6 Ways Drumming Heals Body, Mind and Soul

[Spiritwind]

6 Ways Drumming Heals Body, Mind and Soul
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Posted on: Saturday, March 21st 2015 at 10:15 am
Written By: Sayer Ji, Founder
This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2015
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(Note - this is only part of the article here. I would highly recommend going to the link above to read the whole thing. I have experienced the wonderful benefits of drumming for many years myself. It really can and does clear, transmute, and shift energy.)


6 Evidence-Based Health Benefits of Drumming

Drumming has been proven in human clinical research to do the following six things:

1) Anxiety/Stress: A 2014 study published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine enrolled both middle-aged experienced drummers and a younger novice group in a 40-minute djembe drumming sessions. Their blood pressure, blood lactate and stress and anxiety levels were taken before and after the sessions. Also, their heart rate was monitored at 5 second intervals throughout the sessions. As a result of the trial, all participants saw a drop in stress and anxiety. Systolic blood pressure dropped in the older population postdrumming.

2) Increase Brain White Matter & Executive Cognitive Function: A 2014 study published in the Journal of Huntington's Disease found that two months of drumming intervention in Huntington's patients (considered an irreversible, lethal neurodegenerative disease) resulted in "improvements in executive function and changes in white matter microstructure, notably in the genu of the corpus callosum that connects prefrontal cortices of both hemispheres."[ix] The study authors concluded that the pilot study provided novel preliminary evidence that drumming (or related targeted behavioral stimulation) may result in "cognitive enhancement and improvements in callosal white matter microstructure."

3) Reduced Pain: A 2012 study published in Evolutionary Psychology found that active performance of music (singing, dancing and drumming) triggered endorphin release (measured by post-activity increases in pain tolerance) whereas merely listening to music did not. The researchers hypothesized that this may contribute to community bonding in activities involving dance and music-making.[x

4) Reduce Stress (Cortisol/DHEA ratio), Increase Immunity: A 2001 study published in Alternative Therapies and Health Medicine enrolled 111 age- and sex- matched subjects (55 men and 56 women; mean age 30.4 years) and found that drumming "increased dehydroepiandrosterone-to-cortisol ratios, increased natural killer cell activity, and increased lymphokine-activated killer cell activity without alteration in plasma interleukin 2 or interferon-gamma, or in the Beck Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory II."[xi]

5) Transcendent (Re-Creational) Experiences: A 2004 study published in the journal Multiple Sclerosis revealed that drumming enables participants to go into deeper hypnotic states,[xii] and another 2014 study poublished in PLoS found that when combined with shamanistic instruction, drumming enables participants to experience decreased heartrate and dreamlike experiences consistent with transcendental experiences.[xiii]

6) Socio-Emotional Disorders: A powerful 2001 study published in the journal Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine found that low-income children who enrolled in a 12-week group drumming intervention saw multiple domains of social-emotional behavior improve significantly, from anxiety to attention, from oppositional to post-traumatic disorders.[xiiii]

(The following are just the links to this portion that I shared here. Go to the link at the beginning to see the full article and the links to all the reference material as well.)
[ix] Claudia Metzler-Baddeley, Jaime Cantera, Elizabeth Coulthard, Anne Rosser, Derek K Jones, Roland J Baddeley. Improved Executive Function and Callosal White Matter Microstructure after Rhythm Exercise in Huntington's Disease. J Huntingtons Dis. 2014 ;3(3):273-83. PMID:25300331

[x] R I M Dunbar, Kostas Kaskatis, Ian MacDonald, Vinnie Barra. Performance of music elevates pain threshold and positive affect: implications for the evolutionary function of music.Evol Psychol. 2012 ;10(4):688-702. Epub 2012 Oct 22. PMID: 23089077

[xi] B B Bittman, L S Berk, D L Felten, J Westengard, O C Simonton, J Pappas, M Ninehouser.Composite effects of group drumming music therapy on modulation of neuroendocrine-immune parameters in normal subjects. Altern Ther Health Med. 2001 Jan;7(1):38-47. PMID:11191041

[xii] R L Maurer, V K Kumar, L Woodside, R J Pekala. Phenomenological experience in response to monotonous drumming and hypnotizability. Mult Scler. 2004 Aug;10(4):417-24. PMID:9385724

[xiii] Bruno Gingras, Gerald Pohler, W Tecumseh Fitch. Exploring shamanic journeying: repetitive drumming with shamanic instructions induces specific subjective experiences but no larger cortisol decrease than instrumental meditation music. PLoS One. 2014 ;9(7):e102103. Epub 2014 Jul 7. PMID: 24999623

.[xiiii]Ping Ho, Jennie C I Tsao, Lian Bloch, Lonnie K Zeltzer. The impact of group drumming on social-emotional behavior in low-income children. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med.2011 ;2011:250708. Epub 2011 Feb 13. PMID: 21660091

[Sandy Clark]

I love the Hang Drum and plan to learn to play one before I leave this realm....I also Love Pow Wows for the beat of the drums, vibrates my soul. <3

[Moonlight]

I love drumming... I don't do it often enough! I've had my drum for a couple of years and have been looking for a clothe bag so that I can safely carry it with me. Could never find one to my liking or the bag did not have a wide enough "mouth" to slip the drum into. I always said that the bag would find me. Guess what ? My daughter brought me a bag from her trip... she had no idea I was waiting for one for my drum. As soon as I saw it I exclaimed... wow ! a carry bag for my drum ! I can even close it. Beautiful it is.

My drum will sing this weekend. I'll think of you.