One of the suggestions I have is to write down your thoughts. Sometimes our thoughts spiral out of control because we are not really examining them, but moreso reacting to them. Write down each of the fears you have, and then ask yourself, what is the real possibility of something like that happening? See if there are other issues going on within you that are causing you to worry so much. This could be a real opportunity for you to examine your thoughts and understand them. The simple act of writing about them can help abate some of the emotions.

You may notice that certain image keeps popping into your mind. Think about the image and write about it, write about the emotions that come up for you around the image. See if those emotions are familiar to you. Ask yourself if the emotions you are feeling are similar to other emotions you’ve had. Is this part of a larger pattern? In some cases, speaking to a trained professional or clinical hypnotherapist can be helpful.

A behavioral approach that may be helpful to you is called “stop, breathe, reflect, choose.” In this case, the moment you find yourself getting very upset thinking about your son, tell yourself “Stop”, then take a deep breath in. The deep breath in triggers the body’s relaxation response. Then Reflect, bring in your mind, and ask yourself what is the positive thought you can have out of all the possibilities, and finally Choose the thought that creates the least amount of stress.

Remember, you are creating your own stress through the thoughts and imagery you are projecting. The latest brain research shows that the same brain centers light up whether you are imagining something or if it is really happening. When you visualize your son in a negative situation, it is as if it is really happening and your body will get stressed in that moment, thinking it is happening right now.

With that in mind, it is important to train your mind to focus on positive images so that you can help your body stay calm, centered and relaxed.

As a psychotherapist, stress management consultant and drummer who began drumming on a practice pad my father created out of rubber, wood and love thirty years ago, I’ve been pondering a question that goes beyond the technique and mechanics of drumming. That is, are there any real health benefits to drumming?

I knew that it felt good playing my six-piece Slingerland kit, or my djembe, conga or doumbek, and that the positive feelings didn’t seem limited to a particular style of playing or which drum I used. I noticed that throughout my life whenever I felt stressed or angry, I would always gravitate to my drums. The drums seemed to be the perfect vehicle for me to pound out my emotions and to feel consistently relieved afterwards. The drums seemed to have an innate ability to welcome whatever negative emotions I was feeling and usher them through my hands into my taut-skinned wooden friends.

For my entire life, I have been what one would call a seeker, that is, someone who strives to find the meaning and purpose of what life handed me. My experience playing my drums provided yet another opportunity for me to look beyond the playing, to uncover the psychological and physiological changes that occurred when I drummed. This became my quest and the driving force behind my writing the book, The Healing Power of the Drum (October 2000, White Cliffs Media, Inc.).

In my journey, I found many on a similar path, drummers of course, but others as well, music therapists, drumming facilitators and researchers, all of whom had a similar inclination and desire. It was as if I had become Richard Dreyfus in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” discovering others who, like Richard, were driven to create an outer landscape of an inner vision. For Richard, it was a mud mountain. For me, it was a book about the psychological and physiological benefits of drumming. Interestingly enough, along the path I met many non-musicians who reaped the same benefits and sought the drum out for the very purpose of creating health. If non-drummers were able to reap benefits playing only sometimes, it occurred to me that musicians who drum regularly must be receiving enormous benefits.

I was astounded to find that the benefits of drumming seemed to know no bounds. The more I searched, the more I discovered that seemingly everyone could benefit from drumming, from children to senior citizens, from executives with stress to Vietnam Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s patients, from cancer victims to Multiple Sclerosis patients, individuals with paralysis, stroke, Down syndrome or autism, all able to find benefits through drumming. The more I searched, the more it seemed that there wasn’t a population or ailment that couldn’t receive something positive from drumming, and the benefits were sometimes profound. I would like to share with you some of the information that I received on my journey and which is found in my book.

Barry Bernstein, MT-BC, one of the pioneers of drumming and wellness, described how, through working with a drum, patients with Alzheimer’s disease were able to remain task-oriented for longer and longer periods of time. They were eventually able to spend thirty precious minutes interacting socially with loved ones, whereas before they could only spend a few minutes. In his words this was “unheard of.”

I learned in my research that a woman, Ginger Graziano, whose son had recently died of cancer, was able to take her inexpressible grief, and, using a simple hand drum, move through her many layers of emotions to a place of joy and lightness. She felt as if a “deep inner healing was occurring through my playing the drums.” Drumming for her was a “way to heal my grief, but it became a way to remember my joy.”

Sometimes, individuals simply don’t have the life skills to express extremely painful emotions. The drum provides, for instance, at-risk children the opportunity to release their anger using a vehicle that most young people would consider peer-accepted.

Throughout my research I uncovered a number of recurring themes that occurred in many of the experiences I heard. One of the patterns I noticed was that the drum provides individuals with an opportunity to release out of the body whatever negative emotions needed to come out. The drum has the capacity it seemed to alchemically transform the negative to positive – anger turned to grief, grief turned to joy. There has been much research on the importance of releasing negative emotions from the body. For instance, individuals who are self-described loners, who don’t share their feelings, are at 15 times greater risk to develop cancer.

Though not in my book due to its recent publication, a breakthrough study by Dr. Barry Bittman, M.D., confirmed that drumming provides biological benefits to the body. In a controlled experiment, Dr. Bittman proved that group drumming significantly boosted the body’s immune system, that is, it increased the disease-fighting white blood cells. This was the first study to demonstrate clinically that drumming actually improves the immune system.

Other benefits are that playing drums brings people together like magnets, and engender a unique unifying effect. This was demonstrated most aptly by Nathan Brenowitz, a counselor and drummer who discovered that the drum had the capacity to bring together nations that normally do not have good diplomatic relations. Traveling to the Middle East, he used the doumbek drum to bring together residents of Israel and Jordan through the common bond of drumming.

The drum also provides a context for communication. Family members, especially children with issues of anger and pain who were not able to speak their feelings, were able to very aptly express their emotions to others through drumming. As well, many men who were taught to hold their feelings in check were able to create bridges of togetherness and harmony that no other form of communication could provide.

The other significant pattern that emerged was a concept called “entrainment”. Entrainment is the tendency of people and objects to follow a dominant rhythm. An example of entrainment occurred the first time I took a trip to New York City’s Wall Street area. Though I had no place in particular to go, as I took my first steps with the other pedestrians, I found myself walking at a very brisk pace. Glancing around, I noticed that everyone else was walking fast, too. I was pacing myself with the other pedestrians subconsciously. I had to move out of the “dominant rhythm” and consciously slow down.

The benefits derived from entraining to a rhythm were described by Dr. Michael Thaut of Colorado State University who has shown that using the rhythms of a metronome or recorded rhythms, Parkinson’s patients are able to walk steadier and improve their gaits. Dr. Connie Tomaino, from the Institute for Neurological Function, described a man with Parkinson’s disease who would “freeze” when confronted with crossing a street. Freezing is what occurs when a Parkinson’s patient cannot initiate movement. They simply cannot move. Under Dr. Tomaino’s guidance, this man would carry a cassette of African rhythmic music, and whenever he froze when coming to a crossing, would slip on his headphones, and the driving rhythms would unfreeze him, enabling him to cross the street.

In hospitals, nursing homes and centers for the elderly, drums are being used to ward off depression and loneliness among patients and as a therapeutic tool in the treatment of stroke patients. The reason researchers believe that stroke patients can drum is that rhythm is processed globally, that is, in both sides of the brain. If one portion of the brain is damaged, there are other portions where rhythm can still be processed.

In terms of the rhythm and the brain, Layne Redmond, teacher, performer and author of When the Drummers Were Women, describes how although the brain is divided into two separate hemispheres, “in states of intense creativity, deep meditation or rhythmic sound, both hemispheres become entrained to the same rhythm.” This is called “hemispheric synchronization.” Layne describes that when hemispheric synchronization occurs, the “mind becomes sharper and more lucid, insight quickens and creative intuition flourishes”. She states that this merging of two hemispheres “may be the neurological basis for transcendant states of consciousness” and that research confirms that rhythmic music is one of the “most effective ways to induce brainwave synchronization.”

Drums have also been used with veterans who have experienced post–traumatic stress syndrome and patients in drug and alcohol recovery programs. In The Healing Power of the Drum, Dr. John Burt, describes how veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder were able to use the hand drum to work through their disorder, re-enacting the sounds of battle through their drums, and learning to modulate their emotions.

Some of the other benefits of drumming include immediate reduction in feelings of loneliness and alienation, being able to relate to others non-verbally, the development of leadership skills, expressing anger in a constructive format, stress relief, expanding social and personal connections, developing ideas for constructive leisure time activities and experiencing the creative process through improvisation.

In terms of stress, by hitting a drum an individual is placed immediately into the ‘here and now.’ When a person is in the present moment, it is very difficult to be stressed, for stress generally occurs when a person is thinking about the past or future in some negative way. Secondly, the drum grounds a person into his or her body. When people are stressed, they are generally in their minds, thinking about something negative. Through hitting the drum, a person’s conscious awareness is immediately placed solidly into their body. When a person is focused on her or her body, it is very difficult to be stressed. This same experience will occur when a person is involved in an aerobic activity or exercise. Thirdly, the drum gives a person a sense of personal power. The drum allows people to release tactilely their negative emotions and stress, in many ways like hitting a pillow as a way of releasing anger.

Drumming also gives us physical vitality because it is a very physical activity. It gets our heart pounding, our blood flowing and releases the endorphins (the pleasure hormones that are associated with “runners high”).”

Drumming is very compatible with the current desire of many people to be pro-active in achieving wellness. As Christine Stevens, MT-BC, of HealthRHYTHMS, a new division of Remo, Inc. (www.remo.com) devoted to establishing group drumming as an integrative modality within whole-person care, says:

“Today’s culture has become health conscious in a completely new way. More than ever, we now understand the importance of preventative health and quality of life. In this time of increased awareness of the need for personal involvement in wellness, active music making is now considered an essential component of a healthy diet. It is the new Vitamin D, Vitamin Drumming. Drumming is like an aerobics class that enhances body, mind and spirit, offering creative expression, bringing people together and reducing stress.

Finally, one of the most important aspects of drumming is that it is great fun! It’s a wonderful way to feel the pure joy of being alive. Drumming by ourselves allows us to move deeply into our true nature by eliminating distractions and societal constraints. Drumming with others is a universally time-honored way to creating a feeling of community and trust. Put simply, drumming is simply one of life’s many gifts.

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Robert Lawrence Friedman, MA, Remo artist, author of The Healing Power of the Drum, psychotherapist, president Stress Solutions, Inc. (www.stress-solutions.com), is Co-Chairman of the Health and Wellness Committee for the Percussive Arts Society. He has appeared on The Today Show in New York, Fox News and most recently on the Discovery Health channel sharing his philosophy of drumming and wellness. The Healing Power of the Drum can be found at www. wc-media.com, www.bn.com and www.amazon.com.

Ram Dass shared that one of the challenges many of us have in life is learning to say with an open heart. That often we are trained by society, family to not say “no.” Yet when we have difficulty saying “no” we then leave ourselves open to creating inordinate amounts of stress.

In learning to take care of ourselves, one of the lessons is the lesson of boundary setting. One of the keys to boundary setting is knowing your limits, honoring yourself, and honoring your time.

An excellent challenge for those of us who have a hard time saying no, is to practice it, just like a homework assignment in school. To let yourself go and just say no (no drug joke intended here) to someone or something just for the experience of it, and see how it feels, notice what your thoughts are when you do say no, what do you fear, what are your emotions, and then share those here.

Some questions to ask are what happens to you when you think “no,” but say “yes.” In some ways, this goes back to the authentic self. Which self is saying “yes.”

In this group I taught today of senior citizens, the issue of boundaries came up. One man, Sheldon, shared that he knows a woman that always says “yes” to everything. He was very bothered by it, because he believed that she had no boundaries. When I asked him did it bother her to say “yes,” he said “no” she is very loving and giving and has no problem with it. She said she loves saying “yes”. Was it true? Who knows? But there are no absolutes here. There is no right answer. Just an answer that is truest for you.

The bigger question is, are you saying “yes” when you are feeling “no,” and if so, perhaps an exploration of what it means to say “no” to someone else. Does it mean your heart is cut off from them? Is it just an old habit that keeps playing itself out? Is it something that needs to get developed and nurtured and practice, as any other behavior does.

Sometimes having a formula for assertiveness helps. Here’s one of my favorites. It is called “DESC” – Describe, Explain, Specify and Consequence.

It goes like this: When you ______. I feel _______. I would prefer you do this _____. If you do______ (reward), if you don’t______ (consequence). Example: When you come home late, after I’ve cooked a meal, and you don’t call, I feel disrespected/hurt. I would prefer you call me if you aren’t going to come home. If you do I’ll keep your food warm. If you don’t I’ll be angry, throw the food against the wall, and you can go and enjoy a nice hot meal at McDonalds.