Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Music is in Your Genes

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Music is in Your Genes: William Cromie of the Harvard University Gazette writes, “Babies come into the world with musical preferences. At the age of 4 months, ...

Music is in Your Genes

William Cromie of the Harvard University Gazette writes, “Babies come into the world with musical preferences. At the age of 4 months, dissonant notes at the end of a melody will cause them to squirm and turn away. If they like a tune, they may coo.”

"All humans come into the world with an innate capability for music," writes Kay Shelemay, professor of music at Harvard. "At a very early age, this capability is shaped by the music system of the culture in which a child is raised.”

Just a few weeks ago I listened to the amazing original music of American composer and pianist Emily Bear. Her extraordinary gift for playing piano was recognized when she was 2. Emily is now 13 years old and she made her Carnegie Hall debut at age 9.

"Music is in our genes," says Mark Jude Tramo, a musician and neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School. "Many researchers like myself, are trying to understand melody, harmony, rhythm, and the feelings they produce, at the level of individual brain cells.”

Tramo believes that music and dancing preceded language. Archaeologists have discovered flutes made from animal bones by Neanderthals living in Eastern Europe more than 50,000 years ago. No human culture is known that does not have music.

Music, therefore, is wired within your brain. If you were raised in a home where music was ever present, you probably have an appreciation and love of music that plays an important part in your life today.

I was raised in a musical home. My father was a jazz pianist who played in smoky clubs in Chicago. As a child I heard the pleasing sounds of a baby grand piano just about every single day of my life. My dad had his own music room where his piano prominently sat. Not only did I have the pleasure of listening to him play, I could watch his strong hands and fingers move up and down the keyboard with aplomb.

Musician and composer Ray Charles wrote, “I was born with music inside me.  It was a part of me like my ribs, kidneys, liver, and heart. Music was like my blood; it was a force within me like food and water.”

Rapper and song writer will.i.am wrote, “If you are a chef, no matter how good a chef you are, it's not good cooking for yourself;  the joy is in cooking for others - it's the same with music.”

Because of my musical background, I typically have music playing when I am home because music is fantastic company. There is a time for silence and a time for music.  “After silence,” wrote Aldous Huxley, “that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music”

For me, music is an absolute necessity in life.  I cannot imagine life without love and I cannot imagine life without music. They are both expressions of the soul. Always bring music into your life. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche may have expressed it best when he wrote, “Without music, life would be a mistake.”

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Activating Your Endorphin Rush

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Activating Your Endorphin Rush: Endorphins are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters. They are found in various parts of the brain, the pituitary gland ...

Activating Your Endorphin Rush

Endorphins are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters. They are found in various parts of the brain, the pituitary gland and the spinal cord, but their release is primarily through the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is a pea-sized structure located at the base of the brain, just below the hypothalamus and attached to it by nerve fibers. Because of the brain’s remarkable design and miraculous inner workings, the hypothalamus brilliantly controls the pituitary glands activity. In 1977 Roger Guillemin and Andrew W. Schally won a Noble prize for their amazing research and findings on how endorphins work and under what circumstances they are released. One of the things they discovered is that endorphins have the same chemical structure as morphine.

We have typically come to understand that endorphins are released when we participate in enjoyable activities like prolonged exercise, sexual activity, and the physical act of laughing out loud. But, what research has also shown is that when we are stressed and in pain, endorphins are also released. Endorphins help to reduce the stress that we experience as a part of daily living including headache pain and other bodily pain.  Endorphins are our own built-in natural pharmaceutical responses to stress, pain and participating in thoroughly enjoyable activities.

Endorphin release varies among individuals. This means that two people who exercise at the same level or two people who laugh while watching a very funny film will not produce the same levels of endorphins. Endorphins are also released during meditation and self-hypnosis. This is exciting to know because what it means is that we have the power to stimulate the release of endorphins and to create feelings of euphoria every day. Those of you who meditate know from personal experience that it brings about a feeling of deep relaxation and well-being.  

 Self-hypnosis can have a similar effect. Through self-hypnosis, using your imagination you can take yourself to a deeply relaxing place like the beach or along a creek and use your imagination’s capability to see the beauty which surrounds you, feel the peacefulness there, hear the natural sounds of the environment, and smell the natural aromas. Meditation and self-hypnosis are resources we have at our disposal to use every day, as many times during the day as we choose to use them.

Eating chocolate also leads to the secretion and release of endorphins which explains the well-being that many people have come to associate with its ingestion. If you are very suggestible, your pituitary gland will release endorphins just by seeing the chocolate in the display case. You might even find yourself going into a light trance as you walk in smelling the delightful and intoxicating aroma and imagining the delicious taste in your mouth.

Some people make a big mistake by solely getting their endorphin buzz from chocolate. Don’t forget about meditation, self-hypnosis, massage, walking, running, hiking, laughing, and sex. These will, in the long run, keep you a lot healthier than eating an inordinate amount of chocolate for your endorphin rush.

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Your Endorphin Rush

Land of Oz Workshops Blog: Your Endorphin Rush: Endorphins are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters. They are found in various parts of the brain, the pituitary gland ...

Your Endorphin Rush

Endorphins are among the brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters. They are found in various parts of the brain, the pituitary gland and the spinal cord, but their release is primarily through the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland is a pea-sized structure located at the base of the brain, just below the hypothalamus and attached to it by nerve fibers. Because of the brain’s remarkable design and miraculous inner workings, the hypothalamus brilliantly controls the pituitary glands activity. In 1977 Roger Guillemin and Andrew W. Schally won a Noble prize for their amazing research and findings on how endorphins work and under what circumstances they are released. One of the things they discovered is that endorphins have the same chemical structure as morphine.

We have typically come to understand that endorphins are released when we participate in enjoyable activities like prolonged exercise, sexual activity, and the physical act of laughing out loud. But, what research has also shown is that when we are stressed and in pain, endorphins are also released. Endorphins help to reduce the stress that we experience as a part of daily living including headache pain and other bodily pain.  Endorphins are our own built-in natural pharmaceutical responses to stress, pain and participating in thoroughly enjoyable activities.

Endorphin release varies among individuals. This means that two people who exercise at the same level or two people who laugh while watching a very funny film will not produce the same levels of endorphins. Endorphins are also released during meditation and self-hypnosis. This is exciting to know because what it means is that we have the power to stimulate the release of endorphins and to create feelings of euphoria every day. Those of you who meditate know from personal experience that it brings about a feeling of deep relaxation and well-being.  Self-hypnosis can have a similar effect. Through self-hypnosis, using your imagination you can take yourself to a deeply relaxing place like the beach or along a creek and use your imagination’s capability to see the beauty which surrounds you, feel the peacefulness there, hear the natural sounds of the environment, and smell the natural aromas. Meditation and self-hypnosis are resources we have at our disposal to use every day, as many times during the day as we choose to use them.

Eating chocolate also leads to the secretion and release of endorphins which explains the well-being that many people have come to associate with its ingestion. If you are very suggestible, your pituitary gland will release endorphins just by seeing the chocolate in the display case. You might even find yourself going into a light trance as you walk in smelling the delightful and intoxicating aroma and imagining the delicious taste in your mouth.

Some people make a big mistake by solely getting their endorphin rush from eating chocolate. Don’t forget about meditation, self-hypnosis, massage, walking, running, hiking, laughing, and sex. These will, in the long run, keep you a lot healthier than eating an inordinate amount of chocolate for your endorphin rush.