Three questions to neurologist Pierre Lemarquis on the power of sounds on our body
Why do music and sounds in general have so much power over us?
Surely because sound is vibration and our body, made up of more than 65% water, constitutes a resonance box. The miracle begins from the beginning, even in the case of in vitro fertilization: in the embryo incubators of the Marquès Institute in Barcelona (Spain), it has been observed that the broadcast of music improves by 5% the fertilization rate when the test tubes are exposed to classical, pop or heavy metal tunes, due to the microvibrations produced. At the other end of life, listening to songs discovered during youth also has positive effects in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s. These sound Proust madeleines activate areas of memory and “potentialize” the remaining nerve cells – neurons. As for singing bowls or the purring of the cat, they probably have the effect of a caress on our neuronal system, just like the music we like.
Can everyday sounds also do us good?
Why not? They are very invested by followers of ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, in English, or “maximum response of the autonomic nervous system”) using ordinary sound stimuli (crunching of candy paper, sound of scissors cutting hair, whispers …) which take us back to happy experiences of early childhood. These regressive pleasures activate the brain’s reward circuits.
Conversely, are there noises that cause harm?
We all know it, for example the crunching of chalk on the blackboard which “scratches the ears”… Music can also be torture, as in the Guantanamo prison where they broadcast, for example, in a loop and loudly. volume, from American patriotic songs to jihadists. The brain also needs silence.
