Music therapy significantly reduces pain, stress, and anxiety in community hospitals

UH Cleveland Medical Center
IMAGE: UH CLEVELAND MEDICAL CENTER view more CREDIT: UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS

CLEVELAND – A new study from University Hospitals (UH) Connor Whole Health found patients with moderate-to-severe pain, stress, or anxiety treated at UH community hospitals reported clinically significant reductions in pain, stress, and anxiety in response to a single session of music therapy. Furthermore, the clinically significant effect on pain was not influenced by patients’ demographic or clinical characteristics, suggesting that music therapy can be effective for acute pain management across various inpatient adult populations. The findings from this study were recently published in the journal, Pain Reports, a leading journal focusing on advancing pain research.

In this retrospective study conducted between January 2017 and July 2020, researchers from UH Connor Whole Health examined the first music therapy interventions provided to 1,056 adults receiving inpatient medical care who reported pre-session pain, anxiety, and/or stress scores greater than or equal to 4 on the 0 to 10 numeric rating scale. Unlike prior studies of music therapy, which have primarily been conducted at academic medical centers, this is the first and largest investigation of the real-world effectiveness of music therapy within community medical centers. This study builds upon a history of seminal music therapy studies funded by the Kulas Foundation, the country’s leading foundation for funding scientific research in music therapy, that have investigated the efficacy of music therapy in palliative caresurgery, and sickle cell disease as well as the clinical effectiveness of music therapy within an academic cancer center.

“The music therapists at UH Connor Whole Health offer non-pharmacological frontline treatment throughout our medical system while addressing issues of stress, pain, and anxiety. Greater Cleveland residents may receive these services during hospitalizations at UH as a clinical service line offering direct evidence-based community benefit,” said Seneca Block, The Lauren Rich Fine Endowed Director of Expressive Therapies at UH Connor Whole Health. UH Connor Whole Health manages the largest health system-based music therapy program in the US with 11 board-certified music therapists who collaborate with providers across the system to help patients and their families manage the physical and emotional toll of an illness or hospitalization. Additionally, UH Connor Whole Health provides a diverse offering of integrative health and medicine modalities, including acupuncture, chiropractic, and integrative medicine consults, that are centered on patients’ entire well-being.

In “Effectiveness of Music Therapy within Community Hospitals: An EMMPIRE Retrospective Study,” researchers examined the real-world effectiveness of music therapy at eight UH community medical centers and explored variables associated with pain reduction of greater than or equal to 2 units on a 0 to 10 unit numeric rating scale.

Music therapists provided interventions including live music listening, music-assisted relaxation and imagery, and active music making to address patients’ needs including pain management, coping, stress reduction, and anxiety reduction. As part of clinical care, the music therapists assessed patients’ self-reported pain, stress, and anxiety on a 0 to 10 scale at the beginning and end of each session and documented their sessions in the electronic health record.

“What makes this research novel is our ability to streamline data collection from music therapy clinical practice to the electronic health record. We can then use these data to understand the real-world impact of music therapy throughout multiple medical centers and how best to tailor music therapy interventions to meet patients’ needs,” said Sam Rodgers-Melnick, a music therapist, first author of the study, and a co-investigator on the EMMPIRE project (Effectiveness of Medical Music Therapy Practice: Integrative Research using the Electronic Health Record). The present EMMPIRE study was funded by a 3-year grant from the Kulas Foundation to UH Hospitals.org/ConnorWholeHealth with Jeffery A. Dusek PhD, Director of Research, UH Connor Whole Health, Block and Rodgers-Melnick as prime investigators. Said Dusek, “Routine collection of patient-reported outcomes from clinical practice (also called practice-based research) is becoming increasingly common as a patient-centered quality of care measure.”

Prior research has demonstrated that reductions of at least 1.3 units on the numeric rating scale for pain are clinically significant for patients with non-cancer pain, meaning that the symptom reduction represents a meaningful difference for patients with moderate-to-severe symptoms. Reductions of at least 2 units in stress and anxiety are also considered clinically significant. In this study, patients reported clinically significant mean reductions in pain (2.04 units), anxiety (2.80 units), and stress (3.48 units) in response to music therapy, with all changes exceeding clinically significant thresholds. Additionally, of the patients reporting a pain score greater than or equal to 4, 14% fell asleep during music therapy sessions, an important observation given the sleep challenges patients with moderate-to-severe pain face during hospitalization.

Additionally, after adjusting for demographic, clinical, and operational characteristics, patients receiving a music therapy session in which pain management was a goal were 4.32 times more likely to report pain reduction greater than or equal to 2 units than patients receiving a music therapy session in which pain management was not a session goal. Said Rodgers-Melnick, “this finding raises important questions regarding how music therapists tailor their interventions to address pain when that is the goal of the session, and we will be examining these specific features of music therapy interventions in future research.

A seventeen-year landmark study finds that group meditation decreases US national stress

Image 1


Size of the MIU TM and TM Sidhi group (blueline), eight indices of stress in the United States represented by the lines in different colors, and the US stress index, the mean of all eight variables indicated by the red line. CREDIT Maharishi International University

Every year during 2000 to 2006 there were tens of thousands of stress-related tragedies in the U.S.. Official statistics from the FBI and Centers for Disease Control indicate that there were 15,440 murders, 93,438 rapes, and 86,348 child and adolescent deaths from accidents each year to give a few examples. The current study, published in the World Journal of Social Science, is the longest and most comprehensive of 50 studies to demonstrate what has been named the Maharishi Effect, in honor of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and Maharishi International University (MIU) founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

The results can be seen in the first chart. The blue line indicates that during the Baseline period of 2000 to 2006 the size of the TM and TM-Sidhi group located at Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa increased to reach the √1% of the U.S. population (1725 people) and stayed there for five years during the Demonstration period from 2007 to 2011. All stress indicators immediately started decreasing. In the Post period when the size of the group size began to decline the rate of decrease in stress slowed and then it reversed and began to increase.


IMAGE 1:Size of the MIU TM and TM Sidhi group (blueline), eight indices of stress in the United States represented by the lines in different colors, and the US stress index, the mean of all eight variables indicated by the red line.

TABLE: RESULTS OF REGRESSION ANALYSES

CAPTION The first column shows the number of events per year during the Baseline period (Intercept). The second column shows the change per year during the Baseline (Slope). The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth columns show the thousands of events averted during the Demonstration, during the Post periods, the total events averted, and percent change, respectively. The last column shows the estimated total events averted by each individual participant in the MIU TM and TM-Sidhi group.

Lead author Dr. David Orme-Johnson said: “What is unique about this study is that the results are so visually striking and on such a large scale. We see reduced stress on multiple indicators at the predicted time for the entire United States over a five-year period. And when the size of the group declined, national stress began increasing again. Clearly, the group was causing the effect.”

Co-author Dr. Kenneth Cavanaugh commented: “This study used state-of-the-art methods of time series regression analysis for eliminating potential alternative explanations due to intrinsic pre-existing trends and fluctuations in the data. We carefully studied potential alternative explanations in terms of changes in economic conditions, political leadership, population demographics, and policing strategies. None of these factors could account for the results.”

The fact that all variables started decreasing only after the square root of one percent of the U.S. was reached indicates a phase transition. Like when water does not turn to ice until 32◦ F is reached, national stress did not start decreasing until the U.S. √1% transition threshold was achieved.

The chart shows that in 2013 when the size of the TM and TM-Sidhi group quickly dropped all stress indicators abruptly increased. Apparently, the rapid drop in national coherence shook the nation.

The scientists used regression analysis to estimate how many deaths and events were reduced by the meditator group. For example, image 2 shows the red dotted line representing the Baseline trend projected into the Demonstration and Post periods. During the Demonstration period drug-related deaths (the black line) fell to 14% below their Baseline trend and were another 15 % lower during the Post period, for a total of 79,941 fewer drug deaths. The chart also shows that in the absence of the coherence creating group drug deaths eventually returned to their Baseline level.

(See Image 2)

IMAGE 2. The red dotted line is the number of Drug Deaths forecasted from the Baseline trend. The black line is the actual number of Drug Deaths. Similar analyses were conducted for all variables and the results are displayed in the Table.

TABLE: RESULTS OF REGRESSION ANALYSESThe first column shows the number of events per year during the Baseline period (Intercept). The second column shows the change per year during the Baseline (Slope). The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth columns show the thousands of events averted during the Demonstration, during the Post periods, the total events averted, and percent change, respectively. The last column shows the estimated total events averted by each individual participant in the MIU TM and TM-Sidhi group.

(See Table)

The unified field level of natural law

The finding that the effect was holistic, causing all variables to move up and down together, supports the theory expressed by both Maharishi from the Vedic perspective and by quantum physicist and MIU president Dr. John Hagelin from quantum field theory that the TM and TM-Sidhi groups are creating coherence in collective consciousness from the unified field level of natural law. This is big. It is evidence of the existence of the unified field from a completely different approach than using particle accelerators and detecting gravity waves.

This discovery of the unified field is more than just an intellectual knowledge. It is arguably the most immediately highly practical technological discovery in the history of science. The invention of the wheel mobilized humanity. The printing press, radio, the telephone, the internet, and satellites increased our ability to communicate with each other across vast distances and time. The discovery of DNA opened our minds to the subtle mechanics of natural law underlying the evolution and growth of all life forms. These are among the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. But what discovery can reduce human suffering as comprehensively as group meditation?

Relationship between individual and collective consciousness

The paper reviews the many concepts of collective consciousness as they have occurred throughout history in the sciences and humanities. None have practical applications as Maharishi’s does and none have been so empirically verified.

The paper discusses Maharishi’s theory, which holds that every individual automatically contributes to collective consciousness and reciprocally, collective consciousness influences every individual. This is universally true whatever the form of government—democracy, republic, monarchy, communism, or dictatorship.

It is essential for every individual to use evidence-based technologies to reduce their own stress and at the same time, the responsibility of every government to provide these technologies to everyone.

The paper summarizes the hundreds of studies showing that practice of TM increases coherence in the individual, as indicated by such measures as increased brain coherence, decreased anxiety, depression, and anger, increased creativity, increased IQ and emotional and social intelligence, and decreased PTSD symptoms, prison recidivism, drug and alcohol addictions, and sickness rates in all categories of disease. More coherent individuals form a more coherent society.

The Howard and Alice Settle Foundation

A grant for 75 million dollars from the Howard and Alice Settle Foundation provided stipends for participants to be in the group and provided funding to bring several hundred visiting TM-Sidhi experts from India to further augment the MIU group. Dr. Orme-Johnson commented: “This is a lot of money, but the savings from the 10% reduction in crimes would save over 200 billion dollars, not to mention all the other savings from reducing other sources of stress in the country.”

The paper concludes with a call to create a permanent √1% group for the whole world, 8,000 participants practicing the TM and TM-Sidhi program together in one place. And as an engineering safety factor, a √1% group on every continent is needed. The world is so interconnected, no one is safe until everyone is safe, all living in harmony. This is easily within reach of any government or the world’s wealthiest citizens. The person who does it will be remembered as the greatest leader in history.

Is lower stress the secret to finding empathy?

Pain Sensitivity Higher in Dyads


The artwork represents two mice and two people looking at each other. Pain sensitivity was found to be higher in dyads when the mice/people knew each other, or when they were strangers but stress was reduced. CREDIT Loren Martin and Mona Lisa Chanda

How is it that people can sometimes show such empathy when other times our ability to feel compassion seems to be in such short supply? A study published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on January 15 shows that stress is a major factor.

A drug that blocks stress hormones increases the ability of college students and mice to “feel” the pain of a stranger, the study shows. That phenomenon, known as “emotional contagion of pain,” is one form of empathy. In even better news, a shared round of the video game Rock Band worked just as well as the drugs among those undergrads.

“We found what in some sense might be thought of as the ‘secret’ to empathy; that is, what prevents it from occurring more often between strangers,” says Jeffrey Mogil of McGill University in Montreal. “The secret is–quite simply–stress, and in particular the social stress of being in close proximity with a stranger.”

Earlier studies had shown that mice and humans both have empathy for another’s pain, especially when the individual in pain is someone they know. It was also clear from those studies that stress levels rise in both mice and people when in the presence of a stranger.

To test for a direct connection between stress and empathy, Mogil and his colleagues treated male mice with a stress hormone-blocker called metyrapone and watched their response to the pain of other mice.

They found that the drug allowed greater empathy as mice began reacting to strangers in a manner normally reserved for familiar cagemates. In other tests, the researchers found that when they put mice under stress, the mice showed less empathy when their peers were in pain. In other words, biochemical changes related to stress were preventing emotional contagion in the animals.

The researchers went on to test for signs of empathy in undergraduate students by pairing them with either a friend or a stranger and having them rate the pain associated with holding a hand in ice water. Again, undergrads treated with metyrapone showed a greater sense of empathy toward strangers. After taking the drug, participants not only reported a greater experience of pain, but they also showed more pained facial expressions and more often touched their own hands when witnessing another’s pain.

This doesn’t mean that Mogil would recommend that anyone with the goal of becoming more empathetic take a pill. There is an easier way: A simple psychosocial interaction–a game of Rock Band–worked just as well as the drugs in boosting empathy toward another person, the researchers report.

The findings are the first to suggest an important role for the stress axis in the brain and endocrine system in modulating our response to other people, the researchers say. They also suggest that mice and humans are surprisingly similar when it comes to social behaviors.

“It is quite intriguing indeed that this phenomenon appears to be identical in mice and humans,” Mogil says. “First, it supports the notion that mice are capable of more complex social phenomena than is commonly believed. Second, it suggests that human social phenomena might actually be simpler than commonly believed, at least in terms of their organizing principles. This is an emerging theme of much research currently ongoing in my lab; when it comes to social behavior, ‘mice are people too.'”

A game of Rock Band, anyone?

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