I love music! Are there people alive who hate music, really? I love musical instruments but the guitar is my favourite. You may ask why? What at all is good about playing the guitar? I get asked by friends who do not see the reason why I ‘waste’ my time on a guitar. I say, a lot! I have been playing the guitar for several years as a hobby, not in a band and I still consider myself a learner because I discover new things everyday; afterall I am not Jimi Hendrix, though I would love to be, lol. I have discovered a lot about myself since I bought my first guitar and started playing. I would love to learn how to play other instruments also but for now the guitar is what I know and it has been very good to me in several ways. Some people think that all that people with guitar want is to look ‘swag, hot and cool’ but there’s more to a guitar than that. If you love the instrument but have doubts about how it can contribute to
your well-being, consider
these points.
NUMBER ONE STRESS BEATER
The guitar has been my
number one stress killer, believe me. Back then, when I was under a lot of
stress from my work or social life, I would spend money on drinking with the
hope it might calm me down. This only acted as temporary solace as I was to
discover. As doctors would tell you, this may have damaged a few organs. What
do you do under stress? Do you drink, smoke or indulge in any social vice? Well
then, you better a get guitar and start learning right away. I didn’t know this
until I started practicing. I realized that anytime I am under stress and played
my guitar, I always get this happy feeling which washes my stress away
permanently. Therefore I stopped drinking under stress and I am sure I have
saved my organs too; a glass of wine, every now and then, socially is cool though,
lol. I say, ‘get a guitar and save some organs’!
REDUCTION IN BLOOD PRESSURE
I am not a high blood
pressure patient and hopefully wouldn’t be but we have this handy stethoscope
at home for checking our pressure to ensure we are within the range of normal
pressure. Realising that playing the guitar calms me down, I conducted an
experiment. I did a before and after playing test. That is, before practicing I
tested my pressure and repeated it after practice. I discovered a drop in my
overall blood pressure. This was not a one off experiment. I did it several
times over a period of two months and the results were consistent; my blood
pressure before playing the guitar was higher than after playing. Check out
these before and after pictures from just this morning.
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| MY BLOOD PRESSURE BEFORE |
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| BLOOD PRESSURE AFTER 1HR |
Now, here is a big disclaimer: I am by no means
suggesting that playing the guitar or any other musical instrument is an
absolute cure for high blood pressure because I am not a medical expect. By all
means see a medical expect if you have high blood pressure. Of course if you
play in a band and have deadlines to meet, you’re not going to have a drop in
blood pressure if anything at all. I am only sharing what I discovered on my
own as a guitar hobbyist and suspect it may be the same for most people who
play the instrument or other intstruments as a hobby. Maybe the expects might
want to investigate.
SAVED
FROM DEPRESSION
Two years ago, I quit
my job in public service to start out as an entrepreneur. It’s been a hard road
but I am not one who quits easily on something I strongly believe in.
Occasional discouragement from some family members and friends sometimes drove
me onto a temporary world of despair and almost depression. My guitar is always
there to save me and restore those happy feelings, trust me. It increases my
happy feelings and gets me back on track again to learn new things to improve
myself as I strife for entrepreneurial success. The guitar could be your savior
if you’re traveling down the road to a possible depressive state.
BETTER
ALERTNESS AND CONCENTRATION
I have personally noticed
a high rate of alertness, a massive improvement in concentration and memory
after practicing late afternoon. My best
and most productive period of the day is the first three to four hours early in
the morning. The rest of the day becomes sort of waste without at least a
thirty minutes nap. However, I have noticed that I can still have a
considerable period of great concentration and alertness, by replacing a nap
with some practice around late afternoon. I have also read somewhere that
playing a musical instrument helps stave off Alzheimer’s disease.
If you are having any doubts as to why you should learn to play the guitar or any other musical instrument, maybe you should consider these points. If you have had an experience of the effects of playing a musical instrument especially the guitar, I would love to hear it. Feel free to share this article
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