Music as medicine, a new University of Hawai'i at Mānoa study looks at just that.
If you’re 55 or older, you could qualify for a guided meditation session while listening to the sounds of the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute.
Yeonjung "Jane" Lee and Katsumi Takemoto are the pair behind the research. Lee is an associate professor of social work at UH. Takemoto worked in geriatric and end-of-life care for four decades before pursuing a master’s in social work.
The question they’re trying to answer: Do the sounds of shakuhachi, combined with meditation and haiku writing, promote the physical and mental health of our kupuna? HPR talked with Lee and Takemoto to learn more about the study.
"I want to really continue that vibration of healing as a service to people, and that led me to helping people in hospice care. And I found through studies I did through Educational Foundations at the University of Hawaiʻi, really interesting results. Although I had been doing it before on my own, when there's data collected, that's when I think I became aware of what the power of vibration sound," Takemoto said.
Takemoto said she started using vibrations as a healing service for people almost 50 years ago.
"I started when I was 8 years old at a local temple, and it was something that I really immersed myself in, wishing I could help people. And so putting that together with shakuhachi, I think it's a perfect opportunity right now," she said.
She said she plans to go over gentle breathwork during the first session.
"I connected with the Japanese concept called Kokoro, which means heart and mind. And then I will go over the sound of connecting and synthesizing everything in meditation. And interestingly, this meditation is different from maybe traditional because firstly, I have developed a style of connecting the shakuhachi, which is made of bamboo, with nature," Takemoto said.
She said that when she played the shakuhachi to those in hospice, some people expressed that their pain subsided.
"It's an honor to be able to do this. And so having this applied in research, I think, is a really key thing. Otherwise, I just call it miracles, and I say the word healing because to me it means making one whole. So to improve the quality in life of kūpuna or any being, I think it's really an opportunity to apply it with science," Takemoto said.
For more information about the research study, email katsumi@hawaii.edu.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Oct. 23, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
