Can you really spring clean your mind with music?

That’s the latest wellness idea from a top neurologist. ANNA MAXTED tunes in

The music fills my head, and spirits me away. It’ s eclectic, evocative, a beautiful arrangement of sound. At certain points, a sonorous instrument plays. It tweezes out emotions beneath the surface of my consciousness, and I feel so sad, my eyes well. Then slowly, the tone lifts and I feel soothed.

This is a ‘deep listening’ session, developed by a London-based neuroscientist from research into the role of music in psychedelic therapy. It’s an immersive experience designed to improve mental health, enhance self-awareness and promote relaxation. It seems to be working. Deep listening isn’t the same as losing yourself in a favourite song or symphony, although both can profoundly affect how we feel because of the way music works on the brain. ( It can spark memories, release happiness inducing endorphins, help us process feelings, and more.)

The concept is already being used to generate a calming ambience in some hospitals, clinics, even classrooms. Deep listening is constructed to be more powerful than casual listening, creating a ‘sonic environment’ that can positively change how we see ourselves and the world.

This is possible as scientific research shows that music, tailored to the individual, can act on the brain in a similar way to a psychedelic drug. It can have positive and immediate mental health benefits — whether for patients seeking clinical help for depression, anxious students, or those who feel dispirited. NEUROSCIENTIST Dr Mendel Kaelen is a leading expert in this emerging field, and my deep listening session is courtesy of Wave-paths, the wellbeing company he co-founded primarily to train therapists to use music as a therapeutic tool.

This month it is launching an introductory version to the public. remote deep listening sessions (one-to-one or group) will be on offer, booked via their website wavepaths.com, from £10.

Dr Kaelen says: ‘We are studying how we can leverage the potential of music to a degree that it can become that therapist, that healer, that companion people can access at any point to have a bit more control about how they feel and relate to themselves and others; how music can become that agent for change.’

Prior to the pandemic, there was a waiting list of hundreds wanting to experience a deep listening session at their London venue, complete with softly-lit room, amazing sound system and comfortable chair.

Now they have created a digital service (an app is forthcoming) and my trial takes place via Zoom. I plug earphones into my laptop and talk to psychotherapist Tom shutte, my ‘Wavepaths Guide’. At their physical venue, he says, biometric sensors adapted the music to the person — and they know which sounds work best with regular clients. They have a curated library of music.

With new clients, he asks what they need. one wanted to get in touch with his grief, so shutte set the Wavepaths technology to generate music to suit. But, he says ‘it’s also possible just to give someone an experience’.

Then he leaves me to it. I lie on a yoga mat on my bedroom floor and immerse myself in the music. For a while my emotions have been muted. The pain at all the suffering is there, but I’ve shut it away. Like many, I’ve kept going and tried not to feel too deeply.

soon enough, the music has accessed buried feelings. The sound feels as if it’s lancing a boil. I wasn’t aware that this depth of grief was within me. And yet, the emotion isn’t overwhelming. Its release feels controlled and as the melody softens, I’m overcome with tiredness, almost lulled to sleep. Then it rises again, discordant, and I feel some anxiety. The music changes again — it’s rousing, and I feel OK. By the end of the 60-minute session, I’ve run the gamut of emotions and feel exhausted but calm.

What is going on? Dr Kaelen tells me this all started with his research interest in the therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin mushrooms and ayahuasca. he found it fascinating that when these drugs were given to patients, the mental health improvements could be immediate and lasting.

Yet the psychedelic drugs didn’t appear to be the key element helping patients recover, rather it was the states of mind they facilitated. scientists realised that ‘it’s not the drug facilitating these outcomes, but certain qualities in the experiences people have — such as autobiographical insight, or the access and release of pent-up emotion’.

Dr Kaelen noted that during the peak effects of the psychedelic therapy, patients listened to music. In fact, music was the only stimulus that was constant. ‘It became clear that music was not merely there in the background to provide some calm and reassurance, but it had an active therapeutic role,’ he says.

his research found there was no correlation between the intensity of the drug and patient recovery, whereas the profundity of their experience of the music revealed a strong relationship. ‘ one guy had been depressed for 35 years. he said the music drove the most beautiful experience in his life.’

This sets a high bar, and while my deep listening session was relaxing and cathartic, I don’t feel hugely different. I’m a fan, yet I wonder whether listening to Tchaikovsky’s swan Lake would have had similar effects.

DR KAELEN assures me that change can be subtle. ‘We tend to interpret this idea of transformative experiences as powerful experiences where you end up in tears and your life is changed, but it can be subtle — it can be a new perspective, a reconnection with a memory, or greater clarity on a problem.’

This can lay the groundwork for improved mental health as our perspective and experiences influence our state of mind. This is because as well as explicit learning, through recalling memories and semantic knowledge, our brain learns by experience, or doing (implicit learning), say, riding a bicycle or tying our laces.

But, Dr Kaelen says: ‘That also applies to the way we perceive ourselves, the way we build our belief systems around our confidence, our capacity to love, or be loved — the foundation for living a fulfilled life.’

In particular, we are shaped by experiences with strong personal and emotional significance says Dr Kaelen. And, ‘music is one of the most impactful ways to facilitate that experience’, he adds. ‘I sometimes refer to music as a transformative technology because it’s a technology that changed the fabric of our society, our culture and human nature. It has literally changed our brains.’

As Dr Kaelen says, music can be celebratory. It can relax us, but if we think of its roles in religion, ‘it’s likely that one of its earliest functions was its capacity to change our consciousness — to facilitate an experience that changes us. It has massive potential to change the way we perceive ourselves and the world.’

My mood is reset by my session. I feel like I’ve had a mental spring clean. ( That my family was forbidden to disturb me didn’t hurt either.) I suspect it’s most effective as a process, rather than a one- off, so book another session. Meanwhile, I clamp on the headphones and listen to John rutter’s All Bells In Paradise on repeat while making dinner. Briefly, lockdown’s ennui is banished and all is well.

Hurrah! The end is in sight. We now have a roadmap out of lockdown and of course I, along with everyone else, am sighing with relief. Summer might just be saved. The old normal — or at least a version of it — is on the horizon. But after all the celebration and jubilation at the announcement last week, I confess I now feel a teeny-weeny bit reticent.

While I have loathed the past year, with the limitations to our freedom and the profound impact it has had on our economy, not to mention the health and wellbeing of so many, I’d be lying if I said there hadn’t been some positives.

It took the prospect of this all ending for me to realise I’d actually become quite used to the new way of life we’ve had to adopt over the past year. Before Covid hit, I would be out most nights, often with several plans on the go at the same time.

Drinks here, dinner there, I’d charge about, cramming people in. My life was hectic. Weeks sped past in a haze of meetings and dinners and outings. It was tons of fun, but it was also exhausting.

and when it came to weekends? They’d be booked up months in advance.

It took me a while to adjust to this new, slower way of life but, now I have, there’s part of me that doesn’t want to go back to how it was. I like being able to rest in the evenings and not feel guilty if I do nothing.

I’ve got used to spending time on my own, enjoying my own company. I’ve realised I enjoy reading as much ( perhaps more?) as raucous nights out.

I’ve started appreciating homely things. I’ve saved money by not eating out and don’t really miss it any more — something I never thought I’d say.

Of course, when things do start to open up, I could just stay home. I could simply adopt this slower life permanently and refuse to socialise at all. at the moment, that feels tempting.

and I’m not the only one. Several friends and even patients have confided in me that while, on one level, they can’t wait for lockdown to end, there’s part of them that will be a little sad.

They’ve got used to having minimal commitments, to having no plans and their time being entirely their own. There’s something calming about having vistas of empty time stretching out ahead of you and not feeling the need to cram your time with things that you are often doing more out of obligation than genuine desire.

While the pandemic has been so tough on so many people’s mental health, some of my patients — especially those with social anxiety — have admitted that the past year has been a blessing.

While they’ve struggled with reductions to mental health services or things such as therapy being put on hold, the silver lining to this all is that they haven’t felt the constant dread of having to socialise.

Even those of us who don’t have full-blown social anxiety feel apprehensive about suddenly being plunged into company after such a long time without mixing. It’s normal to feel a bit self-conscious and shy after being isolated for so long and it’s probably not helped by the fact no one looks their best at the moment. Many people haven’t seen friends since the beginning of the pandemic and perhaps they haven’t really missed them. have friendships lasted? has the isolation shown how superficial and flimsy so many of our relationships are? and, when it comes to larger groups, have we all actually forgotten how to make small talk? The only way to deal with this is to confront it head on. Of course, I’m not really going to put a stop to my social life and stay in lockdown mode for ever — and nor should you. When the restrictions lift, get out there and force yourself to make the effort to see friends. But, for now, remember it’s perfectly normal to feel a bit daunted by the prospect. after all, things seemed much easier when we were all just stuck indoors watching Netflix and eating toast. I’m determined to take some positives from the pandemic, to focus on what I have learned. I have valued having to tolerate things being a little bit boring. It’s shown me how much time I spend doing things I feel I should be doing, rather than things I actually want to.

This year has shown me that perhaps I don’t need to feel obliged to do absolutely everything. I’m trying to feel bold enough to more carefully edit how I spend my time — and who I spend it with.

AND I’ve decided I’m going to limit myself to only going out on Thursdays and weekends. The rest of the week I’m going to give myself permission to do nothing.

I’m going to practise saying no to things I don’t really want to do. and I’m not going to allow myself to think I might be missing out.

The pandemic has taught us many things — the value of true friendship and the importance of our health. It’s reaffirmed an appreciation of the NHS and demonstrated the importance of science and research.

But maybe one of the enduring legacies on a personal level — at least for me — is the realisation that it’s OK to admit staying in can be as much fun as going out.

AFTER I described my guilt at getting the Covid jab before my mum, many wrote to say you felt the same. Lots felt people with learning disabilities should have been prioritised. Well now they are being bumped up the list. This seems sensible and I’m pleased those in power have acted on the concerns.