Catalyst: Healing with Rhythm

What does healing look like?

In modern medicine, it usually involves drugs or surgery.

But one scientist is using a different tool to heal people with emotional or physical problems. That tool is rhythm.

From the Catalyst team, here’s host Vanessa Ruiz.

“It’s called cognitive restructuring. It is aimed at helping people with depression or anxiety, and it makes use of the simplest of musical instruments to help retrain your brain,” said Ruiz.

Cynthia Glidden-Tracey is a counselor within the training center at Arizona State University and deals a lot with cognitive restructuring.

“Cognitive restructuring is being able to identify negative thoughts that you’re having generate some more caring kind positive alternatives and things you could say to yourself instead, and learning how to catch yourself when you’re having the negative thought and change it to a more positive thought,” said Glidden-Tracey.

The whole concept is saying those words to a beat and paying attention to the power of your thoughts and take power from the meaning of your words.

Glidden-Tracey said that it’s all about finding a replacement for every negative thought you have and retraining your brain to think more positively.

“If it’s incorporated into music and heard often, it tends to stick in people’s minds more especially children, that is made of handy for things like the language and the cognitive restructuring, because that tie is already there we just changed the language,” said Dr. Sonja Branch with the School of Film, Dance and Theater.

“Because it’s energizing that it has the potential to really convey really positive messages in your own words,” said Glidden-Tracey.