From strengthening your mental health to boosting your creativity and confidence find out why playing the guitar helps your health.
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November 13, 2017
1. Playing guitar is a form of therapy
The benefits of music therapy are becoming ever more apparent, with schools, charities and health organizations using playing the guitar to manage a person’s stress, enhance their memory, improve their communication and motor skills, and to help them feel more able to cope with life.
Guitarists have long recognized the therapeutic benefits of playing guitar. Clark Vogeler of The Toadies testifies: “If I’m having troubles, or something has stressed me out, playing music on a guitar resets me to zero, calms me down, and puts me in a place where I’m ready and able to deal with almost anything.”
2. It’s good for your heart
Music therapy is widely implemented in general health care in the Netherlands, so it’s unsurprising that a group of researchers from the country set out to explore the link between music practice and blood pressure. They studied three guitarists and found that each patient who practiced for over 100 minutes a day showed a significant drop in blood pressure and a lower heart rate compared to those who didn’t.
3. It enhances your creativity
Whether it’s writing original material or reworking a song for your covers band, the guitar is unlike any other instrument for unleashing your creativity. Ok fine, we’ll throw piano in there too. If you need to get creative for other areas of your life, such as writing an essay for school or pulling together some ideas for your boss, picking up the guitar and noodling around for a few minutes can create space in your brain for an inspired idea to drop in.
We are all innately creative, even if at times we don’t feel it. Playing guitar reconnects us with our creativity. That, in turn, helps us express our real authenticity, and when we do that, we’re in the Flow. Named by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, Flow (psychology), also known as ‘being in the zone,’ refers to those times when you’re fully immersed in and enjoying the job at hand. Playing the guitar can help you get epic Flow, so use it the next time you hit a creative brick wall.
4. It can future-proof your brain
We’ve all seen those stats about brain decline in later life, but did you know that playing guitar can boost your grey matter? Early brain scan studies show that learning to play the guitar, among other musical instruments, not only increases grey matter volume in various regions of the brain, but it strengthens the long-range connections between them.
Sharper brain function can also help protect you against mental decline in your later years. As a bonus, a dual study conducted by the Mind-Body Wellness Center and Loma Linda University School of Medicine and Applied Biosystems shows that playing guitar can also reduce stress. André Axell of The Great Discord certainly feels this: “A shitty day can get significantly better just by sitting down, plugging in and getting lost for a while.”
Paul McManus of Music For All also believes in the future-proofing benefits of playing guitar. “We see more and more people either returning to playing music in later life or even starting for the first time. Making music is a great ‘anti-ageing’ tool as it helps with coordination, concentration, and memory.”
5. Playing guitar strengthens your support network
…if you play in a band or jam regularly with other people. Don’t underestimate how much of a wellness boost you can get from being around like-minded people. Playing guitar with others can also, in time, lead to new friendships and a more productive social life.
Rachel Boyd, Information Manager for mental health charity Mind, says that “Music can also be something we share with friends and family. Social activities can be good for our wellbeing in general and can strengthen our support networks. Getting together with others who share a passion for music can be a great way to connect, whether that’s listening to music, studying, discussing or playing it.”
6. It enables you to express your feelings
We all have those moments when it’s hard to express our feelings verbally, but many guitarists find it easier to show their emotion, to process their feelings and to feel truly heard through playing the guitar. Kirk Windstein of Crowbar is one such guitarist: “I run through a lot of emotions while playing guitar. It’s a perfect vehicle for letting out my feelings,” he told us. “While playing, I often feel my aggression, my sadness and any anxiety leaving my mind and body.”
For some of you, playing the guitar might be a hugely cathartic way to communicate your views, your feelings, passions, and fears. Distilling it all into a haunting guitar riff, a blistering solo or a few simple chords – and in a way, you might never be able to with words. Jeff Loomis of Arch Enemy finds resonance with this: “I’ve always been a fairly shy person in general and one that doesn’t talk that much… So guitar playing has always been a way I can express myself to others.”
7. Playing guitar boosts your confidence
Learning to play the guitar can have an enormously positive effect on your self-esteem and confidence. As you learn to play and continue to improve, chances are you’ll end up playing in front of a family member, a mate, some potential bandmates or even an audience.
Playing guitar in front of others, however scary at first, will build your confidence in expressing yourself publicly and sharing your creativity. This can help you in a study or work context, too, as playing guitar to others inadvertently teaches you ‘presentation skills,’ including how to speak to a crowd – even if it is just your mum, to begin with.
Ultimately, the more you improve at playing guitar, the more significant the gains to your self-esteem and confidence. That, in turn, will give you an increased sense of satisfaction, helping you to feel good about yourself.
8. It helps you to feel part of something bigger
As we now know, there are several ways in which playing the guitar can improve your mental health and overall well-being. But perhaps the most significant way is how it connects us to each other. Paul McManus of Music For All has the first-hand experience of how the guitar can be a gateway to helping all of us feel connected to something bigger: “One of the great powers of making music is that it brings people together. Music knows no barriers.”
It doesn’t matter where in the world you are playing guitar right now. Whether you’re playing alone or with other musicians, know that you are part of a family. One that understands the transformational power of the guitar.
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This article is a re-post, with small modifications, of “8 Reasons Why Playing Guitar Is Good For Your Mental Health” an article published on musicradar.com by Claire Davies
Click here to visit the original content.
