Drumming Taps Into Healing Energy
(an excerpt) reprinted with permission

...That drumming, part of shamanic traditions for thousands of years, heals the body is a contention science has started to measure and verify. Results of the most recent study, authored primarily by Dr. Barry B. Bittman, medical director of the Mind-Body Wellness Center in Meadville, Pa., was published in January of this year. Bittman studied the effects of drumming on 111 average, healthy people.
"What we know is that one hour of group drumming facilitated by a music therapist changes people's cellular biology in a positive direction," said Christine Stevens, director of music therapy and wellness at Remo Inc., a drum company.
The Bittman study showed rhythms boosted the drummers' circulating white blood cell count, according to Professor Barbara J. Crowe, director of music therapy at Arizona State University. These natural killer cells seek out and destroy cancer and virus cells.
"We know sensory input, particularly hearing, activates emotional states and that positive emotional states are good for the immune system," Crowe said. "Drumming circles promote a positive emotional state by enhancing people's sense of belonging and helping them release repressed emotion." One effect of such a state is an increase in Interleukin-2, a protein made by the body that causes infection-fighting cells to multiply and mature.
Psychologically, drummers in the Bittman study reported feeling less stress and less depression, as reflected on two psychological tests - the Beck Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory.