Monday Wellness: Music

     Alyssa and I chose to do music for our Monday Wellness presentation because it is a topic that we both have a great interest in. Music has always been a big part of my life and I had heard about the health benefits of listening to music. I listen to music as I do homework and I wanted to know if that had a positive or negative affect on how I was doing my work. I wondered if the lyrics or beat affected how I worked as well. I thought this project would be perfect for looking into the validity of these health benefits. I knew listening and making music made me happy but I never really knew why or how. While researching I learned that listening to music increases the release of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is known as the “feels good” neurotransmitter which controls the flow of information from other parts of the brain to the frontal lobes. Having a deficiency of dopamine can cause problems with memory, attention span, and problem solving. This also explains why music helps motivate people when they workout. The beat of the music can also affect how efficiently exercisers are using their oxygen. Another interesting thing I learned while preparing for this presentation was that music was used to help surgery patients with their pain. Some patients required less morphine, showing that music can be more powerful than a drug. This topic is important for health and wellness because of the way music affects the five pillars of health. Many studies have shown that music can relieve stress and anxiety by reducing heart rate and cortisol levels. Chronically elevated cortisol levels can create insulin resistance and elevate leptin levels. Managing stress is very important to our overall well-being. It is really hard to get out of the exhaustion phase of stress which can cause many health problems like headaches, impaired memory, and sleep disturbances. Music can help prevent anyone from reaching this phase of stress, keeping them healthy and happy. Music, in my opinion, plays a role in the health triangle as well. For example, music can help us cope with stress which applies to the mental side of the triangle. It motivates us and helps us function better, applying to the physical side of the triangle. It affects the social side of the health triangle as well. I have made tons of friends simply because we had the same music taste. It has brought me closer to the friends I have already too. Overall, I believe music is beneficial for our well-being. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would give myself a 7 for a grade. I think we could have included more information on music that related back to the health unit; however, I thought our activities kept the class involved. I think they learned more from the activities rather than the actual presentation because they were actually participating. I thought it was interesting that even though everyone in the class had differing music tastes, we could all agree that music made us happier.

     Our presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GWQCxRh2lqS35KoIcmU-1ubmw8O0KsoS43_y_-aCimQ/edit#slide=id.p