Listen to Music and Remember

A dear friend of ours, Rick, is a musicophile, someone who loves music more than anything else (except of course his wife, another dear friend.)  Rick loves nothing more than to spend 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon enjoying some of his hundreds of albums.  His parents instilled the love of music in him and he is instilling the love in us.

I’ve always loved music and was in a multitude of choirs and shows. But to sit still and listen for the joy of it…that’s a different beast. Jim and I tried it recently for half an hour.  We laid on the couch and recliner respectively and listened to the top hits when Jim was a teenager.  Before you know it we were up dancing to Elvis and be bopping with the best of the 1950s.  Not only was it fun and relaxing, but did you know that listening to familiar music is good for you?  It’s especially good for someone with dementia.

There are studies done under the category of Music and Memory and an enlightening documentary by the same name.  What they found is that listening to music from your childhood brings back memories from that time as well. Typically good memories.  You may have experienced this yourself driving in your car listening to music and suddenly you’re reliving that time in the backseat of your car making out with your favorite “chick.” (That’s what Jim calls me…his chick, especially now when he can’t always remember my name.)

“Research has shown that music might help regenerate the brain and its connections. Many causes of dementia centre around cell death in the brain, raising the possibility that music could help people with dementia by mending or strengthening damaged neural connections and cells,” according to an article in ScienceAlert, October 16, 2024.

The studies found that people who listen to familiar music have less agitation, aggression and even their movements improved.  There was also a lot less signs of “sundowning,” a time of agitation and anxiety for people with dementia at the end of the day (sun down).

When facing life challenges, you might want to talk to Alexa about playing the Billboard Top Hits from your high school years and sing along. A trip down memory lane might just be the medicine you need to cure what ails you.