Name: How music gives me back control | Esha Alwani
Uploaded: 2019-04-28T13:04:59.000Z
Duration: 9 min 56 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I'd like you to imagine what it would feel like

The second conditional

if, for two whole minutes, your left arm was continuously flapping,

Adverbs of manner

that it felt like your teeth were about to break,

you were forced to let out a loud, high-pitched screech.

This is how I lived at the young age of six,

When these symptoms surfaced, my life literally changed overnight.

I could no longer go to school, see my friends or even eat out,

because my tics would attract the attention of everyone in the room.

In search for a cure, we flew to New York

to meet with the best pediatric neuropsychologist my parents could find.

But the doctor did not give us the easy remedy we had hoped for.

Instead, she diagnosed me with an incurable neurological disorder,

Oftentimes, medication can be an essential and valuable part

But in my case, the drugs only made things worse.

because my legs had gotten so numb that I couldn't move them.

I would see green people running after me,

threatening to boil me in a pot and drink me as soup.

to find something that would bring me some sort of relief.

But every single attempt just ended up making things worse.

It is estimated that in 2013 in the United States alone,

to treat neurological conditions and mental illness

But imagine if there were a way to treat these conditions

Imagine if your doctor prescribed you a daily dose of music.

I'm here today to share with you my personal experience with music

and the effect that it had on my neurological disorder.

Tourette syndrome is essentially a series

The best way for me to really describe what it's like to have Tourette syndrome

is something I'm sure you're all very familiar with --

You can try to stop yourself from the act.

You can hold your breath and count to 10, or drink water upside down,

but there is just nothing you can do about it

until the sensation passes and the hiccups have taken their course.

I often lay on my bedroom floor after an attack of tics,

My equally desperate mother would attempt to soothe me and herself

She would play peaceful music to soothe our aching hearts.

and allow the beat of the drums to uplift us.

And as the rhythms and the tunes unfolded,

our spirits would rise, our moods would be lighter,

Very soon, and rather unknowingly, I became an addict of this newfound drug.

When I found myself slipping into my bouts of sadness and self-pity,

knowing in my heart that the tones and rhythms from each one of those keys

At the time, I didn't realize how much music was helping me.

When I wrote my songs, it wasn't to impress anybody.

But the more I played, the less my symptoms surfaced,

So I became curious as to how these songs were soothing my symptoms.

And I wondered if there were any other cases of medicinal music.

I found that there was a highly successful US congresswoman,

Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head.

Because the ability to speak and the ability to sing

her doctors brought in music therapists to work with her.

The therapists encouraged her to sing her thoughts,

since she was incapable of speaking them.

the congresswoman was finally able to regain her speech.

Scientists have found that music causes our brains to release a natural painkiller

Dopamine is essential for a healthy nervous system

Music also affects our heart rate, breathing and pulse rate,

In addition, it lowers our cortisol levels,

which is a common stimulant for neurological symptoms.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

How music gives me back control | Esha Alwani

essential

disorder

attempt

dopamine