Wurlitzer jukebox in the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, Havana
By Cat, June 10, 2017 (photo, right, from Wikimedia Commons)
This is not a food recipe, but rather a look at how music is the food of our soul.
My love of music goes way way back. My parents owned a bar that had a juke box; I listened to every song, learned the words and melodies so I could sing – and dance – along. But even before that, I listened to my Mom sing – horribly out of tune – to help me go to sleep. I even found music in the hum of her Singer Featherweight sewing machine as she stitched together garments.
Music can make me smile or cry, and exhibit all the emotions in-between. It can improve my mood when I’m feeling down. And I find music in many things that are not really musical, like the cawing of the ravens or chattering of squirrels in my yard; the sound of the lawn mower in summer.
So you can imagine how touched I was by the first video, below, especially the last few minutes of an elderly man with deep dementia, singing along to a favorite song from his younger years.
The wonderful effect of music on the brain, movement, and soul
I hope that if dementia happens to me, my caregivers will prescribe music from my iTunes library on my computer or iPod. Music has always been THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN MY LIFE, even more important than food.
The following short video, Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory (6:29 minutes), sums it up. (2) It, and the following two videos came to me from a Mercola article, How Music Helps Unlock Memories and Improve Quality of Life for Dementia Patients (1).
The following videos also are available on the same Mercola article (1)
This short one (3:44 minutes), by the late neurologist Oliver Sacks: “Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain,” explains how listening to familiar music may allow Alzheimer’s patients to access memories that have otherwise become inaccessible. (3)
The third video, “Music on the Brain” (29:17 minutes) has many examples of how dementia and Parkinson’s patients are helped with music, and also interesting research about music’s effect on humans and our brains.
References:
- Mercola: articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/06/08/music-therapy-dementia-patients.aspx
- Alive Inside video on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=8HLEr-zP3fc
- Dr. Oliver Sacks video on YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=MdYplKQ4JBc
- Music on the Brain: youtube.com/watch?v=rnUSNbqtVJI
