LIGHT, COLOR, AND MUSIC THERAPY

Can light, color, or music heal the sick and make you well? It's too early to draw firm conclusions, but research in this area is fascinating. Here is a smattering of some research findings.

• Viruses causing AIDS have been successfully treated with light (photodynamic) therapy by scientists at the Baylor University Medical Center in Waco, Texas under the direction of Dr. Lester Matthews. Among other viruses that have been destroyed by red light bombardment are measles and herpes simplex type 1 (cold sores).
  
  
• Light therapy is successful in treating Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). This is a clinical form of depression that most often occurs during the short days of the winter months. According to studies from the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, there is "growing evidence that exposure to certain intensities of light at particular times of day and for particular durations can cure some kinds of insomnia, make night workers more productive, and improve the body's immune functions".
  
  
• Research by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has found that a "light therapy regimen works better than sleeping pills in helping astronauts rest during the day and stay alert at night."
  
  
• Studies by Dr. Charles Czeisler at the Harvard Medical School demonstrated that artificial light can reset a person's biological clock after a person is upset by such things as jet-lag.
  
  
• Studies by Dr. Daniel Kripke of the University of California in San Diego reveal that abnormally long menstrual cycles of women can be normalized by exposing women to a 100-watt incandescent light.
  
  
• The effect of lighting on the behavior of school children was documented by Dr. John Ott at the Environmental Health and Light Research Institute in Sarasota, Florida. It was found that in the cool-white, fluorescent-lighted classrooms, fatigue, irritability, and behaviors indicating hyperactivity were common. However, in full-spectrum, radiation-shielded, fluorescent-lighted classrooms, marked academic improvement and positive changes in behavior occurred within one month of the lighting installation.
  
  
• In THE POWER OF COLOR: CREATING HEALTHY INTERIOR SPACES by Sara Marberry and Laurie Zagon (Jacaranda Wiley, 1995), the authors discuss how such health centres as the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, the Children's Hospital in San Diego, the HealthPark Medical Center in Fort Meyers, Florida, and the Vidarkliniken Health Centre in Jarna, Sweden have recently remodeled and re-painted the walls of their facilities in colors designed to enhance health and speed-up recovery times. For example, at the Mayo Clinic, "soft and warm yellowish lighting completes the triad of red, yellow, and blue. When the triad of colors are present in a space, an immediate harmony is created. Gray carpeting acts as a neutral force, holding both sides together and enhancing the hues to make them clearer and brighter."
  
  
• According to a 1999 research review in the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ACUPUNCTURE by Dr. M. Bourne Croke of Boulder, Colorado, it was concluded that colorpuncture therapy (color therapy combined with acupuncture) "may offer fast, economical, non-invasive, and non-toxic methods for treating the selected health problems [of] migraines, childhood insomnia, bronchitis, ADD [hyperactivity], learning disorders, and uterine fibroids."
  
  
• According to Drs. A. Myskja and M. Lindbaek of the School of Medicine at the University of Oslo in Norway, writing in the April 2000 issue of TIDSSKR NOR LAEGEFOREN, research has shown that music may influence blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, EEG measurements, body temperature, and galvanic skin response. It may also influence immune and endocrine function. They write "The existing research literature shows growing knowledge of how music can ameliorate pain, anxiety, nausea, fatigue, and depression." They add that there exists less research on how music accomplishes this task or what type of music works best.
  
  
• Music can alter brain chemistry. According to Dr. A.M. Kumar and nine colleagues from the University of Miami School of Medicine, in their study published in the November 1999 ALTERNATIVE THERAPY AND HEALTH MEDICINE, it was found that music therapy altered the serum melatonin levels in patients with Alzheimer's disease. They add, "Increased levels of melatonin following music therapy may have contributed to patients' relaxed and calm mood." This is desirable in the care of Alzheimer's patients.
  
  
• The brains of musicians differ from the brains of the rest of us such that musical training during childhood may influence regional brain growth. Research has revealed significant differences in the gray matter distribution between professional musicians trained at an early age and non-musicians. This was the finding of research headed by Dr. Gottfried Schlaug of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and reported at the American Academy of Neurology's 53rd Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in May, 2001. The musicians in the study had more relative gray matter volume in left and right primary sensorimotor regions, the left more than the right intraparietal sulcus region, the left basal ganglia region and the left posterior perisylvian region, with pronounced differences also seen in the cerebellum bilaterally. Dr. Schlaug adds that musicians are smarter and live longer than average. "Whether it's because they are more intelligent and thus make better health decisions we don't know."
  
  
• It seems that music can not only calm a patient towards health, it can stimulate towards health too. Dr. C. Pacchetti and five colleagues from the Faculty of Medicine at University of Pavia in Italy found that music therapy stimulated the brains of Parkinson's disease sufferers. In fact, writing in the May 2000 PSYCHOSOMATIC MEDICINE, the researchers argue that the music therapy was so effective "on motor, affective, and behavioral functions", that "We propose active MT [music therapy] as a new method for inclusion in PD [Parkinson's disease] rehabilitation programs." Why do light, color, and music heal? The most likely explanation is that all three stimulate the brain's action-determining thalamus in identical ways using the same nerves. This results in specific effects upon the body. As Christopher Barber of the North Birmingham Health Service in England writes in the July 1999 BRITISH JOURNAL OF NURSING, the sensory-neural pathways that carry these messages to the brain "pass through the thalamus where they are implicated in either inhibition or enhanced action of several neurotransmitters. Some of these neurotransmitters impact upon the physiological aspects of tension and stress such as heart rate, muscle tension and blood pressure while others impact upon mental and emotional aspects."

Further Reading: COLOUR THERAPY by Pauline Wills (Element Publishing, 1997).