How Does Playing Guitars Refresh Your Mind?

Many guitar players will tell you they feel refreshed, happy, calm and creative because of the therapeutic effects of playing. From the first lesson the experience of learning to play an acoustic guitar is a gift you will never lose.

• Playing guitar’s  a type of therapy

Today playing the acoustic guitar is often being used by schools, health organisations and centers as a way to help people deal with stress, enhance memory as well as to improve motor and memory skills. It’s now recognized as a legitimate way to overcome depression and provides a way for many people to feel more at ease and cope with life

• Lowers blood pressure and is good for the heart

Researches in the Netherlands found that people who practice playing guitar for 100 minutes or more per day have a significant drop in their blood pressure and heart rate. The is thought to be because of the relaxing and soothing feeling it provides the player

• Creativity enhancement

Playing the acoustic guitar helps to develop and unleash your creativity and spills over to other areas of your life. If you need to find inspiration for school projects or new ideas in your job noodling around on the guitar helps create space in your mind and allows ideas to formulate

• Future proof your brain

Brain decline in later life is a common problem, playing the guitar or other creative instruments can increase your grey matter and actually strengthens the connections between different parts of the brain helping to protect you from age related mental decline. It also reduces stress levels as it helps with your overall coordination, memory and concentration

• Strengthens your social and support networks

Being around like minded people has been shown to be a very positive boot to a person’s mental health and playing music together is a great example of this. You also develop a great social network and find compatible friends

• A great way to express your feelings

It’s often difficult to verbally express your emotions and the way you feel, but music is the perfect way to show self-expression and letting out your feeling in a socially acceptable way and express yourself to others

• A confidence booster

There can be no doubt that learning to play the guitar is a huge confidence booster for most people. As you learn to play you will naturally find a audience which is a wonderful way to share and enjoy your creativity. It has the advantage of teaching you other skills such as presentation and public speaking while giving a sense of increased personal satisfaction and positive feeling about yourself. These go a long way in improving your mental health.

Learning to play the acoustic guitar can help you feel you fit in and are not alone. It stimulates the brain and imagination while bringing pleasure to not only yourself, but your friends and family. Music’s the universal language that aids in emotional communication and self-development. Many educational and mental health centers now use acoustic guitar playing to help people build confidence, deal with stress, enhance memory improve motor and memory skills as well as to combat aging.