Misophonia and the Healing Power of Music

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Does Music Make You Crazy? Yes, I know the music we love to listen to can sometimes drive us wild, but no, I mean in a bad way. Watch this video featuring Kelly Ripa of the popular morning T.V. show Live! With Kelly to get a sense of how misophonia, a mental disorder, affects the people who suffer from it. Then let’s see if we can discover an answer to the question about whether music harms or helps to heal.

 

Misophonia literally means “hatred of sound.” But as I’ve pointed out this “hatred” doesn’t always include a hatred of music. It is characterized by negative emotional and somatic (unwanted physical sensations) experiences resulting from specific sounds whether soft or loud. People who have misophonia are most commonly annoyed or even enraged by common sounds such as other people eating, breathing, sniffing, or coughing; certain consonants; repetitive sounds; other people's repetitive movements, such as leg-tapping, nail-biting, the rising and falling of the belly, and typing.

People with misophonia may be diagnosed with mood or anxiety disorders as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Though a few sufferers are bothered by sounds they make themselves, most are not. The reactions are completely involuntary.

Sensitivity to these sounds tends to be exacerbated by anger, stress, hunger, or fatigue. The onset of the symptoms appears to have a characteristic pattern, often in childhood just prior to or during puberty. Often there is a single initial trigger (such as a parent's or sibling's noises), after which the triggers expand over time to include both, auditory or visual elements.

[Note: Here’s Josh’s video on YouTube, you saw a sample of it on the show segment earlier. This is the full version.]

People with misophonia use various coping methods. Most will simply avoid the offending sound by leaving the area where the trigger is perceived, while others will try to block it with earplugs or MUSIC. Often the compulsion to mimic what they hear occurs. In more extreme cases, sufferers will not socialize out of fear for hearing the sounds. It is important to note that sensitivity to the offending sounds is often far more severe when the origin of the sound comes from a person emotionally connected to the sufferer. 

As you were watching the video did you notice what was said about how certain kinds of music act as a trigger for those who suffer from misophonia? No, that’s because it wasn’t said rather the young man, Josh, who suffered from this disorder used music as an agent to block anything he might hear which would trigger his rage. Interestingly, here’s another example of how music can help as part of a broad range of therapies. 

Let’s cheer for music! And let’s also hope that those who suffer will be able to one day free themselves from this condition with a cure.

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Related Music:

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Related Articles:

The Brain, the Ear, and the Sense of Hearing

Musical Warfare: How to Use Music as a Form of Torture and Assault

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

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