Can drums beat depression?
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August 1, 2011 |
I’ve always found hitting drums to be very therapeutic. So I’m not surprised to read that playing musical instruments can temporarily help tackle depression.
A group of patients suffering from depression had music therapy alongside normal counselling. After three months the musical patients were less anxious and depressed than patients who just had standard counselling. However, after six months the researchers found that the difference disappeared.
Scientists think that music may help patients express things that they can’t put into words.
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Patients had 20 sessions with a trained music therapist, which involved activities such as drumming.
Image: Flickr/dougbutchy
Priya
People often scoff at things like music therapy and art therapy so its interesting that serious scientific work is going into finding out if these approaches have an effect.
I wonder whether some or all of the people in the study liked music anyway?
Suzy
Me too – I wonder if any of the people in the study were already musicians too…
Viv
I guess it’s a positive stimulus and arguably something that improves quality of life somewhat.
Alex
I’m not sure if they participants were musically inclined before they took part.
Here’s an interesting quote from the lead scientist on the study: ‘‘We found that people often expressed their inner pressure and feelings by drumming or with the tones produced with a mallet instrument. Some people described their playing experience as cathartic.”
Peter
Playing the bagpipes makes me happy, but it does not seem to do the same for some of my friends and colleagues