Musicians Clinic

Long hours of practice without adequate breaks leads to exhausted muscles which then tighten and lose their ability to play even for short periods without pain. The muscles lose reflex speed, this in turn results in poor performances.

Intense rehearsals will often trigger symptoms. Muscles get tired, stiff and painful. underlying injuries become aggravated. There are various' killer' composers out there. Long operas, Rachmaninov with wide stretches for octaves on the piano, Takemitsu with his chromatic and complex syncopatory patterns. Taverner with his long sustenatos for the violin. Session musicians having to repeat the same passage many times over.

When a musician attempts to play a new piece of music they have to push beyond previous limits. Composers have their own ways of playing their particular instrument and, thus their compositions can require playing techniques which are alien to the student.

Poor instrument quality and set-up will create difficulties. When we are learning an instrument we will soon get to the limits of a poor instrument. The student will often blame themselves rather than realize that their instrument is holding them back. Strain of muscles and joints can ensue whilst perfecting the performance.

Exhaustion, illnesses, muscle fatigue are to be avoided so planning trips is essential to ensure comfort and rest.

Slumping into deep sofas is very detrimental to the spine. especially if the musician can play their instrument whilst seated e.g. guitar.

Muscles and joints do not like the cold. They tighten and stiffen and become more prone to strain and fatigue.

Such injuries can take a long time to repair themselves. Remnants of childhood sprains and fractures can persist into adulthood. They are very influential and constitute 'weak' areas.

We are almost all water, muscles especially. If we go without H20 for around 4 days we die! We are like a plant which needs watering daily or it droops. Our brain is the most needy of hydration, without it we become slow and dumb, energy less and dissolute.

Physios' and trainers can often give damaging exercises. Their knowledge is only partial, their therapy too standardized. They interpret 'weakness' with proneness to injury and 'strength with' immunity from injury. Thus they go about strengthening 'weak 'areas and make the already tense muscles causing the symptom even tenser. The answer is to determine the tone of the muscles involved using experienced palpation, then softening and lengthening them.

When we first begin playing an instrument it is usually at a young age, anywhere from 3 years old to 18, peaking at around 8 years and 14 years of age. When we first start we are tense and confused. As we become more accustomed we free-up and relax our grip more. However some of those childhood tension patterns can persist as either habit and/or muscle tension patterns in the hands and forearms. Those persistent patterns will limit our performance abilities later on.

You need good eyesight and lighting to read music. In cases of dyslexia notes can become jumbled thus proving difficult to read and even more difficult to play and learn. Try larger print. A pink or light blue background will also help.

Lifting and carrying heavy equipment causes tendon and ligament strain. Guitar amplifiers are a good example of what to avoid carrying. Drum sets too. Get help from some nearby Hercules if possible. Don't be macho.

While most activities we do use only a few areas of our brains at one time, playing a musical instrument energetically fires off millions of nerve impulses, and creates new brain cells.
Recently, brain researchers monitored people hooked up to fMRI's, functional magnetic resonance imaging scanners, and PET, positron emission technology scanners, while they performed various activities.

When participants listened to music, the researchers likened the effect to watching fireworks go off over the entire brain, a different area firing in response to different elements in the music. Some parts of the brain responded to the melody, others to the rhythm, and other parts seemed to isolate, and respond to, random musical patterns - such as improvised guitar riff solos.

Then, the brain seemed to synthesize all the different parts into a unified musical event. Remarkably, the brain performs all these tasks in the first few seconds the listener perceives the music. A split second later, the listener has the melody and rhythm of the music down and is tapping their toe or fingers, swaying their head, or dancing along to it.

But, when the researchers studied people actually playing musical instruments, many more areas of the brain lit up, as if a symphony of brain lights were playing in amazingly fast sequences.

Both hemispheres perform a kind of "ping pong game" of message relaying back and forth between them to accomplish the activity. So, when you first start playing a musical instrument, your brain starts to create a whole new network of nerve pathways to be used for messaging between each hemisphere. This actually increases, and strengthens, the brain's corpus callosum, the "bridge" between the two hemispheres. The more you practice playing a musical instrument, the more skilled you become at solving other problems in academic and social settings.

In addition, because playing an instrument also involves understanding music's emotional content and message, your brain must further develop its higher, executive functions. This includes interlinking the tasks ofplanning, strategizing, attention to detail, cognitive and emotional skills. These same skills also help all memory functions.

The researchers also found that musicians develop particularly enhanced memory skills. They found that most musicians have the ability to create, store and retrieve memories more easily.They are subconsciously able to assign "tags" to bits of memory such as contextual, audio,and emotional.

In addition, guitarists, in general, seem to have specific intuitive perceptual capabilities that other musicians may not. In a 2012 study out of Berlin , researchers found that 12 pairs of guitarists could subconsciously "brain synch" with each other just prior to playing their designated music. They intuitively knew, it seemed, what the other guitarist would play.

In summary, playing an instrument greatly increases your brain's overall functioning and health in general. It encourages, and strengthens, the connection between the 2 sides of your brain and their relay of messages. So, the more you play, the more "plastic", or capable of growth, in cognition, perception, detail and spatial orientation, your brain becomes. In short, playing an instrument makes you smarter and keeps your brain cells energetically developing and firing. So,go get out your instrument and turn those brain lights on!

Rhythm and melody create the foundations for mental activity later in life - watch this:

Anxiety takes many forms. From simple worrying to panic attacks. As we approach the more extreme states of anxiety several systemic and mental effects can occur.
1. Breathing patterns: Respiratory alkalosis and acidosis. These two results of breathing patterns are to be avoided.
Hypoventilation is when we breath very shallowly, hyperventilation is when we breath too rapidly.


2. Hydration
Our body is made of water, just like a plant. As a general rule of thumb, a person can survive without water for about 3 days only.
What happens to your body without water?
Dehydration can lead to serious health problems, including heart problems, kidney problems, and heatstroke.
Symptoms of dehydration
Headache
Fatigue
Dizziness
Dry mouth, skin, and tongue
Dark-colored urine
Lightheadedness
Irritability
Loss of appetite
Swollen feet

Complications of dehydration
Heatstroke
Kidney stones
Kidney failure
Urinary tract infections
Heart attack
Blood clots
Seizures
Low blood volume shock

3. Mental acuity and concentration
Brain shrinkage
When you're dehydrated, your brain and other tissues shrink.
This shrinkage pulls away from the skull and puts pressure on nerves, causing pain.
Dehydration can also increase the volume of the ventricles in the brain.
Cognitive impairment
Dehydration can cause difficulty focusing, impaired short-term memory, and difficulty recalling long-term memories. It can also cause mood changes, light-headedness, dizziness, nausea, and fatigue. Some studies have shown that cognitive function declines at mild water loss of around 2% body water loss.
Other symptoms of dehydration
Headache
Dry skin or tongue
Fainting
Confusion
Fast heart rate and breathing
Dark yellow or light brown urine

4. Medication side effects
Medications can affect the musculoskeletal system by causing side effects like muscle weakness, pain, cramps, stiffness, joint pain, bone loss (osteoporosis), tendon damage, and inflammation, with some of the most common culprits being corticosteroids, statins, fluoroquinolone antibiotics, and certain blood pressure medications (beta-blockers). There are six main types of mental health medications:
antidepressants – used to treat depression, anxiety and some types of personality disorders
antipsychotics – used to treat schizophrenia and sometimes bipolar disorder and to help restore your brain's chemical balance
mood stabilisers – often used to treat people with bipolar disorder
depressants – used to help people become or stay calm
anxiolytics – often used to treat anxiety disorders
stimulants – used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Most mental health or psychiatric medications have side effects. The most common ones are:
headaches
weight gain
dizziness
dry mouth
muscle spasms and cramps
nausea
loss of sex drive
constipation
sleepiness or problems sleeping

Some drugs can have other effects if you take them for a long time. Anxiolytics like Valium are addictive and if used for too long can do things like:
make you depressed or paranoid
change your personality
give you headaches and nausea
make you gain weight
damage your memory
Benzodiazepines. Benzodiazepines (diazepam, alprazolam, chlordiazepoxide hydrochloride, clobazam, lorazepam, and oxazepam) Buspirone, Meprobamateare indicated for the short-term relief of severe anxiety; long-term use should be avoided.

My own experience of anxiety taught me methods both physiological and psychological to control such an unenviable state.
Firstly I found ways of neutralising anxiety by learning how to 'force' myself to confront situations that I would rather avoid. Therein lies a key: 'harm avoidance'. I learned that most people are not confrontational and if they are then they are 'assholes'. I let people rant and rave until they are tired out, then state my case centered around the issues that have so infuriated them. Fortunately such 'battles' have only occured outside of cinical practice. I will try to recognise what the basis of their problem is, see within them and address those problems with compassion.

If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. There are exceptions to this, most notable torture and the loss of your home and future. But even from these factors we can rise again and again and again.
When, in the past I suffered from panic attacks I realised that I was low on hydration, sugar and peace. The use of a cushion pressed to the face whilst breathing regularly for one minute. This reduces the loss of Co2 and creates a relative increase in O2.
Then perhaps finally to face the worst case scenario, to realise that which we are most afraid of. The subject itself can be so full of fear that we cannot face the worst possibility of our situation. So do not be afraid of this exercise.
Turn your fear in to action. Adapt and survive.