Neuroscientist explains therapeutic benefits of 'Music as Medicine'

Music can have profound benefits for humans. It can promote healing, ease pain, treat anxiety and depression, and help us access memories.

Neuroscientist and musician Daniel J. Levitin’s latest book, "I Heard There Was A Secret Chord: Music as Medicine," explains how our brains process music and lays out the evidence for the therapeutic benefits music can have. He brings together studies that show how music can be used to treat Alzheimer's disease, depression and even pain

The human brain differentiates music from speech or other sounds, like crying or laughing. Yet music activates the same areas of the brain, Levitin says.

“ My lab was the first to show that opioids are released in the brain when you listen to music you like — natural analgesics, just like the pills we take,” Levitin says. “We now know that music boosts the immune system, particularly immunoglobulin A levels. And so listening to music you like can be a way of embracing preventative medicine.”

By Daniel J. Levitin

Excerpted with permission of W. W. Norton & Company.