I’ve shared, a few times here on TonyFunderburk.com, how music can be good for your brain. And I’ve also talked about how music is good for heart healing.
Like when I shared this info from a heart healing article:
It said, “a study from Wisconsin evaluated 45 patients who had suffered heart attacks within the previous 72 hours.” I didn’t see a link to that study, but the information I found on the Harvard Medical School website looked legitimate.
Anyway…
The study also said those patients were all stable, and they were “randomly assigned to listen to classical music or simply continue with routine care” for about 20 minutes. And the report said the ones who listened to music almost immediately showed drops in their heart rates and breathing rates. Plus, their hearts didn’t seem to need as much oxygen to function.
Very cool.
Listening to music didn’t seem to lower blood pressure. But the benefits it DID have lasted at least an hour after the patients stopped listening. And they appeared to have less anxiety which heart attack patients typically deal with in spades.
Of course, when something works, you wanna find out how to make the most of it. Right? And those researchers wanted to see if short term benefits of listening to music could last longer. So, they came up with a some other tracking ideas. They chose over 700 patients, who were scheduled for heart catheter surgery, to receive either the standard care or care with some “extras.”
Then, they combined standard care with prayer, or standard care with prayer and music, and standard care and MIT (a combination of music, imaging, and touch therapy), or just MIT.
From what I could tell, they didn’t come up with conclusive data to show long-lasting effects of any of those combinations. But, after six months, they did say the MIT patients experienced less “anxiety and emotional distress.” And they were apparently “65% less likely to die” after surgery. But, of course, they made sure to add, “prayer was not associated with any potential benefit.”
So, did you catch that. They said, “It’s impossible to know if music was the key component.” But they had no problem with a definitive statement about prayer.
But what about your spiritual heart healing?
Sure, listening to music can help increase your blood flow by 26% or more. And that’s great. But that helps your physical heart and health for a little while. And here’s the thing. Even if it extends your life by years, you’re still gonna run out of gas one day. And then what?
Well, that’s where the benefits of prayer kick in. Because good arteries, blood pressure, and heart health won’t get you into Heaven. And Heaven is a much better choice than to exist as a dark, lonely bodiless soul in hell?
I gotta say, when I think of living forever in Heaven I feel my heart healing day after day.
My music heartbeat is the rhythm to my soul.
And it will beat for me forever and a day.
‘Cause my Creator is the healthplan I can trust.
And He’s the song of life I sing along the Way.
Join the growing body of believers who signed up for the Tony’s Rhyme and Reason Daily Devotional. And receive daily, delightful dashes of salt and flashes of light from the power of God’s love.
Stay tuned…
