Music therapy, runner's high, endorphins, acting drunk and tricking the brain: my theory

I don’t pretend to know much about music therapy. In truth, I don’t know anything about it. What I do know is that for some reason, the right music and exercise will combine and soon my body cannot resist acting pretty normal. All I have to do is move to certain driving music and exercise aggressively and the music takes my body into a zone and it does things I can’t otherwise make it do. That includes eliminating or reducing those symptoms that would bother me daily including stiffness and out-of-synch coordination. These symptoms will manifest into slight staggering., stubbing my feet while walking, and a loss of energy from fighting my body. If I wasn’t on the receiving end, I would think I was drunk. But it is I, and I’m not drunk. Thank God I have my music therapy to save me from that image. (Most of the time) Ha!

I think I may have figured this whole thing out.  It may stem back from when I was a long distance runner training for a marathon and I would go on 1 or 2 hour runs and listen to music to help with boredom. During these runs, I would almost always get what is widely known as a runner’s high, sort of a zone where I would run for long periods just to get that “high” feeling. I think it was caused by the brain generating endorphins or something like that.

So the combination of memories of my runner’s high from years ago and today’s music and PD exercise may trick my brain into thinking that my PD exercising and music is giving me the runner’s high that I once needed and received from running. Another term for that dependency is called addiction. Hell, maybe I have a few endorphins left over that come to life when they hear my music.

So that’s my theory. I haven’t seen or heard from any other runners who have Parkinson's and have had this experience, but I do wonder if my thirty plus years of running are still paying benefits by helping control symptoms. And even if they do not, I’m going to believe they do because it works for me. Don’t judge. I’m not paying attention anyway.

I tried to show you a video on some of the exercise intensity achieved when I get into my music therapy zone; unfortunately  I'm not very proficient in producing videos. Getting creative in video apparently is not a side benefit from PD as still photography seems to be. So instead of the exercise video, I will show you one of my

NYC Skyring

NYUrbanimages.com, photos. Does anyone want to volunteer helping me to produce my videos?

I didn't think so.

Next blog may cover more about my improved photographs and why my doctor and I believe it is a result and side benefit of :Parkinson's.