I had the privilege of providing the Women Cancer Survivors of the Peninsula Cancer Institute with a special Drum Your Dream drumming experience. We talked about why I called my company “Drum Your Dream”. I explained that I thought that everyone should have a special dream while they are fully awake. This should be something that they want to have happen in their life or for someone else’s life. At that moment, some felt it deep inside of them as they thought about their dream. Then we drummed with their intention to achieve that dream.
I guide them on a spiritual journey where they meditate, using the power of the Drums, to connect with one another and become in sync with the universe. As they start to feel the connection, they begin to feel the shared energy that flows from each individual to the entire group. Like a moving river that fills a hole before it begins to rise up, so too is energy as it fills those with a void first before it raises the level of the whole group. This synergy that is created is something special for each person and a place for all of them to be whole again.
Clinical Associate Professor Cynthia Glidden-Tracey From Arizona State University explores the healing power of rhythm: Watch Video link
Rhythmic Cognitive Restructuring workshop from ASU Now on Vimeo.
Read article: https://asunow.asu.edu/20170917-solutions-asu-rhythmic-cognitive-restructuring-drums-cancer-workhop
Mental Health Drumming Benefits
Written by Joan Swart she is a forensic psychologist, lecturer, and business developer at Open Forest LLC.
Drum therapy is an ancient way of promoting self-expression and healing with rhythm, as can be seen in the Mongolian shamans or the West African Minianka healers. For thousands of years, therapeutic rhythm strategies have been used for developing and maintaining spiritual, physical and mental health. Latest research reviews show that drumming actually speeds up physical healing, reintegration of self, releasing emotional trauma, and producing the sensations of well-being, improving the immune system and more. Overall, it has a significant positive impact on the mental health of participants. Find out about the many benefits of drumming on mental health.
Reducing stress
Drumming is a meditative exercise. It can promote relaxation of the mind – which can reduce tension and anxiety. Drumming can lower stress in various ways. It is a fun activity, which helps you to vent your feelings and divert your mind from other activities related to stress. When combined with visualization and deep breathing techniques, drumming can offer more benefits of stress reduction.
Promoting more intense self-awareness
The activity also helps make drummers more intensely aware of the self by promoting alpha waves and stimulating synchronous brain activity. Various studies conducted on the human mind have revealed that the two hemispheres of the human brain frequently work at various rates and levels. Drumming helps activate both brain sides and can assist the mind in attaining the situation known as hemispheric coordination in which brain waves are synchronized and both brain halves get active. The coordination can result in integrative consciousness modes, which can consist of a higher level of creativity or insight.
Reducing emotional trauma and negative feelings
Drumming is found to be successful in relaxing people who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other emotional traumas. Drum therapy can assist in curing emotional problems and achieving self-expression. Drumming also stimulates the body, removes blockages and releases negative cellular memories by making musical vibrations resonate through each body cell.
Assisting in connecting with the self
Group drumming can also promote fellow feeling and give rise to an overwhelming shared experience. Drum therapy in groups has been used with success to build team experience and teaching every group to work along with each other, achieving common objectives and listening to each other. Group drumming can prevent self-centeredness and isolation, encouraging involvement and communication of each member with others of the group.
Connecting to the natural rhythms in the surroundings
Rhythm is everywhere, but people are generally unaware of the same. The seasons and the celestial objects such as the moon and the sun follow rhythms regularly. Drumming assists in connecting to the natural rhythms present around the self. Natural rhythms are present everywhere, even on the level of cells. Drumming helps connect the mind and body to rhythm and can put people in contact with natural cycles, making them aware of the rhythm present all around.
Drumming connects the self with a higher power
Drumming can give rise to a sense of community, spirituality, and connectedness, integrating the spirit, body, and mind. It can let participants attain a more meditative and relaxed mental states, letting them enter a state of higher consciousness. The activity helps coordinate the two hemispheres of the brain and synchronize the frontal brain sections with the lower sections. Drummers can thus get better insight and understanding, which is regarded as the basis for connecting the soul to a greater power.
Grounding the mind to the present moment
Drum therapy is regarded as an interactive technique. It is all about coordination and timing, which helps drummers to be focused in the present. Firmly grounding the mind to the present can make people forget past stressful situations and minimize future worries.
Assisting in self-realization
Drumming helps in self-expression, and can provide individuals with a way to express and use a non-verbal language for expression – thus connecting to other people despite racial, linguistic, cultural or other differences.
It entertains the mind
Drumming is a fun experience. This activity helps release the feel-good hormones known as endorphins into the brain, which can result in feelings of euphoria and joy. It helps gather drummers with others, and share a common experience and participate in an enjoyable activity. Those who participate in drum circles are part of a whole, which is significantly greater than the sum of every part.
For more mental health info: https://openforest.net
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