Human Conditioning, Stress Management and Music
HUMAN CONDITIONING, STRESS MANAGEMENT and MUSIC
The predominant role human conditioning plays in a stressful
environment. Perspective, reaction and remedy.How music can help.
By Bill Reddie
Creating music for stress management can be a rather complicated
process. Due to the nature of stress, music must promote and
sustain a therapeutic ambience and provide a calming influence
that opens the door to reflection, corrective action and
ultimately, inner peace. Consequently, creative effort in this
genre often leads to considerations that have more to do with
psychology than music per se.
In its development stages a musical sequence may point to
possibilities for music therapy, but to successfully complete
the final sequence, one must consider the variables of human
nature.
Whether or not these musical possibilities grow into something
of benefit depends upon many factors, not the least of which is
the creation of sound structures that are compatible with and
beneficial to the human organism.
Another extremely important issue that must be considered during
the composition process is that all humans are conditioned since
birth and there is little that humans experience throughout
their lives that is not filtered through previous layers of
conditioning.
At first glance, human conditioning may appear to have little if
any relationship to stress management, anxiety, burnout - or for
that matter, music. But a closer look reveals the connection.
To understand how this connection works, we'll need to dig into
some information that may seem a bit 'heavy'. The subject of
conditioning is extensive and of necessity, comment here must be
confined to only a few of its more prominent twists and turns.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the statements presented
here, the following is the result of years of observation, study
and application. Its presentation here is intended to promote a
better understanding of how and why we so often react in
counter-productive ways when dealing with stressful conditions.
Admittedly, this information is but a small part of a much
deeper subject. Nonetheless, it is my sincere hope that what is
presented here will provide some insight for those who suffer
from the unpleasant, debilitating and unhealthy conditions of
stress. That said, please read on and it will become apparent
that where human conditioning is concerned, almost everything is
related.
The problem
When one studies the work of men such as Roger Sperry, Freud,
Jung, Wilhem Reich and others, it becomes clear that (1) general
reaction to stressful conditions tends to be aberrant and (2)
the manner in which humans perceive and react is, for the most
part, a learned behavior.
This learned behavior has much to do with how we view ourselves
and our place in society. The picture that we present to the
outside world is our identity, or image, of who we think we are
and that image is the direct result of everything we have been
taught and everything that has ever happened to us.
Consequently, each new encounter or situation we experience is
filtered through previous conditioning and in this way, previous
conditioning becomes the measurement we apply to all future
experience. Unfortunately, this measurement is often flawed and
when used to evaluate and respond to stressful conditions, tends
to produce reaction rather than remedy and this in turn can lead
to errors in judgment that may actually make matters worse.
Why don't we recognize these reaction patterns when they occur?
Well, for most of us, the basic underlying causes of conditioned
reaction have been lost to conscious memory. Yet, without
realizing why, we often continue to react in a sort of robotic
way to the emotional stimuli of circumstances that occurred long
ago and which contain little if any corrective value for
resolving the here-and-now problems of today.
How does this relate to stress management?
The relevance to stress management lies in the fact that
conditioning is like a one-way street, paved with beliefs,
opinions and prejudgments that often lead us in very subtle ways
to the wrong destination. In other words, when belief, opinion
and prejudgment are used as a measurement of stressful
conditions, the results of that measurement will most likely be
erroneous due to a lack of facts.
Stated another way, one might say that in lieu of facts, we are
more likely to create and / or contribute to the stressful
conditions that we seek to resolve.
Truth or Belief?
Belief, opinion and prejudgment indicate a lack of fact or
truth. One reason this lack occurs is because of a widespread
assumption that the word 'believe' is synonymous with the word
'truth'. When we say we believe in something or believe
something to be true, what we are really saying is that we do
not possess all the facts. Conversely, if we possessed all the
facts we would no longer believe - we would know.
Thus, the disparity between 'belief' and 'truth' becomes one of
the main reasons we react to stress rather than take remedial or
constructive action to minimize it. In other words, the tendency
is to make judgments ( based on belief or opinion ) before
obtaining all the facts in a given situation.
According to statistics, the sources below are most commonly
mentioned as a cause of stress:
The boss Not enough sleep Family pressures The workload Not
enough money Societal pressures Co-workers Not enough time
Marital issues Traffic Health crises Divorce When stress enters
our lives, the tendency is to blame someone or something other
than ourselves. In some cases we may be right. But many times
stressful conditions are of our own making. One example would be
stress created as a result of maxed-out credit cards or a lack
of financial discipline.
Another cause might originate with any one of the sources in the
list above, but because of our tendency to misunderstand and
mishandle these experiences we often proceed to make the problem
worse and thereby increase the level of stress. Regardless of
the causes, how we deal with these conditions is of paramount
importance if we are to resolve them successfully.
Generally speaking, we react emotionally to stress when we have
something to defend and when we allow defensive emotion to get
out of hand, we're not being rational - we're merely reacting.
By reacting we compound the problem because our reaction tends
to produce a counter-reaction.
Why a counter-reaction? Well, if the object of our wrath happens
to be another person, that person will most likely have
something to defend also and our emotional display may therefore
be interpreted as a threat. Remember, that other person is
conditioned too!
The Sky is Falling!
Conditioned reaction also indicates a fear of something. Eugene
Albright, the author of Unichotometrics-A New Way of Life, once
said, "There is only one valid fear - a direct threat to
survival of the organism. All the others can be traced to false
concepts of one sort or another."
If this statement is true, then another reason we have
difficulty dealing with stress has been exposed. Excluding a
direct threat to our lives, it suggests that we allow stressful
situations to provoke aberrant fears of losing something,
exposing something, or fear retribution for having done
something. The oddity is our seeming inability to consciously
recognize this when it is happening.
Conditioning influences our interpretation of everything we see,
hear and project to the outside world and yes, it even
influences our choice of music. Generally, we are not aware that
we live our lives according to the beliefs, opinions and
prejudgments of others, (peer-pressure among teenagers is one
example) nor do we realize that by accepting these viewpoints,
we are perpetuating them.
Thus we place ourselves in a loop wherein we often repeat the
same mistakes over and over.
Now here's the good news: It is possible to break out of the
loop when one realizes that (a) over-reaction to stress does not
work and (b) there must be a better way - and then takes action
by proceeding to summon the courage, stamina and discipline to
search out and reveal the truth according to fact. In this way
one begins to take responsibility for one's own actions.
Aw, do I have to do that?
Accepting responsibility is the first step we take on the road
to a less stressful and more productive existence. By taking
control of our lives, we'll sometimes move against the grain of
the status quo and because of that, we'll most likely meet a
measure of resistance along the way. But if we persist in our
quest for fact and truth, our ability to deal constructively
with stress will become much easier.
There will be times when we may slip and fall back into the old
ways - meaning, when the pressure of stress becomes too much to
handle, the general tendency will be to get into someone's face,
blow off steam, antagonize imagined enemies, or worse - meekly
swallow the problem and risk a bigger stomach ache in the near
future.
Sure, that's quite a bumpy, cumbersome and questionable way to
move forward and a lot of people bear the scars to prove it.
Nonetheless we usually end up learning something from our
stressful encounters and when we don't - well, we've fallen back
into the loop. If that happens, its not a disaster. It just
means we haven't quite gotten a handle on how to respond to
stress in a constructive manner.
A friend once commented, "If you don't want to be crucified,
don't hang around crosses". That simple logic may also be
applied to stressful conditions. For example, we must learn to
recognize and walk away from dead-end situations that are beyond
our ability to improve. Next, we must fully understand that
resolution of stressful conditions does not come about from
trying to change others. Instead, we must change ourselves.
We may stumble, bruise egos and make mistakes but however inept
our approach, if we persist in our search for the facts or truth
in all situations, we'll eventually learn how to live our lives
in a more efficient and productive manner.
Help is out there
Fortunately, there are tools and methods that can help lighten
the load as we optimize our chances for a less stressful
tomorrow.
Among them are inspiring books by authors such as Deepak Chopra,
Dr. Wayne Dyer and others that may provide a better
understanding of oneself. Employing one of the various methods
of meditation may also work. When the need is acute, seeking the
guidance of a professional counselor may be an appropriate
choice.
Of course, music is one of those tools mentioned above. One of
the nice things about music is its synergistic quality - it
often works well as an adjunct to other stress management tools
or methods. When we introduce music to the conditioning / stress
management equation, some interesting and unexpected results may
occur.
For example, when listening to properly crafted music, it is
sometimes possible to by-pass one's conditioning temporarily.
When this happens, the listener may experience strong feelings
of freedom, inner peace, and a profound sense of well-being. In
other words, the exact opposite of stress.
We're speaking here of major changes in perspective.
Consciousness may become altered to the extent that conditioned
reaction becomes temporarily suspended. Some may describe their
musical experience as 'spiritual'. Others may have meditated on
a particular personal problem and see it in such clarity that
the necessary corrective action becomes obvious.
At times, people may be moved to tears. Others may find it
difficult to put their experience into words. In some cases, the
combination of empathy, understanding and emotional release can
be life-changing and yes, there will be a few times when a
listener may be so rigid and structured as to be unable to get
in touch with their own feelings.
Whatever the response, the point to remember is this: It is the
energy of music that initially helps to unlock and open the door
- that we might enter a place where peaceful reflection will
allow us to sort out things and possibly develop a new, more
positive and constructive perspective.
You mean, It didn't come from outer space?
To be sure, music possesses many beneficial qualities but we
should be mindful not to attach elements to music that it does
not possess.
Of itself, music does not 'cure' anything. It does not 'solve'
anything. And contrary to the more bizarre claims one may find
on the internet, it certainly does not 'originate' from an
"unknown composer who resides on a planet in a distant
galaxy"... or other similar nonsense! As a point in fact, the
composition "GROVE SUITE" ( offered at
http://www.channel1records.com ) was pirated some years ago by a
metaphysical organization that actually made that claim!
What properly created music DOES do, it does very well. It
possesses the ability to put our hearts and minds at ease and in
so doing, facilitates entrance to a clearer understanding of
ourselves, reality and finally - inner peace. By any
measurement, that is remarkable!
That music can be an effective tool for stress management is a
given. It has been known for centuries that music can be
therapeutic and there are many references in art and literature
that attest to its soothing qualities. The therapeutic
capabilities of music have been proven many times over and its
success as a stress management tool is well documented.
That fact alone proves that music is able to minimize the
disturbing and unhealthy effects of stress, anxiety and burnout!
Who knows, it may even take the edge off some of that
conditioning.
Copyright