If you ever feel lonely, you know that you always have your guitar for company, if you are already a guitarist. Playing a musical instrument always helps to lift the mind. You can pick up the guitar anytime, especially an acoustic guitar because it is portable and unlike an electric guitar, does not need to be powered up. Learning a few chords is enough to allow you to start strumming and singing to a few hit songs. We all know that music therapy is good for mental health. But here are 5 reasons why playing the guitar is good for your mind.
A form of therapy for your mind
Music is becoming more apparent as a therapy for those suffering stress in schools, charities, and health organizations. Playing the guitar is definitely one of the ways to reduce or manage one’s stress. It also helps to improve one’s memory and improve communication with others. Additionally, it also helps to improve your motor skills.
2. Grows your creativity
Guitar gives you a tool to be creative. For example, if you enjoy writing short verses or poems, you can always fit the words into an existing melody you already know, or create a new melody with chords you know! Playing around with your guitar can give you the space you need for inspiration to arise.
All of us are innately creative and the guitar helps us reconnect with our creativity. Sometimes just being immersed with playing on the guitar gets you flowing in the zone, where there is no conscious effort and intention to get somewhere but just fully being in the moment and enjoying it.
3. Allows you to express yourself
If listening and singing along to music allows you to get certain emotions out of your heart, playing the guitar does the same and perhaps even more! That is because you will be playing along while you sing. The strumming of the guitar helps you release certain emotional energies. Research has also shown that music practice actually helps one reduce blood pressure.
4. Improves your mind as you age
Our brains decline as we age and along with them the grey matter. Grey matter contains most of the brain’s neuronal cell bodies and it includes areas of the brain that controls the muscles, sensory perceptions such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech to decision-making, and self-control. Therefore the more grey matter you have as you age will keep you agile. Brain scan studies have shown that learning to play the guitar not only increases grey matter in various parts of the brain but also strengthens the long-range connections between them.
Having sharper brain function slows down or protects you from the effects of mental decline in your later years.
5. Strengthens and increases your social network
Our social network may decrease with age and one way of expanding your social network is to learn to play a musical instrument like the guitar. Music helps us to bond and is also a social activity where like-minded people can get together.
You do not need to wait till you are old to play the guitar as well. When you pick up the guitar or other musical instruments when you are young, you build friendships with those who share the same interest and such friendships can go a long way into adulthood. Playing the guitar is definitely a great way to connect with one another.
Check out our guitar lessons at Ritmo Music Studio. We offer trial lessons on the acoustic, electric, and bass guitar so you can find out which one suits you best.