MINDY PETERSON, NCTM

Photo by Ali Inay on Unsplash

The research space at the intersection of music and mental wellness is a new and rapidly growing frontier. We discuss ways to utilize music to move one step closer, from wherever one may be, to a state of greater joy and thriving mental health. Join us for personal stories, topic trends, and resources for some spring cleaning of the brain!

Notes

We discuss:

• What’s happening at The Music & Expressive Arts Center at the intersection of Music and Mental Wellness.
• Ways to utilize music to move one step closer, from wherever one may be, to a state of greater joy and thriving mental health.
• Research trends on the topic of music & mental wellness.
• Resources for increasing mental health with music

Connect/Other Resources

• Jeff is Operations Lead at The Music and Expressive Arts Center of Oklahoma (MEACO), an organization focused on training and education at the intersections of Music and Mental Wellness.
• Jeff mentions:
  • International Expressive Arts Therapy Association
  • Dr. Natalie Rogers and Person Centered Expressive Arts
  • Psychology Today
• Find Jeff on:
  • LinkedIn (Mindy’s favorite way to connect with Jeff and his work; his posts are THE BEST!)
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Spotify
• Other episodes you may enjoy:
  • Ep. 127: The impact of music on wellness and homeostasis, with Patricia Caicedo, M.D., Ph.D.
  • Ep. 88: It Hurts So Good: When and why is sad music enjoyed? With Kimberly Sena Moore, PhD, MT-BC
  • Ep. 82: What is the relationship between musicianship, mental disorders, and genius? What is the difference between prodigy and genius? With Dr. Craig Wright
  • Ep. 51: Conscious music: How do lyrics shape my mental narrative? with Jamie Goldstein, PsyD
  • Ep. 42: What does hip-hop have to do with mental health and well-being? With child and adolescent clinical psychologist Dr. Eliott Gann
  • Ep. 29: Music tech interventions for mental health challenges (with staggering success rates), with Noise Solution’s Simon Glenister
  • See all Science & Health episodes

In-Episode Promo

Arts for the Health of It podcast

Coda

Jeff shares one of his creative works that represents a specific moment of deep connection along his journey with music.

Closing Words

And that is a bit of SO, by Jeff Mims. You can listen to the full version, and other songs by Jeff, on Spotify; there is a link in the show notes, as well as lots of other links to connect with Jeff and his work, and some of the resources he mentioned today. If you have any interest in this intersection of music and mental wellness, do yourself a favor and follow Jeff at least on LinkedIn. He has THE BEST posts. As we mentioned, LinkedIn is how he and I connected, and his posts have resulted in me saying, Ooooh, this would be a great episode idea! And it goes on my list of ideas to check into! So thanks, Jeff!

I want to give a shout-out to listener and former guest Laurie Orth, who has been delighting me with stories of how she is using the music featured in Ep. 124: How can music enhance my DOG’s health and behavior? With Lisa Spector. The music Lisa created for calming and training had its origins in use for preschool children. And Laurie sort of took that Dog Gone Calm album back to its original roots by using it with her young music classroom students. I just have to share Laurie’s most recent story that she shared with me:

Hi Mindy, I hope you are doing well. 😁I wanted to share yesterday’s experience with my K-1st graders. We had a boisterous time square dancing and then I told them we would take a chill break with our “calming music.” I still have not told them the that the music was actually written to calm down dogs. 🤣However, just like the last time I used it, it worked in about three seconds. I kid you not. They were all jacked up after Square dancing, breathing hard, and I had them sit down on the floor and started playing one of the Chopin piano pieces in the dog gone calm album. In about three seconds they just tipped over like bowling pins and laid on the floor. At the end of the first song I said left one finger if you would like me to play a second song. They all did. Second song, third song, it was so lovely. They actually whined and complained (!!!) when I said break time is over. Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. Please feel free to copy and paste this to your guest who created dog gone calm. She could sell a lot of CDs to music teachers, elementary school teachers, everybody in the education industry. My goodness. 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 I said to my teachers aid for the little kids, “oh my gosh this is like a drug. Look at them.”

Laurie adds: “…the CD is great self care for calming and I can’t say enough about it. It’s amazing!!!”

Thank you so much for sharing that, Laurie – I love hearing stories like that!

All links from today’s episode – including a transcript of this episode – can be found in the show notes. Please excuse the appearance of my website – I am in the process of revamping it and it is still a bit of a construction site with not all links working. So bear with me. Hopefully all links will be properly operational soon. In the meantime, you can always reach me on email (mindy@mpetersonmusic.com), Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn. 

Thanks so much for joining me today. Until next week, may your life be enhanced with music.

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