WE all might believe on some level that music calms the soul, but for scientist and harpist, Eileen Beamish, the connection between brain and music is deep and meaningful – and healing.
Inspired by recent discoveries in biological and neuroscience research, the Belfast-based performer (and one half of the Celtic Grace musical duo) has melded her pharmacology background and neuro-linguistic programming skills with music to create transformative 'soundscapes' for those in need of emotional repair.
As a multi-disciplinary scientist (pharmacological, social science, computer science and the science of the use of language: neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP), the Co Tyrone-born musician says science backs up the various wellbeing programmes now being offered by Celtic Grace (also featuring the talents of her husband, professional flautist, David Williams).
"I have always been a biochemist at heart and I loved pharmacology at university [Manchester] and learning how substances act on the body," she says.
"I realised that external things can be put into the body and they have certain effects, but there is a wealth – an orchestra – of chemicals that we already produce in response to stress, but also in response to positive emotional states like love, peace, kindness and gratitude. At the deepest level, we are all our own pharmacy.
"We need to find that place of peace inside ourselves and actively turn it 'on'. There's a lot of intelligence inside our bodies and when we turn it on, it becomes available. It's like our phones – at times we can walk around in 'airplane' mode."
Wellbeing sessions, 'Relax, Restore, Revitalise' and 'Thrive', are designed to help participants benefit from a 'Dose' (dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins) of their own "happy" chemicals/hormones through the use of poetry, storytelling and visualisation techniques, alongside practical tips and little "micro doses" of neuroscience.
"Many studies have given us a really precise understanding of how music affects our brains and bodies," Eileen explains.
"When you are listening to music or even anticipating the music you like, it causes the release of 'happy' chemicals and each has their own role to play in how we feel.
"Dopamine is our 'feel good' hormone which inspires us to take action and oxytocin – known as the 'love' hormone – helps us to bond with other people. What is also really powerful about oxytocin is its ability to reduce the production of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can create havoc in the body.
"Serotonin, meanwhile, plays a key role in mood and the good news is that we can use music to change our mood. If we change our mood, we change our level of serotonin and so feel better.
"Lastly, we have the brilliant endorphins which are our natural painkillers and can act on both our pain threshold and also on our pain tolerance. You put oxytocin and endorphins together and you are in an amazing place."
Choice of music is key for the former management consultant who spent 30 years evaluating different initiatives, many aimed at improving public health and wellbeing. She also ran her own company, the Social Research Centre, which helped shape "an analytical mind".
"In our wellbeing programmes, we use music that has a very slow beat because that makes the heartbeat slow down," Eileen continues.
"The parasympathetic nervous system – which in casual language I call the 'calm down' – is turned on and when that is turned on, all the other beneficial chemistry in our body is automatically turned on, too.
"We get our best ideas and insights when we're calm and a calm state changes our brainwaves – from beta, down to alpha, then theta which is a state of total mental relaxation."
With Covid and "very different working practices" contributing to a "sense of disorientation, exhaustion and a general build-up of adrenal fatigue", the musician had a brainwave herself and decided to use music to "turn on" the "other part of the nervous system" for those keen to reap the benefits of their own chemistry.
Feedback from participants has been hugely encouraging, particularly from Marie Curie staff who often work in stressful and challenging settings.
"We ran a session for Marie Curie staff recently and I felt really humbled by the feedback," Eileen reveals.
"We also delivered a session in partnership with one of the local health trusts where participants had gone through some kind of trauma, stress or loss.
"In these programmes, I concentrate on love, peace, joy, gratitude, kindness, compassion, courage and letting go. There are ways to gently guide people's minds into a calm space – I might pick a visualisation linked to a specific piece of music, but each person will colour in their own 'canvas' because everyone's journey of healing will be different."
Taking musical performance to a deeper, wellbeing level – Celtic Grace also perform at wedding and corporate events – has been its own reward for the husband-and-wife duo who have been playing voluntarily at the Marie Curie Hospice in Belfast for 14 years.
"It's so amazing see people not only enjoy music but having a total experience with health benefits too," says Eileen who grew up in a musical family, starting off playing a six-string guitar as a young child before falling in love with the harp.
"When playing at the Marie Curie hospice, I could see in front of my own eyes how both patients and visitors were getting comfort and relief from anxiety, pain, sorrow and distress."
On one occasion, she and David were told the person in the bed they were playing for wasn't going to make it through the night and the family had gathered. They played a favourite piece of music at the family's request, Amazing Grace.
"I started to play and I thought there would be silence and then we would pick up our instruments and leave," Eileen recalls.
"But I heard this gentle clapping – the patient in the bed propped up with pillows with their eyes closed and breathing oxygen through a tube, had summoned up energy to do that for us. I was truly humbled."
Another time, she arrived at the bedside of a friend from her set dancing days who was suffering from cancer.
"She was sitting in her chair, a tiny little body in a big, padded chair, and there was a window beside her," says Eileen.
"We played her favourite waltz and I told her to 'dance' in her imagination with anybody she liked. At the end – I was trying to keep it bright – I asked, 'Hey, who were you dancing with?'
"She said, 'Oh, I'm not going to tell you that, but I went round and round that ballroom and when your music finished, a window opened and I became a bird'. In that moment she wasn't living with her cancer any more and I thought that was beautiful."
Celtic Grace will be at three blossom-themed wellbeing sessions at the National Trust's Rowallane Gardens in Saintfied on May 24. nationaltrust-tickets.org.uk/event-tickets.
celticgracemusic.co.uk
