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Can these miracles tell us something about the way our mind and body interact with sound and music? Many people have been amazed by the story of 7-year-old Charlotte Neve from the U.K. who miraculously awakened from a coma. According to The Telegraph: When Ms. Neve, Charlotte’s mother, got in the hospital bed to give her daughter her final kiss goodbye, Adele's ''Rolling in the Deep'' happened to come on the radio - a song mom and daughter used to sing together. Ms. Neve started singing it to her daughter, and a nurse noticed that Charlotte began to smile, astounding everyone. They urged her to keep singing. So she kept singing and Charlotte began to wake up. Hospital personnel described the singing as a “miracle,” saying that it “unlocked” Charlotte, that her mind somehow began “rebooting.” She got progressively better and two days later, started speaking and even managed to get up from her bed. She is now back in school and taking dance classes.
Ms. Neve said, according to reports, that she was not surprised that her daughter responded to Adele’s song because she loved it, and they sang it together, but that the incident was nothing short of miraculous.
Music can be powerful medicine. It has been with us since our very beginning. Encoded deep within your memory are the earliest vibrations - the comforting rhythms of your mother’s heartbeat and the whooshing, low-frequency sounds vibrating through her placenta and your umbilical cord. These primitive scores began entraining (two or more rhythms synchronizing into one) in your brain and orchestrating the essence of music throughout your entire being. They have staying power and are capable of influencing us for the rest of our lives.
It’s as though nature has planted a computer chip in our emotional brain that triggers deep, primitive pleasure at the slightest match to sounds that were there during our making. Taking this a step further, they appear capable of triggering even more. This is because of emotional associations we attach, intentionally or not, to the music and sound we experience as we grow and to the power of such memories. There is much that can be done with these connections and even greater potential to be studied and developed in the future.
Sounds, for example, that made your mother happy can make you feel relaxed and happy. For this reason, mothers from many world traditions are taught to listen to relaxing, peaceful music during pregnancy. The idea is that by doing so they are able to protect their children while they are in the womb and also give them an effective method—music—with which to enter and sustain a flowing mind-set as they grow older.
My previous post, Keep On Keepin’ On: Music Can Train A Feel-Good Mindset (May 31, 2012), touched a little on music’s genetic factor, which may have played into the Neve story. In our book, Your Playlist Can Change Your Life (Sourcebooks, 2012) my co-authors and I highlighted this connection as well as its practical self-applications toward mental and physical fitness:
“The genetic component [of natural sound and music] is real and very important. Just like medications, various sounds and musical pieces are more effective for us if they have had a positive effect on one of our parents. If you have a close relationship with your mother, you have a great opportunity to explore the songs and sounds your mom was listening to before you were conceived and especially during the time you were in her womb.”
For example, natural sounds or music that made your mother relaxed or alert or happy or that made her mind flow can also work on you. If you discover they do work for you, add them to iPod or cell phone or even your alarm clock. Listen to them whenever you want the specific effect they enhance. And listen to them often.
This idea of repetition brings us back to the Neve’s, mother and daughter, and the miraculous influence the song of Adele’s that they loved and sang together had on Charlotte.
Remember, music makes it easy to get into a state of flow and to sustain it because music is already programmed into your brain’s wiring. It can trigger and maintain various mental states ranging from highly energized and focused as well as to an all encompassing calm and relaxed. Similar to the sense of smell, music is a fast and natural way to influence and reset (or reboot) your brain networks. The effects are virtually immediate.
Earlier this week one of my co-authors on Your Playlist Can Change Your Life, Galina Mindlin, MD, PhD, exchanged a few thoughts with me on the Neve’s beautiful story.
“You could activate certain areas in a brain,” Dr. Mindlin commented, “with certain frequencies that are deeply ingrained in an individual - since so many frequencies are determined by genetics. Of course,” she added “that while we are growing and going through different stages of development, those frequencies are changing - yet the most powerful of these can survive, especially those frequencies pronounced in connection with associative memory.”
And this is what appears to have been happening when Adele’s ''Rolling in the Deep'' came on the radio and Ms. Neve began singing the song to her daughter. It seems a lot of “genetic material” came through with the music as well as memory.
What can we learn from the Adele-Neve connection? Do you know what your own most powerful frequencies are?
You can start by making yourself sensitive to which of your favorite songs are able to launch a simultaneously energized yet relaxed mindset for you. Then identify specific daily situations in which these songs work and add them to your iPod or cell phone. Listen often as you approach these situations.
You can take this all a step further as well. Dr. Mindlin suggests, “You could record your own brain wave patterns while you are enjoying your life and your mind and brain are functioning at their best. You could keep them as a part of your “life savings,” for times when you may need them. Of course, we would like to back up this with studies,” she adds. But given the fact that certain frequencies could wake certain brain areas from coma gives us something to think about.
If you would like to read a full discussion of how music can be used to train the brain to launch optimized mindsets for specifically targeted daily situations, check out our book, Your Playlist Can Change Your life.
E.M. Foster said: “Only connect.” Neve had a reserve and was able to connect with it at a vital moment. So take “note.” Keep listening, keep bonding together, and keep singing.
Enjoy!
