Listen to the Healing Powers of Honorable Playlists

Beliefs and practices about music’s ability to heal the mind, body, and spirit date back to the Upper Paleolithic period, about 20,000 years ago. Music was widely used by shamans and other healers to treat a variety of ailments from mental disorders to injuries and illnesses. Recently we separated healing and music; we tend to see healing as the province of doctors and music as entertainment. Maybe it’s time to combine the two most closely related parts of our lives.

Scientific advances in the last 10 years have provided a sound basis for this combination. An emerging body of research allows us to take what has been a myth and place music on an equal footing with prescription drugs, surgery, medical procedures, psychotherapy, and a variety of conventional and evidence-based therapies. In the past two years alone, more than 8,000 papers have been published on the topic in peer-reviewed journals.

For thousands of years, music has been used to relieve a variety of ailments, from chronic pain to depression, anxiety, and simple boredom. It serves as a social sweetener, an intoxicating part of courtship, and in life-cycle celebrations such as births, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and even death. It was 2024 that marked the culmination of years of scientific research and conferences focused on a deceptively simple question: Can music produce proven medical effects? The answer is simple and very simple yes.

We have now demonstrated the effectiveness of music therapy and music interventions to improve a variety of health outcomes and promote well-being. From the treatment of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s to the management of chronic pain and depression, music is no longer relegated to the fringes of modern medicine. Major healthcare companies now have codes of practice for the use of music in hospitals, clinics and outpatient facilities.

The year 2025 will see renewed and renewed use of this ancient remedy based on evidence from rigorous studies. We will begin to see more complex and unique uses of music for specific ailments, as well as improving immune function and overall health.

The future of music in healthcare is from the hospital to the home, from illness to rejuvenating the senses, habits of mind, and wellness. AI will help here—not in writing music, but in selecting songs and genres that meet both human tastes and desired goals for healing and wellness. By extracting the essential elements from music and matching them to a person’s preferences and needs, we can usher in a new era of personalized music medicine. In the same way that human DNA can guide treatment decisions and which drugs may be most effective, AI may one day mine the DNA of music to accurately identify which music will help meet a person’s therapeutic needs.

Consider all the information about you in the cloud—your search history, location, who, calendar, contact list, and the types of things you view on social media. Certain companies also know a lot about your music preferences—what you listen to, how much you listen to it, what time of day you listen to it, and where you are when you listen to it. Smart devices that read your biometrics know your heart rate, heart rate variability, blood pressure, respiration rate, skin activity, body temperature, blood pressure—and how they change as a function of the time of day and what activities you do. share.

And they know about those activities—whether you run, walk, climb the stairs, drive a car, or sleep. Of course if you are sleeping they know what stage of sleep you are in and how long you have been sleeping. (They know when you’ve been sleeping, they know when you’re awake, they know if you’ve been bad or good, so be nice!). Soon, you will have the option to subscribe to the music you want when the “need” appears in your biometrics, offering you soothing music, motivating you to exercise, helping you focus at work, or treating such ailments. such as chronic pain, depression, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.