How Active Musical Engagement Benefits Your Health

Key points

Actively participating with music can improve your physical and mental health.

Find ways to sing, dance, or play that are comfortable to you.

Allow yourself to be creative.

Music has an important role to play in keeping us healthy. Passively listening to music to modulate one’s mood is the most common way people interact with music. However, active engagement with music yields far greater health benefits for both our body and our brain.

Isabelle Peretz, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, wrote: “Above all, it is not enough to listen to music—it is important to make music…” 1 While Dr. Peretz’s quote was specifically aimed at intellectual benefits from music, a similar argument holds for music’s benefits to our physical and mental health.

Let’s begin with breathi