“Music has the power to affect our health and wellbeing.“ —National Institutes of Health (NIH)
While washing dishes I noticed, after thumping the stainless steel sink, that the water in an empty cat food can developed an intricate standing wave pattern. These vibrations, called Faraday waves, are named after the famous English scientist Michael Faraday (1791–1867), and they looked really cool.
That got me thinking how our bodies — i.e., “ugly bags of mostly water,” as one Star Trek alien termed humans — are affected by sound vibrations. The average adult consists of about 60% water (with even bones being 31% water!), and water is an excellent sound conductor. The NIH study Effects of Sound Vibration on Human Health (2021) admits sound’s impact on biology has not yet been well studied. However, music was found able to “affect growth, metabolism and antibiotic susceptibility” of microbes and “listening to low frequency music (432 Hz) was shown to significantly decrease heart rate in high-blood pressure individuals.” A related NIH study concluded that “human DNA is sensitive to music.”
What does it mean in our daily lives? Well, we know music triggers the release of dopamine and endorphins, helping elevate our mood, and that when we gather to dance we can experience “collective effervescence,” or joyful bonding (see 11/5/2024 editorial). So listening to more music — and dancing more often as a result — is my recommended Rx for greater equanimity.
See you on the dance floor —Sean Donovan
Image above: Faraday wave vibrations depicting emanations from the Perseus Galaxy Cluster 240 million years ago. —John White image, from the site FYFD