Rhythm & safety

The brain’s capacity for integrating and responding to rhythm has kept humans alive for all of human history! It told us when a beast was chasing us, when the rain was too heavy for the crops, when spoken communication was urgent and much, much more.

Auditory rhythm is one of our brain’s most well understood sensory inputs for gauging potential safety in our environment. Our ears hear rhythm, the information travels to the brain, our brain works out what the rhythm means, and tells our body how to respond.

Repetitive, stable rhythms that mimic the pace of the resting heart rate are perceived as safe sounds. When we hear rhythms like this, our brain will tell our body not to worry, not to rush, and our nervous system will stay regulated.

Chaotic, fast, unpredictable rhythms are often confusing to the brain and take more energy and time to process. This might lead our nervous system to become highly aroused, our brain to go into survival mode and our body to tense.

It is completely, totally simple to use rhythm in a way the gives us a sense of felt-safety. Clapping, skipping ropes, walking, tapping, jogging, bouncing balls, hopscotch, elastics… Anything that creates a rhythmic sound, even a soft one, will give our brain predictability.

You don’t need to be a trained or experienced musician to use music in a way that gives our body a sense of felt safety. In fact, it’s often the trained musicians who over complicate their musical expression, and when it comes to felt safety, simple is ALWAYS better.