Fibromyalgia Aided By Music

Music is part of our daily lives and there are more and more studies which show that listening to music can do wonders to the human mind, but also to the body. A new study, made by researchers at the University of Granada, comes to support exactly this idea by showing that therapy through music is very benefic in coping better with fibromyalgia. Of course, according to the researchers, music alone does not really do the trick but it plays one of the most important parts. This study shows that music in combination with guided imagery or other relaxation techniques significantly reduce pain, anxiety, relieved depression and it seems that it can also improve sleep in patients suffering from fibromyalgia. It seems that music in combination with guided imagery helps the human body relax and thus, people get to have more control over their bodies and the feeling of well-being is restored.

For the study, the researchers at the University of Granada who were involved recruited patients who were suffering from fibromyalgia from the Spanish provinces of Granada, Almeria and Cordoba. What the researchers did was to evaluate the patients at the beginning of the treatment, to see how they were coping with the condition. Then, they evaluated these patients again after four weeks from the intervention, and then again at the end of the treatment, after eight weeks from the intervention. A combination of guided imagery technique and music was what the researchers used during this time as treatment and the patients were given a CD to listen at home. Next, the researchers measured a couple of variables which are known to be very important when it comes to fibromyalgia. These variables included things like quality of life, impact of the condition on patient’s daily life, pain intensity, anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, self-efficacy and well-being. Also, a very important thing is that patients were able to participate in their own treatment by learning from the researchers how they could obtain symptomatic relief. The researchers got to the conclusion that this particular type of treatment works very well for people who were diagnosed with fibromyalgia, but they stated that further studies were needed in order to determine exactly if there are other physiological variables associated with well-being.

As said above, music plays a very important role in the life of people and it should be used in as many ways as possible, in order to help people cope better with their conditions. Of course, it is very true that the type of music to which people are listening is also very important, but overall, music can do no harm, it can actually do only good. This is not the first study to show that music does magic when it comes to treating certain types of conditions, but it is the first to show that people suffering from fibromyalgia can cope better with the condition, because through music they can acquire control over their bodies.11