Rhythm for Life and Health

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In the Beginning, There Was the Beat

When you came into this life, your first felt experience was the sensation of rhythm. Not the sound, but the sensation of rhythm. Before you could hear, see, or think, you were unadulterated physicality-pure instinctual and primal substance, animated by the spark of life that foretold of a human being. You sensed your being as only slightly distinct from your mother's body, intimately connected to her physical and emotional rhythms, yet very gradually emerging into a sense of your own self.

Take yourself back to those first few weeks in her womb . . . Listen closely . . . Hear the "lub-dub-lub-dub-lub-dub". . . . It's your mother's heartbeat, massaging what is to become you with its consistency and power, accompanied by the steady undulation of her breathing. If you were fortunate, most of the time the sensations generated by her heartbeat and breathing would lull and rock you.

So your initiation into life is first sensed completely through rhythm. It didn't register consciously-at least not in the usual sense-or even through the usual senses. Instead it registered as an overall bodily sensation when you were a tiny developing fetus, permeating every cell in your organismic self, dancing with your soul, coordinating with the natural rhythms that were developing in your developing body, especially at the center of your physical self, your pulsating heart.

Throughout our lives we continue to come in contact with innumerable internal and external rhythms. We are so intimately familiar with these physical sensations created by rhythm that whenever we're exposed to any kind of percussion, these earliest, primal sensations are once again activated, particularly to the degree that our bodies are open to these sensations.

When we're exposed to any rhythmic music or percussion, what typically happens - even if only temporarily - is that parts of the body that have remained frozen or dormant and whose life force has become greatly diminished are stirred once again, filling up with renewed vitality. Drumming and rattling in a group of any size can only enhance this experience. After all, when you're in the midst of good percussion, who can resist moving at least some part of their body, even if it's only tapping your finger or your toes?

Taking Rhythm into Community

When rhythmic play is brought into a group or community, such as in a drumming circle, a gathering of friends, or a tribal ceremony, this adds other layers of richness and texture to the healing quality of this kind of experience. Healing takes place at the physical, emotional, instinctual, and communal level, sometimes obviously, sometimes subtly, in ways that are beyond our meager human consciousness and understanding.

When the body itself, or the parts that have been frozen or denied, experiences the sensations generated by rhythmic percussion, such as drumming, rattling, didgeridoo, or other rhythm instruments, especially in the context of community, the healing life force, or vitality, begins to blossom again, not only in our most basic physical selves, but in those areas of our hearts and minds that have been closed off and locked away. Anyone who is involved in a shared percussion experience on a regular basis, such as a drumming circle, knows the healing power of rhythm, power that not only positively affects the participants, but often extends into the field of the larger community.

One such story is related to one of my drums. It's a small Djembe, a drum that has a circular top about nine inches diameter, tapering slightly to the bottom where there is an opening. I found it when I was wandering around during a local musical festival, checking out the various vendors' booths. I came upon a fellow who was selling African drums, as well as some other goods. He introduced himself as I was surveying the drums. He told me all of his drums and other articles were imported from Senegal, where a brother who lives there acquires the items that he then sells at his booth.

There was one drum that caught my eye. I notice the carvings on either side, one side being the head of a jaguar, and the other being what looked like a tree. I started playing this one, and soon the owner of the booth picked up another drum and played along with me. Gradually three others joined us for a spontaneous drumming session that lasted several minutes.

When we finished, I knew that I wanted the drum I was playing. I asked the fellow who ran the booth about the carvings. He explained that the jaguar was an animal common to Senegal and that this particular drum was imbued with the spirit of Jaguar. Then he told me about the carving of the tree.

Drumming and Alpha Rhythms

Not only are there a number of anecdotal experiences that tell of the immense healing power of percussion, there is increasing scientific evidence that drumming, especially drumming in the context of community, actually reduces stress, boosts our immune system, and increases the Alpha rhythms of the brain.

In his book, The Healing Power of the Drum, Robert Lawrence Friedman cites several studies demonstrating this power of drumming, such as helping veterans release some of their post-traumatic emotional pain, "at-risk" adolescents discharge their anger and negative emotions, and corporate executives let go of some of their day-to-day stress. Drumming has also been shown to help Alzheimer's patients improve their short-term memory and increase their social interactions, autistic children increase their attention span, and aid Parkinson's patients and stroke victims regain control of their movements. Drumming can relax the tense, energize the tired, and heal the emotionally wounded.

As author Natalie Goldberg said about stress, "Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath.... It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important." Drumming can help us know that of most things that we stress ourselves about are really not that important.

As Friedman notes, "It's hard to be having fun, playing, and be stressed at the same time. Some of our stress is created from past or future thoughts of fear, worry, or regret, but it is very difficult to be stressed and be in the present moment. When one hits the drum, he or she is placed squarely in the here and now . . . (the) drum creates states of euphoria, induces light trance, promotes play, releases anger and promotes feelings of community and unity." Quite a lot of positive effects for such a simple instrument!

One measure of relaxation is when our brainwaves slow down from the normal alert activity level of a Beta rhythm, which is 12-20 cycles per second (cps), to an Alpha rhythm, which is 8-12 cps. When most people relax, their brainwaves slow to this level. When in an Alpha state, your mind can be idle when not on task. Alpha is associated with a general feeling of well-being and sometimes euphoria. People who practice Transcendental Meditation (TM) for 30 minutes will generally be in Alpha for 20 minutes, and another 10 minutes in an even deeper state of relaxation, a Theta rhythm of 4-8 cps.

A new study by Barry Quinn, PhD., a clinical psychologist who operates a neuro-biofeedback clinic specializing in stress management and who has studied a variety of techniques that affect brainwaves, shows that drumming for brief periods can actually shift a person's brainwave pattern to Alpha, thus dramatically reducing stress. Dr. Quinn estimates that as much as 30-40% of the population is unable to achieve Alpha, and although he has over an eight year period experimented with a number of stress reduction techniques, drumming for 30-40 minutes has been the only method to achieve a significant return of the Alpha state on a number of highly-stressed individuals.

Dr. Quinn calls the results of drumming for the highest-stress clients "by far the most amazing results I've encountered thus far in my research." One of Dr. Quinn's clients, a Vietnam veteran who has long suffered from high stress, hypervigilance and chronic sleep problems, regularly produced almost no Alpha. During a single 30-minute session of slow, gentle drumming, this client nearly doubled his Alpha brainwaves. No other techniques in a series of 15 stress-reduction sessions had been able to produce any Alpha in this client.

Drumming, Stress, and the Immune Response

Barry Bittman, M.D., neurologist, author, and Medical Director of the Mind-Body Wellness Center in Meadville, Pennsylvania, has researched how drumming affects the immune system. A number of leading scientific investigations have shown that the perception of stress negatively impacts a person's immune system. Chronic stress particularly has a very damaging effect on a person's ability to ward off disease, doing so by suppressing many components of the natural immune response. For instance, the perception of stress has been shown to substantially diminish the activity of Natural Killer (NK) cells, which are specialized white blood cells that seek out and destroy certain cancer cells and viruses. In contrast, a heightened sense of control, nurturing, laughter and moderate exercise has been show to boost key immune system components.

Dr. Bittman discovered that drumming tended to increase the activity of these NK cells. However, he found that while listening to relaxing music while watching nature imagery clearly reverses the classic stress response, what he calls "basic drumming" did not. Adding things that enhanced relaxation, plus camaraderie and support within a group affected positive immune system changes. He experimented with four different types of one-hour group drumming sessions, as follows:

Basic - instructor spends half the time discussing drumming and half the time leading the group in the actual activity

Impact - same drumming technique, but was increased to 80%

Shamanic - Mayan shaman led the group and punctuated the drumming with a presentation of spiritual and cultural elements

Composite - Began session by passing hand to hand hollow, bead-filled "shaker eggs" around a circle, faster and faster until inevitably they would drop to the floor. The levity that this produced was followed with an activity in which participants played their drums in rhythm with the syllables of their own names. After periods in which all participants drummed together varying tempo and rhythm, they spent a half-hour drumming along with two "guided imagery" themes.

The "Composite" drumming group showed the best results in the reversal of the stress response and the increase in the immune system response, evidenced by the increase in various immune system components, especially the increase in NK cells.

This suggests the healing power of drumming in a community, especially when it is combined with play, laughter, and perhaps guided imagery meditations.

Healing in a Drumming Ceremony

In my book, Sacred Ceremony: How to Create Ceremonies for Healing, Transitions, and Celebration, there is a particularly powerful description of one woman's healing that took place in a drumming ceremony that I facilitated as part of a six-day intensive workshop, taught by my wife, Dr. Doreen Virtue. The drumming ceremony was the first part of a "release ceremony" for which the participants had prepared over a 24-hour period. Often in these ceremonies there are deep and spontaneous healings for many of the participants. The following is a story of one such healing.

After some preparation and instructions, we started the ceremony by drumming and rattling, and before long nearly every one of the 120 students had spontaneously stood up and were dancing around the room.

As sometimes happens in sacred ceremony, there was some unexpected healing that occurred. One of the participants, Paddy Orr, described her experience as she drummed and danced with the group:

Although this story is dramatic, and life-altering, more often the healing that takes place by drumming in a group is subtler. No matter what form the healing takes, you will come away from drumming in a group a different person, and your instinctual self will come to know and remember the place where you came from, as if for the first time.

Even if you've never picked up a drum, or believe that you're somehow "rhythmically challenged", take some risks and do so. Do it by yourself, or even better, do it with friends and family. You'll feel better, increase your Alpha rhythms, and bolster your immune system.

And besides all that, it's a lot of fun!

Steven D. Farmer, Ph.D., author of the newly released Sacred Ceremony: How to Create Ceremonies for Healing, Transitions, and Celebrations and the best-selling Adult Children of Abusive Parent, is a licensed psychotherapist, minister, and shamanic practitioner with over thirty years experience as a professional healer and teacher. He loves to drum, rattle and play the didgeridoo, and will do so at every opportunity!