MUSIC AS MEDICINE
Sound has always been a healer. Across cultures and generations, music has carried pain, struggle, and transformation — a remedy as old as rhythm itself. Here we explore the science and the stories behind music as a therapeutic force.
Why Music Heals
Neurochemistry
Listening to and creating music releases dopamine and endorphins, engages reward circuitry, and can reduce cortisol — the same systems targeted by many plant medicines.
Emotional Regulation
Rhythm and melody modulate heart rate, breathing, and mood. Music therapy is used clinically for anxiety, depression, PTSD, and pain management.
Connection & Identity
Making music together rebuilds confidence, community, and a sense of self — filling the void that substances often occupy during recovery.
Stories of Healing
Documentary-style interviews with people who have used music to heal and transform their lives.
Music Is Medicine | Zoie Murch on Addiction, Recovery & Rehabilitation
SoulNectar Studios
This mini documentary features Zoie Murch, founder of Music Is Medicine, sharing her deeply personal journey from drug and alcohol addiction to recovery through the transformative power of music. Zoie discusses how DJing became more than a creative outlet—it became a lifeline. Through music, she found purpose, rebuilt her confidence, and discovered a new path that would eventually inspire the creation of Music Is Medicine, a project dedicated to using music as a tool for wellbeing, recovery, and personal development.
The Research
Live results from PubMed on music therapy, recovery, and mental health.
Latest Research
PubMed LiveMusic-based emotional regulation and nutrition strategies for mental health support among medical student-athletes.
The structural dynamics of music drive acute stress recovery through functional reorganization of stress-regulation networks.
Reimagining maternal and infant wellbeing through AI-embedded integrative arts-based care: a public health perspective.
Experience of recovery-oriented group music therapy for psychiatry service users with severe and enduring mental illness: a preliminary mixed-methods study.
Effectiveness of Nature-Based Immersive Virtual Reality on Health Outcomes in Breast Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Rhythms of recovery: music therapy, sports nutrition, and sustainable diets and food for mental health.
Hope-Enhancing Interventions in Schizophrenia Survivors: A Snyder's Hope Theory-Based Scoping Review.
Special education for individuals with severe mental disorders: definitions, discourses and contexts at the interface of pedagogy and psychiatry.