Wondering, how can music or Music Therapy can help to
cope with cancer?
Don’t be fooled!
Therapy doesn’t have to mean sitting there and talking to someone about your problems. The definition of therapy also means to heal, to use as a treatment that helps someone feel better, grow stronger, etc., especially after an illness.
How does Music Therapy work?
Music therapists are trained musicians that use music to promote healing. They meet with you while inpatient and together you decide how music can promote your healing. This can be done by creating music, singing, moving to, and or listening to music, song/lyric writing, drumming or playing instruments. Through musical involvement, your abilities are strengthened and transferred to other areas of your life. Music therapy can also provide avenues for communication that can be helpful if you struggle to express yourself in words. You don’t need to talk during music therapy to experience these changes in mood and emotion.
What if my treating hospital does not have Music Therapy?
You can still use music as a tool to help cope with the stress that comes from being diagnosed with cancer! Music can be a source of pleasure and contentment. Yet, there are many other psychological benefits as well. Music can relax the mind, energize the body, and even help people better manage pain. It has the ability make people feel happy, sad, energized, excited or relaxed.
Music can also provide a distraction for the mind, it can slow the rhythms of the body, and it can alter our mood, which in turn can influence behavior and healing. How often has a song come on the radio that makes you smile, no matter the mood you were in before you heard it? Or do you have a go to song that calms you down? Or energizes you? Helps you sleep? That is music as therapy: helping you feel better.
For more information, reach out to your oncologist or Child Life Specialist and ask if your treating hospital has a music therapy program.
For a general search of Music Therapy: www.musictherapy.org/about/find/
““Music therapy was my time. A time I genuinely needed and loved. It kept me as myself and gave me something to look forward to. It was a place I could just be me and not have to think about the hell my life was. My music therapist helped me not lose myself in all of this. He would come in and we’d play music. He never pressured me to talk but I knew I could when I needed to.””
