Episode Transcript
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[ music].
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Hi, this is Rob Sepich, and welcome to Relaxing with Rob.
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If you haven't considered using music for relaxation, then I have some ideas for you.
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And if you already do but you haven't tried music for other purposes, then I have some thoughts about that as well.
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I love music. Although I have absolutely no talent in creating it, I make up for it in my appreciation for it--especially live performances.
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My wife and I still get goosebumps when we talk about seeing Beethoven's 9th performed by the St.
0:46
Louis Symphony with Leonard Slatkin, conducting. Or being at a Springsteen show in Milwaukee.
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Or a Cat Empire show in Quebec.
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Or this past summer, getting to see the Branford Marsalis Quartet in Steamboat Springs.
1:02
Clearly my taste is eclectic.
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I read a study of hospitalized patients with severe low back pain who were able to slow their respiration and heart rate just from listening to music.
1:17
In other words, it relaxed them.
1:21
Large reviews of medical trials of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation had patients with significantly less anxiety, just from listening to music.
1:34
So if you're a music therapist, this doesn't surprise you.
1:38
But for the rest of us, music can really help, and not just with stress relief.
1:44
Just as some works of fiction seem to convey our feelings even more accurately than nonfiction, I think some music expresses my feelings better than words.
1:58
And what I've come to realize is music can also change my feelings in the way I'd like, more quickly than just about anything else.
2:07
For example, about a year ago, I was preparing to have surgery, knowing that I'd have at least a month of slow rehab afterwards.
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And I created a playlist called"Recovery Now!"(with an exclamation mark) as an homage to the Netflix faux documentary series called"Documentary Now!" And I packed it with energizing songs like Destra Garcia's"Free It Up." Funny songs like Weird Al Yankovic's"Like a Surgeon." And just basically songs that created feelings of optimism, like Birdy's"Keeping Your Head Up." I listened to it a lot during that month, including on my slow walks around the block that initially exhausted me.
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I'd have to stop just to catch my breath. But eventually I made my way back to Zumba classes, and I picked up not quite where I left off, but pretty close.
3:09
I think partly because my mirror neurons were keeping me in a much more prepared state than had I restarted from scratch.
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On the day of that surgery, I had been in pre-op for four hours.
3:23
It was supposed to be only two, but the surgeon's prior operation was running long.
3:29
And so I had plenty of time to worry.
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But I kept myself calm in other ways, and I used these words from just before the Nelly Furtado song"Glow." When three people came to wheel me into the operating room.
3:45
And instead of kind of squirming or saying put me under fast, I just smiled at them and very confidently said in her words,"All right, I'm ready." And those were probably not statements they were accustomed to hearing in that setting.
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But it kept me calm in a situation over which I really had little control.
4:07
During workshops, when I would teach relaxation exercises, I would often play Native American flute music, especially from R.
4:15
Carlos Nakai, because most students would find that extremely relaxing.
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Some have told me that they would always play the same song just before tests to kind of build up their confidence and focus.
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So if you haven't tried this, consider it.
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Among other things, it can help distract you from your worries.
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In class we would talk about what the most relaxing music is out there.
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Do you care to take a guess? Well, research shows that it depends! A student mentioned in our class that AC/DC relaxes her, so I kind of surprised her by having"Thunderstruck" all c ued up the following week just as she entered the classroom.
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If there's a piece of music that's especially calming for you, try listening to it intentionally just before something that's often triggering for you.
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And for me that piece of music is usually the third movement from Mozart's"Clarinet Quintet in A Major." It feels almost hypnotic, but also grounding for me.
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I'll place a list of some of these songs I'm mentioning and I use for different purposes in the show notes, if you'd like to give any of them a proper listen.
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But I know this is idiosyncratic. So what I really encourage you to do is to experiment and keep an open mind.
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And when you randomly notice some effect that a song has on you in some situation, consider intentionally using it in the future in a different circumstance.
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And what this can do is serve as a further way to decondition your mind from anxious thoughts that might be connected with certain events.
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So for example, if you feel intimidated doing public speaking, but you can imagine a lyric from the Black Eyed Peas song"Party All The Time" that goes,"The joint don't pop'til I walk in the room," you might feel a little more confident next time.
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Thank you for listening, and we'll talk again soon.
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