Straight from Mental Floss, are just a few examples of ways music has helped humanity:
1. LOW BIRTH WEIGHT
Babies born too early often require extended stays in the hospital to help them gain weight and strength. To help facilitate this process, many hospitals turn to music. A team of Canadian researchers found that playing music to preemies reduced their pain levels and encouraged better feeding habits, which in turn helped with weight-gain. Hospitals use musical instruments to mimic the sounds of a mother's heartbeat and womb to lull premature babies to sleep. Researchers also say that playing calming Mozart to premature infants significantly reduces the amount of energy they expend, which allows them gain weight.It "makes you wonder whether neonatal intensive care units should consider music exposure as standard practice for at-risk infants," says Dr. Nestor Lopez-Duran at child-psych.org.
2. DROOPY PLANTS
If music helps babies grow, can it do the same thing for plants? Dorothy Retallack says yes. She wrote a book in 1973 called The Sound of Music and Plants, which detailed the effects of music on plant growth. Retallack played rock music to one group of plants and easy listening music to another, identical group. At the end of the study, the 'easy listening' plants were uniform in size, full and green, and were even leaning toward the source of the music. The rock music plants had grown tall, but they were droopy, with faded leaves, and were leaning away from the radio.
3. THE DAMAGING EFFECTS OF BRAIN DAMAGE
Of the 1.5 million Americans who sustain brain damage each year, roughly 90,000 of them will be left with a long-term movement or speech disability. As treatment, researchers use musicto stimulate the areas of the brain that control these two functions.When given a rhythm to walk or dance to, people with neurological damage caused by stroke or Parkinson's disease can "regain a symmetrical stride and a sense of balance." The beats in music help serve as a footstep cue for the brain.Similarly, rhythm and pitch can help patients sing what words they can't say. A study of autistic children who couldn't speak found that music therapy helped these children articulate words. Some of these kids said their first words ever as a result of the treatment."We are just starting to understand how powerful music can be. We don't know what the limits are." says Michael De Georgia, director of the Center for Music and Medicine at Case Western Reserve University's University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland.
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