Music

There are things that help with depression which make sense. Medication (for those who are able to take it and for whom it doesn't have horrible side effects) obviously makes sense. The most common drugs cause more 'happy hormones' to be absorbed in the synapses of your brain and therefore your mood goes up (I'm not a GP or chemist so I'm giving a very rough explanation of what goes on!).

 

Similarly the fact that therapy helps makes sense. Dealing with past traumas that you didn't properly deal with at the time and talking through how your brain works so that you have a better understanding of yourself logically should help. And for me I know that it does help.

 

Talking to friends helps. Again, this makes sense - spending time with people who like to be around me generally makes me feel better! Realising that worries I have are not unusual helps. And talking about how rubbish some things have been actually gives me perspective.

 

But the thing which I have never particularly been able to understand is why music helps as much as it does.

 

I used to think that music helped because when I'm performing I can get out a whole load of mixed emotions in one go. If I'm playing violin or piano those emotions are wordless, and incredibly powerful. When I'm singing, even if it's other people's lyrics, it helps me to express myself in a way that I never can when I am simply talking to people. I've had plenty of people who consider that I have a 'big voice' for a 'small person'. Maybe it's just that I have a lot that I channel when I'm singing! It is fantastically cathartic.

 

But the interesting bit, and the bit that I don't quite understand, is that listening to music helps as well. In particular live music.

 

I've been very lucky over the past couple of weeks (and months and years) in that I've been able to go to some really good live gigs. And the effect is always the same. Afterwards I feel much more myself. I feel grounded and energised at the same time. Even if while I've been at the gig my mind has touched on things that have upset me or that I feel uncomfortable and unsure about, I still come out the other end feeling better. During one of the best gigs that I went to this year I spent a good patch of it concerned that I was 'unwanted' but it didn't upset me nearly as much as those thoughts usually would. The music kept me safe.

 

Now I am a fairly rational and logical person. I like to understand things. And the effect that music has I don't understand! But I think that it is something that I can be happy not understanding simply because it is that powerful and that effective that I'm happy just to 'go with the flow'.

 

I don't know whether this is something that works for anyone else. The size of the audiences when I go to gigs would suggest that it does! But I find the effect that music has fascinating and just a bit magical.