Gormley 1

Marybeth Gormley

Professor Graeme Harper

HC 1000

22 September 2017

Tools of Discovery: Music Therapy and Anxiety

Anxiety is a detrimental problem amongst teens. To solve that problem, we need to

consider therapy from the health sciences area of academic disciplines. Using music, a popular

hobby amongst young kids, therapists and councilors may be able to help cure this growing

disorder in a healthy and convenient way for teens. They need a way to help control anxiety

problems to help them succeed in school and in everyday life. There are many categories of

anxiety disorders such as generalized, panic, phobias, social anxiety, separation anxiety, and

agoraphobia (Parekh), but a generalized definition was given by The National Institute Of

Mental Health, as someone who displays excessive worry in everyday life (Anxiety

Disorders). Anxiety can cause muscle tension, sweating, restlessness, forgetfulness, sleep and

concentration difficulty (Anxiety Disorders). When taking a test, anxiety can cause teens to

forget everything they had learned. This can cause an overall average of lower test scores in

schools. Utilizing music therapy can help a child overcome all the categories of anxiety. Music

therapy is an established health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic

relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals (What Is

Music Therapy). With the correct training, music therapists could train school councilors to

help students find the type of music that relieves their anxiety. With that information, teachers

could allow students to listen to their music before tests or exams with the objective of

improving tests.
 Gormley 2

Purpose: Anxiety influences how well teens do in school, life, and in future career fields.

Some students entering Middle School or High School may have anxiety over public speaking,

tests, or simply being around a mass amount of people. Most teenagers listen to music daily, so

why not use that to improve their health? This therapy aims to relieve anxiety caused by stress

amongst teens and to improve test scores. When students get stressed, they tend to forget

information they learned and tests may show they are uneducated. They may know the

material taught to them, but the grade on a test does not reflect their actual intelligence. Music

therapy can reduce stress and make test scores that reflect student knowledge more accurate.

Step 1: Research. According to a journal by Wendy E. J. Knight and Nikki S. Richard,

previous research suggests that anxiety can indeed be reduced by relaxing music and can even

drop blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol (254). Music therapy is known to help with regaining

speech, lessen dementia, reduce asthma episodes, children who have autism, people who have

Parkinson disease improve motor control, and improve sleep patterns (What Is Music

Therapy). Albert Einstein found, the smaller the wavelength, the more of these fluctuations

reach our ear each second, and the higher the pitch, or frequency, of the sound, we know this to

be a part of the Doppler Effect (Hawking and Mlodino 56). Sound creates a rippled effect, just

like colliding super-black holes in space (Hawking and Mlodino 78). Liam Vinety describes the

process as displaced air molecules bump[ing] up against neighbouring air molecules, the

vibration continues as a wave until hitting something than can absorb or stop it, such as an ear

drum (par. 15). With these theories, we can assume music satisfies the brain using sound waves

of different frequencies, which can reduce anxiety in the future. Scientists must study how the

different frequencies and waves effect the brain to minimize anxiety.

 Gormley 3

Step 2: The Test. Testing middle to high school students using scientific tools to study

the brain, such as electroencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging,

Magnetoencephalography (Top 3 Devices for Monitoring and Measuring Brain Activity), and

heart rate monitors will help scientists gather useful data for further research. Keeping track of

the teens heart rate will help indicate if the music is calming them (slowing it down) or not. If the

teens test shows signs of the heart rate slowing down, the music is shown to decrease stress.

Step 3: Education, Cost, and Time. To get a bachelors degree in Music Therapy, the

cost can range from $22, 859 at Arizona State University to $48,940 at Wartburg College, Iowa

(Cheapest Colleges for Music Therapy/Therapist). With the use of the internet, it would take

approximately 2 years for all the Middle Schools and High Schools in the United States to get

councilors education on the new therapy. The information would then be passed on to the

teachers and students. Councilors will be required to take a course specialized in music therapy

techniques, which will cost about $500 a course. Each student will take a test through the school

counselors to find their specific anxiety relieving music. Certain types of music help some kids

while others may need a different type to calm them. Catherine Ulbricht explains in her article,

Music Therapy for Health and Wellness that classical music is used frequently in therapy, but

music from one's own culture may be most effective (par. 4). Ulbricht explains how different

cultures find peace in different types of music and it can help with depression as well. There are

various techniques to finding a students relaxing music: paper tests, verbal tests, or even heart

rate monitor testings while the student listens to music.

Results: Middle Schools and High Schools will find better results on overall average test

scores and find anxiety rates among teens significantly decreasing in approximately 2 years if

they utilize music therapy correctly. Students with anxiety have a hard time on tests, at school,
 Gormley 4

and doing everyday stuff while battling their symptoms. Music therapy aims to make students

calmer and less stressed about school, public speaking, and being in groups. Students will also be

getting better sleep, therefore, doing better in school. Helping kids not be as stressed and

decreasing anxiety levels can help reduce teen substance abuse and underage drinking. As

schools use music therapy techniques, research amongst musicologists and other health fields

will increase along with more solutions to other problems that can be solved using music.

Therapy, located in the health science academic discipline, provides many services that help the

public. Music therapy is a cheaper solution to anxiety rather than regular therapy and pills, that

can be practiced at home, making it more convent for teens and adults to be anxiety free, happy,

and more successful in school and at work.

 Gormley 5

Works Cited

"Anxiety Disorders." The National Institute of Mental Health,

www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml. Accessed 22 Sept. 2017.

"Cheapest Colleges for Music Therapy/Therapist." CollegeCalc,

www.collegecalc.org/majors/music-therapy-therapist/.

Hawking, Stephen, and Leonard Mlodinow. A Briefer History of Time. Bantam Books, 2008.

Knight, Wendy E. J., and Nikki S. Richard. "Relaxing Music Prevents Stress-Induced

Increases in Subjective Anxiety, Systolic Blood Pressure, and Heart Rate in Healthy

Males and Females." Journal of Music Therapy, vol. 38, no. 4, 1 Dec. 2001, pp. 254-272,

academic.oup.com/jmt.

Parekh, Ranna. "What Are Anxiety Disorders?" American Psychiatric Association,

www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/anxiety-disorders/what-are-anxiety-disorders.

"Top 3 Devices for Monitoring and Measuring Brain Activity." IMotions, 17 Sept. 2015,

imotions.com/blog/top-3-devices-measuring-brain-activity/. Accessed 22 Sept. 2017.

Ulbricht, Catherine. "Music Therapy for Health and Wellness." Psychology Today,

21 June 2013, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/natural-standard/201306/music-therapy-

health-and-wellness.

Vinety, Liam. "Good Vibrations: the Role of Music in Einstein's Thinking." The

Conversation, 14 Feb. 2016, theconversation.com/good-vibrations-the-role-of-music-in-

einsteins-thinking-54725.

"What is Music Therapy." American Music Therapy Association,

www.musictherapy.org/about/musictherapy/.