction of amazing practices that can be used to heal.
Positive psychology is a practice that involves cultivating happiness, and music therapy is one of the methods that can be used through positive psychology in order to cultivate that happiness. Through incorporating the calming and cathartic power of music in turn with learning to focus on the positive things in life, you’ve found a recipe for an improved outlook on life.
