Today, John, a thirty-five year old male, the head design engineer for a small firm, gets home from work with a migraine headache. After taking about four aspirins, popping in one of his favorite music CDs, and laying on his futon for about twenty minutes, John finds that he is now ready to mow his lawn, take out the trash, and fix himself a well rounded dinner. Most people probably would attribute John's renewed energy to the fact that he took some aspirin and simply rested a while. That, however, is only a small part of why John feels like he is ready to do a fair amount of work. The reason John feels better is that he took time to listen to some energizing music. It might seem like the music is getting too much credit for his burst of energy; however, it is getting its rightful amount.

Before Europeans came over to the New World, before the Middle Ages, music has been able to excite people, or calm people. One of the earliest examples of this is from ancient Greece. Orpheus, the son of Calliope, on a voyage with Jason and the Argonauts, played lively melodies on his lyre to energize fatigued oarsmen, and soothing tunes to calm them when they quarreled. Later examples of how music was able to sway people can be seen in the kings of Spain's Philip V, England's George II, and Bavaria's Ludwig. All of these kings supposedly suffered from sever bouts of depression. Historians cite that these bouts of depression were overcome by listening to music. A better example of this was recorded by a psychologist who was treating a catatonic schizophrenic boy reported that the "eleven-year-old cried on hearing Bach's 'Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring' and spoke for the first time in seven years, to comment on the music" (News World Communications, Inc). These examples might seem as not reliable; however, have we not seen people cry, especially around Veterans Day or D-Day when the national anthem of the U.S.A. is played? No hiding the fact, music does move people. Whether it be from that little boy who spoke the first time because of Bach's "Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring", to when people break down and cry over a national anthem, music does affect people and their actions. Now the question: how does music do this? Thankfully, there is an answer.

How can music excite, calm, or depress people? Music does this by directly speaking to the emotional side of the human brain, or the right side of the brain. Once the communication has started the right side of the human brain mixes different chemicals together and serves them to the rest of the body in the form of a cocktail. For example, a happy mood appears to trigger the production of endorphins, the body's painkillers, so pleasing music can work like an anesthetic. Other emotion triggered regulatory chemicals can enhance or impair the body's immune response. If these chemicals are produced in large enough quantities, people may get excited enough to do desperate things like pick a fight with someone who is a lot bigger and stronger, or kill themselves. Hopefully, that does not happen too much.

So, it is true, music does directly affect our emotions, which in turn, directly affects the way we act or react to our environment. With this knowledge in mind, some researchers are looking more closely at how music can ease severe illnesses like Parkinson's disease or people who suffer from brain lesions. However, for the rest of us, we can be content in knowing that we no longer have to have hours of suffering because of migraines, nor do we have to have hours of helplessness because of a bout of depression. With the right music, we do not have to be passive participants in life, but active "movers and shakers" thanks to one thing: music.