Music has been incorporated into medical practice since before the ancient Greeks. However, though practitioners have been convinced of music’s health benefits for thousands of years, there had been little peer-reviewed research to back them up, but recent studies are changing all that.

A number of new studies to support music’s influence on the pituitary and adrenal glands, the sympathetic nervous system and the immune system. Music also reduces levels of cortisol in the blood. Other studies showed that surgical patients required less sedation and post-operative pain medication. These results support the experiences of practitioners, who have long used music to help heal.
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Scientists don’t understand why taking a sugar pill instead of the "real thing" will sometimes cure a disease, but they’re beginning to figure it out. New evidence indicates that our immune system may have an on-off switch which is controlled by our MINDS. This could be one reason why your personality traits might make you more likely to get pain relief from a placebo: if you’re more of an angry, hostile type, they won’t do much for you.
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The Swiss take homeopathic medicine seriously: In late 2011, they produced an official report on this that is the most comprehensive evaluation of homeopathic medicine ever undertaken by a government. This is especially interesting since two of the five largest conventional drug companies are based in that country–despite this, they do not have a bias towards conventional medicine. Their report found that homeopathic treatment not only works, it’s so cost-effective that it’s reimbursed by Switzerland’s national health insurance program.
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Placebos are the BEST kind of medicine: No side-effects. New research shows that this might actually be how ALL medicines work. Double-blind drug tests have shown that many pharmaceuticals only work because people expect them to, not because they have any "real" chemical effect on the body.
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