Bipolar Disorder and Music
Bipolar disorder causes, bipolar disorder help
Music can be a positive force in mental health. It can calm and give peace, it can impart peace of mind and provide a healthy diversion from the harshness of life. It is important to be selective in one's choices in music.
Music, for some, can be a deeply emotional experience. When one identifies with some particular music, bonds with it, the emotions being imparted are like the flow of electricity, they flow from the singer, to the CD or radio, to you, and become a part of you, deeply effect you. Music can raise or lower moods. One can see how music could have an impact for some persons, who might already be emotionally inclined, in terms of depression and bipolar disorder.
If a child or youth listens to music most of the day, and if that music is alternatively happy, angry, deeply emotional, harsh, jumping, one can see how one's emotions can be effected, and how it might contribute to high's and low's in one's mood.
This, in fact, seems to be the case for some children and youth who are suffering from depression or bipolar disorder, for some with ADHD.
For young ladies, and some young men, some of the hip hop today is intense, some of it appears to be "drug-charged," that is, cocaine-fueled (type) passion-music, as to its energy level, and the visual MTV imagery can be overwhelming to the senses, both visual and auditory senses. For some young ladies and men, these can be contributing factors in weakening the mind towards susceptibility towards mental health disorders of various types. Hours on the ipod and watching Internet and television music videos can weaken the mind of young girls and leave them susceptible to mental health disorders such as bipolar disorder.
There is a a "rage" and "desperation" in much of the music that is popular today for young people, including much alternative music, heavy metal, grunge, and hard core. The mind then can have little time to rest and is in a constant state of overstimulation. Dopamine level in the mind is overstimulated, and this can result in highs and lows in one's mood, as well as contribute to, among other things, to the rage that can effect a child or youth's personality. When this is combined with an unstable family life, or other media influences such as violence or pornography, the combined effects can have a powerful influence on destabilizing one's mood, which is certainly not the case in all situations, but in many cases, these things can be a factor.
One can conclude then, by limiting the time of exposure towards music, as well as the intensity, both in terms of emotional impact, anger level, (rock and roll is an angry kind of music to start, a sort of protest against everything that's not right, which youth readily identify with. Some rock takes that anger and desperation to more extreme levels), and volume, it can positively impact mental health, especially for teens and young people, whose minds are forming and who are adjusting both physically and to new circumstances in life.
Attention to music can be one effective way that one can greatly improve one's bipolar disorder symptoms profile. This can especially be true for teens, and some children. For some teens and children, as well as adults, whose minds are more sensitive, or very in tune with music, can have symptoms of bipolar disorder intensified through music. If one is careful in their selection of music, toning down the volume, intensity and concentrating on selecting positive music, mellower music, it can do much to help symptoms of bipolar disorder.
Other pages:
Bipolar Disorder Overdiagnosed reafirms a recent study by Zimmerman, associate professor of psychiatry at Rhode Island University.
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