Cher-ing is caring
At mile 20 of the Vancouver Marathon, with my legs failing and my confidence fading, an unlikely anthem—Cher’s Believe—became more than a pop song. It became a lifeline. That strange moment of musical alchemy sparked a bigger question: Can the right song at the right time actually improve our health? Emerging research suggests the answer is yes. Music may not cure disease, but it can change the physiological and emotional conditions that shape how we endure it—lowering stress, boosting resilience, and reminding us, when we need it most, that we’ve done hard things before.
As Cher celebrates her 80th birthday today, I plan to whip up a homemade version of her beloved Frrrozen Hot Chocolate and offer her a long-distance toast expressing my appreciation for “Believe” - a song that carried me over the most difficult finish lines of my life. Cheering on Boston Marathon runners in Newton last month with my wife, Whitney, and her coworkers, reminded me how that song became an almost literal lifesaver and led to a question: Does listening to the right music at the right time really have the power to heal our minds and bodies? And if the answer is yes, how do we optimize the effect to improve health outcomes when we need them most? Like Cher’s 14-chocolate concoction, there’s a recipe for that. With the right ingredients, you can turn music into medicine.
Hitting the Wall
My own right time, right place was mile 20 of the 2001 Vancouver Marathon. The ingredients were unconventional: One state of physical and mental exhaustion. One Mitsubishi Miata parked next to the course with doors wide open, after-market base-boosted speakers facing the road. One Canadian obsessed with an auto-tuned ode to life after love. Combine and bake for 6.2 miles until done.
Many marathoners, especially first-timers like myself, hit “the wall” right around mile 20. At Boston, it usually happens on Heartbreak Hill, where participants aren’t just physically suffering, but stripped down to base emotions and highly suggestible to external cues. An enthusiastic and genuine act of encouragement means more here than anywhere else on the course. They’re altered from the runners who started the race in Hopkinton, simultaneously stronger and more fragile.
For me, hearing Cher’s modulated voice at that precise moment induced a kind of lyrical alchemy. “Do you believe in life after love” became “Do you believe in yourself?” Music therapists call this “meaning making.” The song stopped being Cher’s and became my own. And despite musical tastes that lean toward classic rock, heavy metal, and 80s synth bands, it’s this song that I return to in times of need, including a cancer diagnosis and surgery, and made me wonder if there’s a formula for maximizing health benefits of music.
Harmony and Healing
David Victor understands this concept better than most. A real-life version of Mark Wahlberg’s character from the movie Rock Star, Victor got tapped from Smokin’, his BOSTON cover band, to record and play for the original legendary rock band on their 2012 and 2014 North American tours. The gig provided an opportunity to play acoustic sets for patients at Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, California. That experience inspired him to establish the live music charity Harmony & Healing. “As I met and played for more and more of the kids,” he shares, “I realized that the spirit of music and the feeling it communicated was a universal healing power that bypassed the brain and went straight to the soul.”
Victor’s intuition about music’s health benefits was much more than a feeling. Since that first encounter, he’s become a student of music therapy and an evangelist for its measurable outcomes, including its ability to reduce harmful effects of stress.
There’s a direct, proportional relationship between chronic stress and high cortisol levels. This so-called “stress hormone” can suppress immune system response, increase blood pressure and risk of hypertension, cause inflammation, disrupt sleep, and even reduce bone density. And that’s just a partial list.
It will surprise no one that listening to soothing instrumental music and sounds of nature with intention and consistency can create a sense of calm and reduce stress. And some may even buy my argument that a specific Cher song can bolster your belief in yourself and your ability to overcome adversity. But where’s the evidence?
Fight or Flight to Rest and Digest
“Scientific research reveals that music can significantly alter the body’s physiological state,” asserts Victor. It all relates to the autonomic nervous system, which is, to my simple-minded understanding, kind of like your body’s autopilot. It keeps everything -- your heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, breathing, etc. -- running behind the scenes, without conscious thought. It’s got two components: the sympathetic (“fight or flight”) and parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) systems. If the autopilot detects a threat, all the alarms go off and red lights start flashing. Cortisol levels rise, preparing the body to react to danger. Useful in an emergency but disastrous if no one turns the damn alarms off after the threat’s gone.
Under normal operating conditions – smooth skies and no immediate or perceived threats detected – the body goes into maintenance mode. Your heart rate slows and the digestive tract does its level best to optimize nutrient absorption from those overpriced in-flight meals. Put on your headphones, listen to your favorite music, and you might even enjoy the taste.
Victor cites a few studies on his Harmony & Healing’s website, including a 2013 review published by Frontiers in Psychology, which found that listening to music can lower cortisol levels by up to 61 percent. A more recent literature review published by European Psychiatry in 2021 reinforced that conclusion: “Most studies show a decrease both in cortisol levels and in sympathetic activity (reduction in heart rate frequency and blood pressure).” And even though a majority of studies used classical music, “the effects were noticed irrespective of music genre.”
If these findings are valid, there’s no reason not to incorporate music into your overall recipe for good health. And it may be even more important to drill down into your playlists for the perfect ingredient; what music therapists call your “resource song.”
Find Your Resource Song
Mine is “Believe." Yours was probably encoded in your brain under similar circumstances: a time when you were unusually receptive, possibly during emotional and/or physical extremes and during a liminal state, when you’re leaving something behind and on the threshold of becoming something new. That’s why most of us can’t shake the music of our teen years. Spotify listeners have an easy hack: just search “My all-time top songs.” I bet it’s at the top of the list.
Once you’ve identified your resource song, you can use it as a self-administered music intervention, which is just another way of saying, “hit play at the right time, right place, but don’t overdo it.” In time, your song can serve as a “self-efficacy cue,” reminding you that you’ve done hard things in the past, and can do them again. And keep in mind that while music does not have the power to cure disease or eliminate burnout, it can change the physiological conditions that affect illness or chronic stress. It can supercharge your capacity to cope. And that can make all the difference.
Extra Credit
Some sound experts think music tuned to 432Hz can induce deep relaxation. Want to see where your favorite music sits on the sound spectrum? Find out here.