Yes, the bard of Avalon said it so well. Who can imagine life without music? I ran across an interesting item in the November 12 Baltimore Examiner concerning the benefits of music for heart health. This post falls into the same category as my last post: “They had to do a study to figure this out?!!” University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers discovered that listening to pleasing music can boost blood flow. Evidently listening to “joyful” music causes blood vessels to open up whereas listening to “anxious” music causes the vessels to constrict. But don’t we all know this? Think about the standard horror movie scene - you know, when the woman home alone in her house hears the noise in the basement and she ever . . . so . . . slowly . . . walks . . . down . . . the . . . stairs . . . . . .  And while we the viewers are trying to tell her “no you idiot don’t go there” what is the musical background? No, not Vivaldi, not country/western. No, what we hear are ominous low piano chords, with maybe a bass track that mimics the increasing beat of a stressed heart.

 So much of what sustains our health is readily achievable and available -  Good music, good food, good friends, fresh air and exercise. The Chinese daoist concept of health is one of balance in all things. By the time people get to our clinic obviously the balance has begun to slip, and our magic needles then come to the rescue. But in addition to our intervention, we always try to guide patients back to the basics of health and well-being. The busy, overworked doctor spends his or her five minutes with you just trying to get the meds straightened out. There’s not always a conversation about whether or not the patient is doing things in the course of a day that makes him or her happy.

So what’s on your iPod?

William (B.M Peabody 1983, M.M. Peabody 1985 in piano performance)