Therapy for the Soul
I’m not great at relaxing. I suffer from Anxiety so for most of my day there is something running around in my head. Worries, stresses, work, dinner menus and lists of children’s parties. Either way, the inside of my head is less like a scene from Inside Out and more like a scene from a mental institution! Over the years, I have had to find some way to quiet the noise. Be it so I could concentrate on studying for exams, or even just to relax me before bed. Miss Pollyanna has always advocated Mindfulness, and over the years she has taught me to listen to the positives in life. She even suggested once that I try meditation.
There is one main issue I have with meditation. You see, my life is never ever quiet. Never. There is never a moment in my day where the world just stands still. So to sit and meditate actually raises my blood pressure. I can’t cope with the stillness and the silence. I find myself humming or talking to myself.
You see – Music is My Meditation.
As a child, my home was always filled with music. With two younger brothers there was always a diverse range of music floating through our home. From The Red Hot Chili Peppers to The Rolling Stones, ELO to Lisa Stansfield. My dad loved music and his enormous music system took pride of place in our living-room.
The older I got, the more of a role music played in my life. When I met my husband I was happy to find out that he had been to music college. He played piano and guitar and my ‘baby bump’ reaped the rewards during my pregnancy.
It wasn’t until I sat with my lovely friend a few months back that I realised that I didn’t need meditation. I don’t need mindfulness. When I am stressed, all I need is to put my music up loud and all my cares and fears float away.
It has never been a surprise that music is a restorative remedy, in fact there have been more than a few articles written about how music can help reduce pain, lessen the affects of dementia and improve the sleep patterns of premature babies.
Music for me is not just something to listen to. Music for me is like a diary entry. Each song I hear has a memory attached. A place in time or a moment. A smell sometimes. My first day at college, the day I met my husband, the day I lost my gran. Good, bad and ugly memories, they are all peppered throughout history in the songs we hear and the lyrics they sing.
When Miss Pollyanna has a bad day, she thinks, re-groups or even bakes. For me, I turn up the stereo and blast out a few tunes.
So I decided to put together a list of the songs that personally help me relax or that mean something to me. Those songs that put a smile on my face, calm my heart rate down and generally lift my mood from anxiety ridden slumps to positive happy moods.
The song that makes me sing:
This song always makes me roll the windows down in the car and belt out the tune… not giving a shit who is listening.
1 – Happy, by Pharrell Williams
I have a feeling I am not the only one in the world who turns this song on and gets ‘all the feels’. For me, this anthem is summer. It’s my kids dancing in the garden in the sunshine, and my husband ‘dad dancing’ along.
2 – New Shoes, by Paulo Nutini
This song makes my feet tap tap tap. When I am stressed I tend to clean. My husband knows that it is best to leave me alone when he sees me cleaning out the kitchen cupboards – one of the only ways I can work through my stress is by moving. This beat and the lyrics just make me bounce around the house until each surface is gleaming.
3 – Driving Home for Christmas, by Chris Rea
For a start, Chris Rea has a voice that could melt the coldest of hearts, or the deepest of snow. Each and every festive period, the very day the Christmas Tree comes out, so does this song. It is the first song I play, and the first song we dance to. This song is Christmas to me, and Christmas means family and fun.
That song that makes me smile, reminding me of family Christmas parties, snow and roaring fires.
4 – Make you Feel My Love, by Adele
Everyone has that one song that reminds them of their kids, right? It’s not just me, is it? This Adele song is the one sound burst that can still conjure tears to my eyes the second the first note booms out of the stereo. It is the song I would sing to my ‘bump’ when I was pregnant, and to this day, is still the one song my daughter insists on playing on repeat. Some songs will forever stay in my heart, and this is one of them.
5 – Dickhead, by Kate Nash
Everyone knows that fighting in a relationship can be healthy, and for me, the best way to resolve the situation is to end the fight with a laugh. The quickest and most effective way to do this is by playing this song by Kate Nash. When it comes to stress, arguments with the hubby are way up there. Take my advice: stick this on your sound system and crank it up loud – no more fights and the ‘make-up’ sex could come sooner than you think.
6 – Step Off/Glass House, by Kacey Musgraves
It is quite fitting that one of my favourite songs is often referred to as Glass House. This song means so much more to me than most people realise. For me, this song allows me to scream at all those people who upset me on a daily basis but from the comfort of my home. I am a massive country music fan, and Kacey is one of my favourite modern country singers. Her balls and determination amaze me, and I personally believe she is one of the original Glass House Girls. So if you are ever feeling like there is someone in your life that is just too negative, turn this up loud and sing the lyrics to them. It will relieve more stress than you can imagine!
7 – Superwoman, by Alicia Keys
This is one of the many songs I want my girls to hear as they are growing up. Alicia Keys speaks to every woman around the world as she states that you can be a superhero – no matter where you have come from, what you fight or the difficulties you come up against. The strength for a woman to fight comes from within, and I think there is no better way to teach our daughters how to be strong than to show them and make them listen to the women who don’t let the world stand in their way. Girl Power – and girl bands such as The Spice Girls – allowed us to feel like women can have a voice! Powerful strong minded female singers just help you to feel that little bit more like a superhero even when you are knee-deep in washing and cleaning.
8 – The River Flows in You, by Yiruma
For many, many years, I honestly believed that classical music was for the ‘older’ generation. It wasn’t until I ‘matured’ that I realised that the calming affects of classical music are an acquired taste that I wish I had discovered sooner. When I was writing my novel, the only thing that would help me focus and concentrate was an album by classical pianist Yiruma. His music can take my anxious heart-rate from sky high to relaxed in less than a few bars. This song is the one that means the most to me. It was the first I heard the day I sat to start my novel and the song I played the day I wrote the last page. Its calming melody will (I pray) play in the movie adaptation of the book one day… that is, if I can get the damn thing published.
9 – Song for Whoever, by Beautiful South.
Everyone has that one song that will stay with them from childhood all the way through life. This album was the very first album I was bought as a child and given to me the day I finally got my own music system. I remember sitting in the living-room with my parents, my brothers crowded round the Christmas tree with a million presents at their feet any my dad singing this song to my mum. The day I met my husband, this song was playing in his car… and on the day of the wedding I played it to remind me that sometimes two families are just fated to meet. Every single time I hear this song now, I have a flood of memories, of childhood, of love, and of my children dancing at my wedding. Music can conjure such powerful memories.
10- Pokito a Poko, by Chamboa
I can’t possibly have a top ten without adding the one song that fills my heart with each and every beat. The song that reminds me of my husband. This song is love. For me. And I am pretty sure that each and every one reading this has a song that makes them feel the same. With each beat I can smell the Spanish heat where I met my man, I can taste the red wine that we drank the day he took me on our first date and I can remember the look in his eyes the moment we realised this wasn’t going to be our only date.
Music is meditation. Not because you have to listen to it to transfer into another ‘zone’ but because listening to music can take your mood from bleak and depressing to joyful and uplifting in one song. You can be flooded with emotion and memories.
Music is my meditation. On a bad day I put the music on loud and crank up the stereo system and dance it out.
So what songs change your mood? Surely I can’t be the only one that uses the power of music as therapy?
