One of the purposes of the July Practice Challenge was to accentuate the stress management/relaxation aspects of drumming.
A while back I posted a piece called: This is Your Brain on Drums: Clinical Study Reveals How Playing Drums Increases Brain Development. It’s worth a look when you have some time. Today, I saw this study from the Royal College of Music in London, UK which supports the theory that group drumming decreases anxiety, depression and increases social resilience and inflammatory immune response. There’s a lot packed into that last sentence - reread that one!
The study put study participants in group drumming classes for 6 and 10 week courses. Here is a summary of the study’s findings:
In conclusion, this study demonstrates that group drumming can reduce depression and anxiety and improve social resilience in mental health service users over a 6- and 10-week spans. Changes in psychological profiles were found in parallel with reductions in inflammatory response and a shift towards an anti-inflammatory immune profile, in keeping with other successful mental health interventions.
You can read the entire study here.