Groove Therapy Drumming to Transform Mental Wellness

as a budding at the musicologist

i had the joy of participating in both

african drum ensemble and gospel choir

simultaneously

as i participated in those groups

whether i was drumming or

singing the directors were driving us

toward

one aesthetic the relationship between

the voices of the ensemble we commonly

call

groove i was so uplifted by those

experiences that i gathered a team of

musicologists and musicians together

to involve youth in my community in

drumming together

over the course of the summer 131 youth

and their families came out to the park

to drum with us

and we saw them light up with energy

and esteem the bio-psychosocial effects

i saw from drumming that summer

changed me so much that i changed

careers

and now i practice drumming as a

psychiatric

mental health nurse practitioner student

in addiction recovery

at the ohio state university’s wexner

medical center

i want to talk to you today about the

musical meanings

and neuroscience research behind why

drumming

is strong medicine learning-based

intervention

and social support group all in one

and the need for mental health care

could not be more clear

in the u.s one in five of us struggle to

maintain

our mental wellness and despite more

than 600 million prescriptions

written to improve mental health mental

health struggles struggles are still the

number one cause of disability in the

u.s

what’s more across the workforce mental

health crises

cost more than 2 billion dollars in lost

employee productivity every year in 2013

the director of the national institute

of mental health stated

that mental disorders are biological

disorders

involving brain circuits that implicate

specific domains of cognition

emotion and behavior the good news is

that our brains are

constantly growing and changing it’s an

innate

trait we have called neuroplasticity

neuroplasticity means that our minds

flex and mold to their environment and

experiences

wouldn’t it be great if beating on a

drum could create an environment and

experience where your brain could grow

into more healthy function

the future of mental health care could

look less like

dragging up your old junk with a

counselor or suffering

the adverse side effects of psychotropic

medications

and more like gaining physical

cognitive and relational resilience

through drumming together

it might surprise you as much as it

surprised me to learn

that drumming is strong medicine in her

book

donna jackson nakazawa writes about how

inflammation causes

the tiny brain cell microglia the pacman

of the brain

to chomp down on brain circuits and how

that contributes to the signs and

symptoms

of mental illness less

brain inflammation could mean less brain

damage

and better mental health in just

10 sessions of drumming together weekly

we can see blood levels drop in

our stress hormone cortisol and

increase blood levels of the molecule

il4

the anti-inflammatory cytokine and

also drumming increases our so-called

happy hormones

of dopamine and serotonin

combined these effects can be seen with

a 38 decrease in the symptoms

of depression

i want to just give a little demo

about how this could look in a drum

group

i want you to take your one mallet and

say and play with me

fa owns bu

now take this mallet and say and play

with me

fa the

at this point you may wonder if there is

any point at all in what i’m asking you

to do

but now say and play with me father owns

a buick

father owns a buick father owns a buick

father owns a buick you see it wasn’t

until those parts came into relationship

with one another in a groove

that they seemed to have any purpose at

all and we’re very much the same

the ability to see how we fit into the

bigger picture

or what we contribute to something

greater than ourselves

is something cognitive scientists call

purpose in life studies

neuropsychiatrist adam kaplan

has summarized the positive effects of a

strong sense of purpose in life

he’s shown that we lower cortisol

we increase anti-inflammatory cytokines

and increase serotonin and dopamine

the bio-identical benefits of drumming

together

traditionally cultures around the world

have known and practiced the protective

and restorative benefits of drumming

and here in the u.s we don’t have any

lack of groove

but we’re usually consumers of it and

not creators of it

when i was in high school dancing to

whitney houston hits i couldn’t have

imagined

how i would be using groove based music

today

in my drum groups we interpret

the rhythm of lyrics into drum parts

and we focus on the relationship between

those parts

in a learning based intervention i call

groove

therapy we tend to

gauge our mental wellness in terms of

purpose

insight communication love and belonging

confidence creativity and security

cognitive scientists tend to measure the

effectiveness of learning-based

interventions in terms of attention

language social skills learning and

memory

executive function and perceptual motor

ability

we’ve already talked about how the

relationship

in parts of a groove symbolize our

purpose in life

relationships have a tendency to give us

that kind of insight right

but groove based music and the

interlocking parts and the rhythmic

density of them

can also show us what to pay attention

to in the music

so when other parts interlock with our

own

they become the trail blazes that

keep us on track in our musical

adventure

learning-based interventions are

notoriously

difficult to change language and speech

so much so that an otherwise

learning effective learning-based

intervention doesn’t need

any change in speech and language to be

validated

creating drum songs from our musical

treasure trove holds the potential to

stimulate the language centers of the

brain

music has a particular ability

to stimulate those language centers we

even see activation of speech

through music in alzheimer’s patients

just focusing on words causes the

centers of our brain the motor centers

of our brain to fire just as if we are

saying those words

so drumming together familiar lyrics

can stimulate the motor and language

centers of our brain

and potentially protect and restore

speech communication

drumming together in groove based music

also increases

and changes the love and belonging

chemistry of our brains in a study of

foster youth

groove based drumming was shown to

increase oxytocin

are bonding and belonging hormone

this is a effect similar to what we get

from cuddling

and surprisingly groove based music had

groove based drumming in particular had

twice the effect on boys as it does on

girls

and playing short repetitive phrases in

a groove

sets up a learning and memory challenge

that inherently

favors neuroplasticity if in a drum

group someone over here is playing on

the hand drum

oh this is an example from whitney

houston which we can use i want to dance

with somebody

if someone over here is playing on the

hand drum don’t you want to dance don’t

you want to dance don’t you want to

dance and someone over here is playing

on the bell

i need a man who take a chance i need a

man who take a

chance when the participants of that

ensemble

change up their parts and their

instruments they’re moving between one

part

of the groove and another part that sets

up this kind of inherent learning

situation or learning as we go

that improves positive emotions and

leads to resilience and grit

so playing the repetitive short phrases

of a groove

is a lot like running the hurdles as

you’re making forward progress

you’re also learning and fine-tuning

or adjusting so that sense of resilience

gives us the grit to jump the next

hurdle

the energy that’s created by playing

in groove based ensembles also can

affect

executive function in the prefrontal

cortex of the brain

reduced activity in the prefrontal

cortex

decreased activity in the prefrontal

cortex of the brain

and decreased volume are associated with

the

diagnosis of add and adhd and

schizophrenia again i’ll give you an

example of how this could look in a

whitney houston song

as whitney’s singing you hear the bass

go

don’t and whitney’s lyric don’t you want

to say you want to dance don’t you want

to dance

and all the other musicians combining in

the groove they wind up with

greater and greater energy until

whitney’s voice

kind of pulls into the stratosphere with

that creative melisma

and the whole song comes back out of

orbit to land safely on planet earth

and underneath whitney’s fantastic vocal

voyage

the pul the pulse tends to take on a

life of its own

those musicians who are playing the

pulse

move into a sense of flow in their

perceptual motor ability

flow occurs when your brain has a mental

challenge

and it feels confident in meeting the

challenge as it gets

real-time feedback and is motivated to

keep

acting being in a sense of flow

brings your brain into a state of calm

and alpha wave activity and also

releases

the neurotransmitters

and endorphin those are natural

painkillers

not only is drumming together a great

learning based

activity it’s also inherently a social

support group did you know our brains

learn just by watching

you’ve experienced that phenomenon from

the first time baby you saw someone

smile

our mirror neurons learn by watching

when you look across a drum group and

see someone

moving in synchrony to you yourself

you downshift your fight or flight

response

or fight or flight is essential in

recovery from ptsd

and anxiety i want to take you back to

my first forays into groove therapy as i

was

prototyping this whole learning-based

intervention

in drumming i felt drawn to invite

an acquaintance who was a peer addiction

recovery counselor

as we finished up our session and

noticed she was sitting alone in stunned

silence and i checked in with her

thinking she might be experienced some

type of adverse effect from what we had

done together

but she looked up at me through tearful

eyes and said

this is the first time in my life i can

remember

having absolutely no pain

i thank you for having me talk about

this today because

drumming is an amazingly accessible

activity

for one thing everybody can move or be

moved to rhythm drumming is

very appealing across a wide spectrum of

gender socioeconomic status ethnicity

and age there’s absolutely no experience

needed to drum together in fact the

recreational component of it

is its particular strength and there’s

also

no equipment requirement you can drum on

a bucket

a cereal box a popcorn bowl and where

safety is a concern

even body percussion is a perfect

option

i want to see a movement

of integrative mental health care that

continues to practice

and measure the therapeutic benefits of

drumming together

i hope you leave here today seeing

groove based music in a totally

different way

and i hope you drum and dance to welcome

all the goodness of groove to your mind

i also want to see artists and producers

allow their music to be reinterpreted in

drum songs

to release its protective and

restorative potential

i’ve heard musicians say they believe

their music can

change the world and heal it this is our

chance

thank you