Therapeutic Relaxation Music
Anxiety and stress are major problems for individuals suffering from substance abuse and dependency issues. Most if not all alcoholics and drug addicts live much of their life in fear. Fear is the basic emotion that an individual experiences when reference is made to anxiety and the emotional and physical disorder of stress. Experiencing a great deal of anxiety and stress tend to hinder an individual’s recovery efforts and for many will result in a relapse.
There are many important benefits for the addict or alcoholic to be able to reduce and effectively manage anxiety and stress. When individuals in recovery are able to learn how to reduce stress and anxiety their ability to make better decisions increases. Being able to make better and healthier decisions will allow addicts and alcoholics to do step work with their sponsor, benefit from counseling with a therapist and as a result stay in recovery longer thereby reducing the possibilities of relapsing and reentry into active addiction.
There are many things that an addict or alcohol can do to help reduce if not eliminate their anxiety and stress. For example, avoiding certain people, places and things, especially early in their recovery, that are associated with them experiencing stress, expressing feelings instead of holding them inside, managing time better, learning how to reframe problems and focusing on the positive aspects of themselves and life, to mention only a few. Relaxation music is still another way to help reduce anxiety and stress.
As we know, music has been used for many centuries to promote a sense of health, ease, wellness and wellbeing. Music has been proven to be a very powerful alternative therapy for changing a person’s thinking, feelings, ones emotional state, behavior and even an individual’s life. Music has the capacity to help a person experience a deep state of relaxation and serenity, reduce the experience and effects of stress, promote a peaceful, restful sleep and even begin to generate physical healing and health.
As we also know, music is very under utilized in the field of counseling and psychotherapy for helping individuals clients learn how to reduce anxiety and stress. For example, most therapists and counselors do not know about the beneficial and powerful effects of therapeutic relaxation music in individual and group counseling sessions let alone within the structure of a treatment center or program. Therapeutic relaxation music can be a very powerful modality and has a specific nature or structure.
Therapeutic relaxation music is uniquely designed with the primary purpose of creating a very deep state of relaxation in the individual who listens to it. First, to accomplish this goal the relaxation music is created with sustained chords. The more sustaining the musical chords the more of a sense of relaxation is created or instilled within the listener. The feeling of the relaxation music is one that is very slow in tempo as there is very little chord change or progression.
The relaxation music also has a very repetitious nature to it. That is, the therapeutic relaxation music most effective for reducing anxiety and stress utilizes short musical patterns that repeat themselves. As with the use of sustained chords, the more repetitious the therapeutic music the more of a sense of deep relaxation is created for the one listening. The repetitious nature of the music soothes the client into a deep state of relaxation and ease.
In addition to the sustained chores and repetitious nature of the relaxation music, binaural audio tones are also utilized to assist the person in moving into a more relaxed state of relaxation. Effective therapeutic relaxation music uses either theta binaural audio tones for a deep profound state of relaxation or delta binaural audio tones for enhancing and even inducing sleep. Utilizing binaural audio tones further enhances the power of the therapeutic relaxation music.
The sustained chords, the repetitious nature of the musical pattern and the binaural audio tones creates a very deep state of relaxation for the listener. This type of therapeutic relaxation music is ideal for assisting anyone in being able to reduce their anxiety and stress and also for use in counseling, during individual and group counseling sessions to assist clients in their therapeutic process. Usually the therapeutic relaxation music is played at an ambient level in individual and group counseling sessions. The therapeutic relaxation music can also be used in the programming of a residential treatment center or on hospital units to help relax and even promote sleep for clients.
The therapeutic relaxation music described above can also be used by anyone who wants to experience a deep state of relaxation, reduce stress and anxiety or even need assistance in going to sleep at night. For working with clients in a clinical setting, such as with addicts and alcoholics, therapeutic relaxation music can be a very powerful tool that they can utilize in their transformation. Therapeutic relaxation music can also be mixed with the use of positive affirmations to enhance and strengthen the power of the positive affirmations in improving self-esteem and confidence.
For more information about therapeutic relaxation music and the different ways that it can be utilized, both in a counseling and non-counseling setting, please contact me at my email, drharryhenshaw@gmail.com
Harry Henshaw, Ed.D., LMHC
