We acquire stress almost every day from various sources such as the many responsibilities at home, demanding tasks at work, the city traffic, the environment filled with too much pollutants, uninspiring news about crimes, and others. And more often than not, there is no escape to stress because the demands of today’s lifestyle is seemingly fast-paced and highly competitive. It goes without saying that we cannot live without it however, we can cope with it in many different ways. One of which is engaging into music.
When we let stress to just pass over time, we’re not actually doing the right thing. We just let our body suffer from the torture of unwanted stress. If we don’t address it properly, it can hugely affect our behavior and overall health.
To combat stress, there is nothing more effective than engaging in physical activities. Surely, no one will argue about its effectiveness and benefits. One great example is playing the drums on your own, with other people, or as background music to other activities like aerobic exercise. But playing the drums in particular has numerous health benefits that you can’t get from conventional medication. In Australia, there are exclusive drum lessons in Melbourne VIC that can teach you to learn more about drumming, which can result to reaping of more benefits. Below are three ways by which plying drums helps in reducing stress.
Drumming Boosts the Immune System to Reduce Stress
According to Dr. Ann Webster, the immune system is significantly affected when it suffers from stress. When the body is stressed, it’s not able to function properly and perform its normal functions. The body gains an increase in stress hormones level, which makes it unable to produce killer cells that combat unhealthy elements inside the body. When this happens, the body is made vulnerable to the progression of different diseases. Thus, it is vital that the body is returned back to its balance state. It is crucial to really reduce and fight stress.
When playing drums, the body lowers its levels of stress hormones and blood pressure. Drumming, being a physical and fun activity, effectively reduces stress. This works like the process of venting out or throwing your stresses away through hitting of the drums. All the bad energies are released and what’s left are relaxed muscle tissues, clear thinking, and balanced state of the body.
When the body is relieved of stress, the immune system gets a boost as well. According to Dr. Barry Bittman, a cancer expert, engaging in group drumming sessions greatly helps in increasing the production of cancer killing cells. This makes the body more powerful in fighting cancer and numerous types of virus.
Drumming Helps in Connecting With Other People
One effect of stress is the unhealthy way we communicate with the people around us. We tend to relay our stress to others through shouting at them or any other inappropriate behavior. Drumming, particularly group drumming, doesn’t just relieves us of stress but it also teaches us to cooperate and communicate with others in a friendly, fun and coordinated manner. During group drumming sessions, everyone is following the same beat and rhythm, which makes connecting with others very successful.
Drumming Helps in the Release of Emotional Trauma and Negative Feelings
When the body is exposed to stress every day and you’re not doing anything to combat it, it could lead to the accumulation of negative feelings that could result to emotional trauma. This is why it is important that you are always conscious of the fact that your body gets stressed every day. However, when it has already been stressed for a long time, drumming can greatly help in releasing them particularly the negative feelings and emotional trauma that developed with it.
Due to the prevalence of disorders related to stress and emotional trauma such as Post Traumatic Disorder, the drum therapy was developed and is now being used to address and treat these disorders. When playing the drums, the body undergoes the process of physical stimulation, which effectively removes blockages and, consequently, releases the negative emotional feelings and trauma. According to Ed Mikenas, a music educator, drumming is an activity that puts emphasis on self-expression and teachers the drummer to rebuild his or her emotional health. When there is self-expression, plus the integration of different emotions, other issues such as violence is also successfully addressed.
With these benefits of playing the drums, we can effectively beat stress and live a more productive and happy life every day.
