Cosmic Creativity: Alex Grey

Next up, another talk about cosmic creativity.

How does art evolve our consciousness?....

Sleeping Music: How Relaxing Ambient Music Can Help You Sleep

Hey everyone! This week we are going to talk about all things sleep! Sleep is a truly fascinating thing...Why is it that in order to function we must sleep for a third of our life time? By the time we reach 60 years old, the average person would have been sleeping for a total of 20 years!

So lets explore some questions...

What can I do to get to sleep?
How can I calm my mind in preparation for sleep?
Is there a way my love for music can help me sleep?

There's also a fun sleeping fact on every day of this weeks blog...check them out!

Cats sleep for not one, but two thirds of their life!

Did you know that 50 to 70 million Americans of all ages have reported that they have sleep-related troubles? If you’re one of the millions of people who have difficulties sleeping, then you might have already tried tons of different ways to help you get better sleep.

Something you may have never thought of is sleeping music!

That’s right, ambient music can actually help relax you so that you can get much better sleep throughout the night.

Keep reading for our guide to find out how relaxing ambient music can help you sleep.

Music for Sleep Helps You Relax

The number one reason for listening to music to fall asleep is because it can help you to relax. Studies show that songs that are 60 beats per minute tend to be the most relaxing. Your heartbeat can actually slow to match the beat of the song which is why you would feel relaxed.

Don’t expect this process to happen quickly though. Make sure to pick relaxing music that is of a longer length or choose a variety of songs that blend together. It can take about five minutes for your heartbeat to slow down and for you to start feeling relaxed while listening to music.

Use Relaxing Music to Fall Asleep Faster

Did you know sleeping music can actually help you to fall asleep faster? If you’re the type of person that has a ton of different things on your mind when you’re trying to sleep, then ambient music might help to soothe you when falling asleep.

When putting on background music to help you fall asleep your mind will find itself focusing on the relaxing music and not the million other things that went on throughout your day.

Check out this relaxing ambient music that you can find on YouTube! YouTube is a great resource to find long relaxing songs that all go together so your brain can stay relaxed while you’re sleeping to music.

Releases Happy Chemicals

Another great thing that listening to music to fall asleep can do is trigger the release of good chemicals in your brain. These sleep-friendly chemicals include serotonin and oxytocin which are great in helping you relax and lead you to sleep.

The best part of listening to music for sleep is that it is much easier to fall asleep when you’re in a happy mood because of the release of these chemicals compared to any other kind of mood too!

People who lack serotonin know how difficult it can be to fall asleep which is why listening to music can make falling asleep so much easier.

Sleeping Music Helps You Get a Better Sleep

Before you go to sleep tonight make sure you turn on a relaxing ambient music playlist. You’ll find that listening to sleeping music can help you fall asleep faster, wake up less, and even help you to feel more rested when you wake up in the morning.

Plus listening to ambient music can make you feel more relaxed in general which will put you in a better and more soothing mood.

Original Source

Performing WellCAST: Alexander Technique

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The transformative power of classical music | Benjamin Zander

Why Music Is Good For Your Soul

Music is an art that is shared by almost everyone in the world. It is literally a universal language and the use of sound to communicate and express emotion is prevalent in almost every species. A world without music would be a very cold world, indeed.

We all know that music is good for us. What do you do to make a film more interesting? You add music. How do you get people to remember your product? You add music. How do you tell someone you love them? You put on some romantic music and stutter out the words.

Music is awesome.

But you might not be aware of just how awesome music can be. It is an incredible art form that crosses boundaries and brings people together. It can influence your mood and trigger your memory.

Music Helps You Share Ideas

One of the main reasons that music is so popular is that it is a way to share ideas. Like all art forms, music allows people to share their ideas without necessarily relying on words and language. Though the meaning may not always be completely clear, music is great for sparking conversation. And there are few topics as controversial as what constitutes good music!

Music is also extremely shareable. We all love listening to the same music as our friends and most music promotion relies on word of mouth recommendations. We want to get in on the musical zeitgeist of our time. When you look back on our childhood, you probably remember what you were singing along to or dancing around your bedroom to most.

But music is also fundamental to spreading political ideas and how political candidates present themselves is often characterized by the playlist they select. You can tell a lot about a person by the kind of music they listen to. This is probably why it is so painful when politicians pretend to like a particular genre of music that they so clearly have never listen to in their life. We judge them because there is an authenticity in musical preference that simply can’t be replicated.

Music Brings People Together

There is nothing like a music concert to bring people together. It’s no surprise that music festivals are some of the most popular events around the world – we all love to dance, sing and enjoy all kinds of music and every single culture in the world has their own styles. Music doesn’t differentiate – it doesn’t care about your socioeconomic background, your gender, politics or race. If you love the same music as someone else, you probably don’t care about these things either.

If you want to make new friends, music is one of the best ways to bond. Whether you love to go and see live music or you enjoy making your own, music eases social tensions and makes it easier for people to get along. Joining a band or an orchestra is also great for forming social bonds because you have to work together to create the sound you want.

When you share something like music, you will find that you become more tolerant of other people. Musicians are good at disagreeing amicably, for one thing. We are all aware and proud of having different tastes, which is perhaps why musicians are so good at talking to each other without falling out! Or perhaps why string players tend to hang out with other string players and the brass stick together!

Music Expresses Difficult Emotions

If sharing ideas is hard enough, trying to express an emotion using language is almost impossible. Language doesn’t come close to expressing something so complex as emotion – even its poets do a little bit better than most of us. Because emotions are intangible, sometimes, they need something more than the structures enforced by the language.

We all know that when we need a boost, a bouncy beat and a happy melody make all the difference. We also know that when films want to evoke a particular mood, they will use a particular style of music – this is why John Willams and Andre Desplat get the big bucks, they are master mood manipulators!

Music is incredibly human. That’s why we love it and recognize the emotions held within the music. Interestingly, it seems that music makes us more aware of our emotions and can impact the way we view the emotions of other people. For example, listening to happy music while looking at smiling faces makes the people in the pictures seem happier. Likewise, sad music makes us perceive sad faces to be even more miserable.

Music Outlasts Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s can rob you of your memories and your personality but it cannot rob you of your music. People with alzheimer’s can often remember and sing along to music, particularly the songs from their childhood. This is an incredible discovery because it shows just how fundamental music is to our expression. Even when we have lost language, we can still hum along to our favorite tunes.

Music is great for all dementia patients as it can soothe anxiety and calm them down when they aren’t sure what is going on. Happy music can cheer anyone up and soft gentle music is relaxing, no matter who you are. Music also evokes a sense of place which can be invaluable to someone who is often confused about where they are.

There is no doubt that music is good for the soul. Singing and dancing to music are the most human things we can do and it’s almost impossible to resist tapping your foot to a funky beat. Music stays with us throughout our lives and brings us together. It’s a social glue that helps us to express those things that language simply can’t from complex ideas to emotions.

So listen to music, seek it out wherever you go and try listening to new genres. Open your mind to music and learn from it. Learn to play it! Sing in the shower! Embrace the sounds that are so good for your soul.