Drumming and Mindfulness
Hello, my friends
It doesn't surprise me that science and psychology are identifying more and more that drumming and mindfulness are a recovery method for stress, memory loss to supportive cancer care.....
This is not something new, benefits of both mindfulness and drumming have been known for a long period of time...Even one session of drumming can demonstrate how powerful this ancient method is and how it can bring so many positive things into our lives...
We can indeed consider drums as a quick path to mindfulness.
Drumming has been an important element of various Buddhist traditions and is even today used for meditation practice in certain traditions. Drumming works as a focus reference. It has a driving beat that offers us a sharp sound that brings fast mindful clarity.
Practising mindfulness can be done also through breathing or active body scanning but this can be pretty challenging for a busy mind. Drumming brings you to the present moment in such a simple and peaceful way....mindfulness is just one drum beat away.
It is widely accepted that mindfulness is beneficial to our holistic health.. Some independent studies have shown that in a funny way people today are only now discovering what older generations have known for thousands of years...The fact that drumming contains therapeutic potential and we still don't take advantage of it to improve our life. Why is it so....?
Our normal awake mind is in Beta state all the time. To get into a more relaxed state we need to switch to Alpha. You've probably heard before the idea of "not thinking" in meditation?
So, let's see how drumming helps us achieve a state that some of us might experience for the first time...
Our brains work on different frequencies throughout each day. Through drumming it has been shown that theta-wave production and brain-wave synchronization are being induced. This is a perfect way to relax, to become aware and get close to our true self. We are accessing a higher power and can better understand our spirituality... we are becoming mindful.
So having your own hand drum is a fantastic way to achieve mindfulness. You can breathe in the here and now, focus on your hands or the drum and start producing beats while being fully in the present. It's happened many times in my drumming groups. People say that they feel they "lose themselves" that they forget about everything else... In those moments I simply smile because I know they have reached a different state of mindfulness. At the end of those particular sessions, they tell me they feel refreshed, that they feel they have so much energy in their body... The best way to describe it is that they are happy.
One can only aspire to be mindful all the time, probably the best time to start is now...start drumming!
