Music Benefits for Grief
Music can be extremely healing and can be a wonderful way to navigate grief, it gives you an outlet to mourn when words are impossible to express. It takes us back to a time when we felt something — happiness, sadness, gratefulness — whatever it is, when we hear it, we are transported back in time. Music allows us to access our deepest emotions, helping us discover, experience, and accept them fully.
The Connection ~ Brain ~ Music ~Grief
Deep within the human brain lies the brain’s pleasure-and-reward center. When this area is exposed to the activity of music the brain is bathed in dopamine and other feel-good neurotransmitters or chemicals. Resulting not only in improved mood but research has demonstrated that certain types of music can even boost memory and concentration, resulting in you being more productive, make better decisions, working more efficiently, getting an energy boost and reduce stress levels. When we are grieving all these things sometimes feels impossible.
Music is vital both for emotional expression and for recalling memories, and lessening the emotional pain according to writer Dannielle O’Keefe in Music For Grief. One study conducted on post-funeral “remembrance activities” found that listening to and playing music supported the bereaved person’s expression of grief, while powerfully promoting their connection with the deceased.
How Music Helps You Grieve
Music fastens us to a place of security. We able to connect into our deepest emotions, helping us discover those feelings, giving us a safe space from which to process our emotions and suppress the overwhelming. During mourning one can feel powerless, but through music we can navigate grief, by consciously influencing, directing, and channeling raw emotions that we may not otherwise know what to do with. Your choice of melodies, beats, and tunes can redirect your connection with grief.
At the beginning of your journey through grief may have seemed impossible, but the truth is that you can come to the other side a much stronger you. Research has discovered that music presents health benefits, such as reducing stress, easing depression, and boosting the immune system.
Invite music along to accompany you through all the changes and challenges grief delivers after the death of a loved one. Use the power this gift of music has to offer to ease and lift the heaviness you are carrying, turn on your favorite music, play a kazoo, listen to the radio, hum, and “whistle a happy tune.”
I Whistle a Happy Tune
Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect I’m afraid
While shivering in my shoes
I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune
And no one ever knows I’m afraid
The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well
I whistle a happy tune
And every single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I’m not afraid
Make believe you’re brave
And the trick will take you far
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are
While shivering in my shoes
I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune
And no one ever knows I’m afraid
The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well
I whistle a happy tune
And every single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I’m not afraid
Make believe you’re brave
And the trick will take you far
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are
Source: Musixmatch // Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein Ii / Richard Rodgers // I Whistle a Happy Tune lyrics © Williamson Music
To watch the performance of the song I Whistle a Happy Tune from The King and I (1956) go to You Tube.
For more reading on this subject: Dannielle O’Keefe in Music For Grief. (https://thepsychologyofit.com.au/analyse-this/musictherapy.html) Article by N. Mahoney-Rajs November 18, 2022