Listening to Music Essay

Today stress is a factor that we have to learn living with, manipulating it to benefit us thereby preventing the development of depression and stress related diseases. This can be attributed to globalization which although it has greatly improved our lives and made our activities simpler it has also introduced negative aspects that lead to the development of stress. For instance programs and advertisements aired on our televisions are filled with violence which is viewed as eye catching and therefore tolerable. However, the violence has natured aggressive attitudes in children that are emanated in form of delinquent behavior in their teen lives thus developing stress from the prejudice and seclusion they receive from the community. Their parents too suffer from stress because of worrying about the safety and attitudes of their children. The community is also stressed by the menace of these teenagers. Many of you may be asking how stress can be managed especially with the little time that we have for ourselves, because most of our time is consumed by education and work. Worry no more because I have a solution that is easy to adapt to, access, simple to use and thus demands little effort from us; listening to music. My interest for music begun from childhood, whenever I was moody or angry I would lock myself in my room, turn the volume of my radio full blast and enjoy the tune of the music. Well this did not last for long because as you have all guessed I had to turn off the radio, orders from my parents, but the short period that I listened to the music did wonders because my anger subsided leaving me in a calm state. I can also attribute my success to music since while listening to its beats my concentration increases and thus develop ideas that will be beneficial to my life or solutions to problems that were disturbing me. Therefore, I am able to manage stress and its attributes (Chekitan & Schultz, 2005). Conducted research and studies have shown that music as a product is customer oriented because it portrays many benefits into our lives and acts as solutions to some of the demises that we suffer from. For instance today medical practitioners are using music to treat cancer patients whose treatment methods are painful and thus the patients require a relaxation factor to withstand the pain. Music is also used to treat children suffering from Attention deficient diseases (ADD) because it gives them a sense of belonging and increases their concentration, pain management, promote patients movement in wards as they will be tempted to move by the beat of the music, calm down patients, lower blood pressure, boost immunity and ease muscle tension for both the patients and medical practitioners (Laermer & Simmons, 2007). Music also penetrates into the brain cells stimulating the development of a brain wave whose resonance is in accordance to the tempo of the music. Music that contains fast, sharp and strong beats increases the concentration of the listeners thereby increasing their focus and thinking capacity. On the other hand music that constitutes slow beats results to the development of a calm state which has meditative therapy on the listeners thus relaxing them. Moreover, the ability of the brain to create different types of wave resonance is long lasting thus helping to manage stress. This is because these different brain waves also produce positive impacts onto the other parts of our bodies, for instance relaxation decreases breathing rate and heartbeat rate therefore reducing the chances for development of a chronic disease such as cardiac arrest. In the process havoc stress related responses are curbed because a positive state of the mind is maintained as the listeners develop an optimistic attitude. Furthermore, depending on the tempo of the music the relaxation soothes listeners to sleep a condition that eliminates stress, depression and anxiety effects (Kotler & Keller, 2005). Music also helps to improve the performance of students in class because the prominence of its beats eliminates environmental factors which distract the attention of students causing them to occasionally fidget and increase their desire to stand up and move around. This is because the repetition of the music beat contributes to the relaxation of muscles which reduces the hyperactive nature of the students thus increasing their focus on what they are learning. Music has also proved to be beneficial while exercising. This is because music helps the exerciser to concentrate on what he is doing as all the external factors that may contribute to his distraction are eliminated. Also the relaxation effect that the music creates reduces the strain that the exerciser may feel thus increasing his exercising capacity. Music also arouses psycho motor sensations improving the exercisers motor coordination (Barlon, 2006). Furthermore, there are many types of music that can suit the desires of everybody whether old, young, professional, rich or poor. Music as a product provides a wide range of selection that can be used to achieve certain benefits. The ability of music presenting a choice to its listeners proves that it is market oriented this is because people can change the type of music they are listening to suit a particular occasion. For instance when lifting weights music that contains fast and sharp beats should be used to help the exerciser increase the tension of his muscles and thus comfortably lift his weights. Contrary to this if slow music is used the exercisers tends to get tired quickly because the weights feel heavier due to the relaxation effect of the slow music (Silk & Harvard Business School Press 2006). The price of music is cheap because the benefit it prevails outweighs its monetary value. Listening to music is therefore affordable because little money is contributed to access music and listening devices. However, this is only done once because one remains with the music and the equipment thus will not need to contribute more money if he wants to listen to the music again. Moreover, the attention and energy needed to access music is little and in fact it is perceived as one of the music benefits because it increases the concentration and focus of the music seeker. Furthermore, the time spent when purchasing music is so little because music is sold by many people therefore, it is not a rare commodity. Also music is well classified and thus one cannot waste a lot of time looking for the type of music he/she desires to listen to (Sandhusen, 2008). Music is easily accessible because it can be found everywhere and there are so many devices that have been developed to aid in the simplification of attaining and storing music. Music can now be found in stores, online, itunes, mp3 sharing, ipods, from the television and the radio among other places. Thus people can enjoy the benefits of music without waiting for long periods of time because music is not located in a distant place that one needs to travel to purchase it or needs to wait for its delivery (Barlon, 2006). Media agencies are also promoting the benefits of listening to music by educating and advising people to seek this mechanism especially when under stress. The exposure on the benefits attained from listening to music that the media has done has increased the attention of many who have resulted to the conduction of research and studies that prove my contention to be true. This has also led to the establishment of music therapy a discipline that has now gained popularity as it can be used in all industries whether administration or medical. Furthermore, information about music therapy can be easily accessed online where the process used to perform music therapy, the cost of attaining these services and the location where these institutions can be found is well expressed and is in a language that is easily understood. Furthermore, music can be perceived as a universal language because music is globally listened to therefore, each one of us acts as an advertising agent for music influencing other people to start listening to a particular type of music in an attempt of attaining the same benefits (Barlon, 2006). From the above it is quite clear that listening to music can prevent the occurrence of negative stress related attributes such as suicide attempts, heart failures, loneliness and the pessimistic attitude among others. Therefore, everybody should make listening to music their hobby or increase the time they dedicate to this precious life extender and health maintainer mechanism. However, we must remember that although the power of music is good and results to unimaginable wonders to attain this, one must intelligently choose the right type of music to listen to at a certain time or occasion and use effective measures for instance while exercising low volume of the music is required to prevent further distraction of exerciser. Therefore, I would encourage people to listen to music which is productive and whose meaning or concept can easily be understood. Word Count: 1499 Reference List Barlon, K. (2006). The Concept of the Marketing Mix. Presentation on Marketing Management, 1, 2–7. Chekitan, S. D. & Schultz, E. D. (2005). In the Mix: A Customer-Focused Approach Can Bring the Current Marketing Mix into the 21st Century. Marketing Management, 14(1). Kotler, P. & Keller, L. (2005). Marketing Management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Laermer, R. & Simmons, M. (2007). Punk Marketing. New York: Harper Collins. Sandhusen, R. (2008). Marketing. 4th Edition. Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series. Silk, J. A. & Harvard Business School Press (2006). What is Marketing. Watertown, MA: Harvard Business Press.