Extended Activity #1
Notice what music is played in your environment (in or out of your control) and what your response is. How does it drive your life? Become consciously aware of three problematic responses to be proactive with prescriptive music listening.
Answer these questions about a typical situation – or remember a similar experience – to form personal insights about the music’s lyric, duration, and problematic mood. Ask these questions to yourself, and then ask the other person the same questions to understand how three problematic responses tend to drive your life.
Situation
You’re riding in the car, and your teenager demands certain music that completely unsettles you. Or, think of a similar situation with someone else and their choice of music.
#1 Problem Response – Mood
Do you find yourself crying or getting more agitated, anxious, or apathetic? What is your mood? What is their mood?
#2 Problem Response – Lyric
Is it the lyric, music, or both that upset you? What is the lyric, and what does it make you think about?
#3 Problem Response – Duration
Do you turn it off before it finishes because you’ve had enough, or do you push repeat because you want more? Does your upsetness build over time so that shorter durations would be tolerable, i.e., your teen’s music alternated with your choice of music?
The Difficult Conversation
Share your responses above with the other person and ask them the same questions to gain insight into their responses. Seek to understand why the other person wants to listen to that music now. Usually, that type of difficult conversation can breed understanding and build empathy, thereby dissolving unhappiness.
For a deeper dive into understanding how music influences you, analyzing eleven music elements’ effects on you, the Music Medicine Boot Camp training is available at Music Medicine Academy.
Extended Activity #2
Your desire to listen to music is guided by conscious and subconscious (instinctive) decisions. When you are conscious about music choices, your greater awareness of music’s effects can also uncover subconscious influences (reference Habit 3, Activity #4) that affects mental hygiene. Let’s dive into more states of consciousness that connect physiology to both the conscious and subconscious minds.
Brain wave activity occurs in these two states of consciousness.
- Beta states of consciousness are brain waves measuring 13+hz that stimulate physical, emotional, and mental activity.
- Alpha states of consciousness are brain waves measuring 8-12hz and affecting physical, emotional, and mental relaxation.
These two types of music are found in music therapy and affect the above two states of consciousness.
- Stimulative music enhances beta brain waves (mental/emotional activity).
- Sedative music increases alpha brain waves (mental/emotional relaxation).
Experiencing the alpha state of consciousness has been linked with the flow state, where you lose track of time and become unusually productive. Increasing the alpha state of consciousness has been found to significantly improve creativity, diminish anxiety and depression, improve pain tolerance and build resilience to stress.
Identify your music diet consumption.
- What does your music diet consist of primarily: stimulative, sedative, or what combination of the two?
- Does your music diet clean out stress and maximize mental hygiene benefits?
Read more at Does Your Music Diet Improve Mental Hygiene.
Extended Activity #3
Leading expert on the psychology of exercise music, Costas Karageorghis, asserts, “Music can be legal, performance-enhancing medicine.” Learn about the physical influences of music that support decisions applying music prescriptively.
Identify four effects of music in three different styles that exert positive effects on physical activity for 3,599 participants engaged in exercise and sports activities.
Extended Activity #4
Follow a prescriptive approach that uses active music listening to analyze mood music for mental hygiene designations. Analyze your favorite music to decide their strength in making you feel specific moods, called U-Unsettled, S-Soothed and E-Energized, with the acronym USE music for health.
These three mood categories have these emotion assignments, as seen in your self-assessments (Empowerment Habits 1 & 2).
- U-anxiety, anger, depression, sadness, etc.
- S-peaceful, content, relaxed, tranquil, etc.
- E-playful, happy, enthusiastic, optimistic, etc.
Follow these tips to help you analyze your favorite music, respecting all genres, such as “U,” “S,” or “E” moods. When music is a combination of these moods, set them aside for future considerations.
Four Analysis Tips
- The music and lyrics must match the same mood. For instance, happy music with sad lyric do not match, and, therefore, don’t belong in these mental hygiene designations.
- The music energy may only be one mood or, in the case of unsettledness, one emotion. Music will be very distinct when differentiating between angry, anxious, depressing or sad feelings.
- You are indeed confirming “U” music that elicits anxiety, anger, depression or sadness. This could be an unusual way for you to think about music satiating the unsettled mood rather than listening to music that shifts you away from that unsettled mood. This is further addressed with Mood Sequence Formulas™ and cautions in Empowerment Habit #5.
- Revisit your self-assessment results from Habit 1, Activity 3 and Habit 2, Activity 2 to be aware of any cautions assigning music if you are pre-determined to be in a Chronic Comfort Zone™. You want to avoid assigning the wrong type of music to the mood category above.
For more support in learning how to categorize music, check out e-courses at Music Medicine Academy.
Extended Activity #5
A cleansing music diet includes the basic three Music Medicine playlists called U-Unsettled, S-Soothed and E-Energized.
Choose the music platform that makes it easy for you to access this powerful, portable command center, i.e., through your cell phone. Examples: iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube.
Create these three U.S.E. playlists on your desired music platform. Then, populate music into these playlists with a balanced music diet perspective: comparable portions of music amongst the three playlists.
- Classify music that is “angry” and other Unsettled moods in the “U” playlist.
- Classify music that is “peaceful” and other Soothed moods in the “S” playlist.
- Classify music that is “happy” and other Energized moods in the “E” playlist.
Start the day by finding one new song to add to one of these playlists, guided by these suggestions.
- Consider all genres, asking friends or family for ideas.
- Listen to a new radio station for different options.
- Cross-train to new music using your music platform’s suggestions for music that is similar to your taste.
- If the music has lyrics, look up the words to verify the mood of the music matches the mood of the lyrics.
This classification of music matching moods for Mental Hygiene (emotional cleansing) is the precursor to effective Emotion Regulation with one more essential step needed in Empowerment Habit #5.