The Science Behind Bilateral Stimulation in the Music Classroom

In high school, the highlight of my entire day was going to my orchestra and choir classes. No matter what was going on in my life, whether it was a break up with a boyfriend, a bad score on a test, or family stress at home, after music class, I simply felt better. There was a calm I gained in those rooms I didn’t understand and couldn’t explain. We could be sight-reading a difficult piece of material or just light-heartedly prepping for our pops show. It didn’t matter what was going on in my life, if I had a music class, my emotions were calmer when I ended the class than when it started.

It turns out there is a scientific explanation for what I was experiencing. Bilateral stimulation is the scientific reason why I absorbed calm in my music classrooms. Bilateral stimulation is the term used to describe when the midline of the body or brain is crossed with a stimulus. The midline is an imaginary line from the middle of the top of your head to the bottom of your torso, dividing your right side from your left. When something ignites your senses, left to right, that stimulus crosses the midline.

Bilateral stimulation is utilized in the therapy room by using a rhythmic pattern, using a sensation of sight, sound, activity, or touch, alternating from one side to the other. Mental health therapies have been developed using this scientifically proven phenomenon to improve mental health and resolve trauma for decades. In my practice, I use a form of therapy called Accelerated Resolution Therapy. It is a powerful tool used to reprocess memories, both implicit and explicit, in my client’s brains and bodies that have become stuck, oftentimes causing symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. Therapies using bilateral stimulation can also regulate heart rate, breathing, and other symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Mental health is my second career and passion in life. My first passion was music education. Understandably, I become ecstatic when my two passions collide. I experienced an enormous collision when it dawned on me why I would leave my music classrooms as a teen in a more peaceful place mentally than when I entered them. I felt better after my elective classes because bilateral stimulation naturally occurs as part of music education! As a violinist, while sitting at my music stand bowing, I was physically crossing the midline of my body and naturally creating emotional regulation! When I would go to choir class and sit with the alto section, I would listen to the accompanist trade melodic lines with the sopranos—there was auditory bilateral stimulation happening! This emotional regulation and reprocessing doesn’t happen in social studies or English class, but it happens in music classes all the time!

Crossing the midline and bilateral stimulation happens naturally as part of music education, but music educators can also intentionally do this in their classrooms to create a sense of calm, peace, and overall mental health for their students.

4 Ways to Incorporate Bilateral Stimulation into your Music Classroom

If you are looking to introduce bilateral stimulation into your music classroom, here are a few ideas to get you started:

1. If you have a choir class that is unruly or wild, try having your singers cross their arms across their chests and tap on their shoulders in an alternating pattern while they sing warm-ups.

2. As a band instructor, your percussionists could be worried about an upcoming competition. Have them follow the wind section with their mallets, with their left hands striking harmonizing high notes and the right hands striking low notes.

3. In a beginning string class, students often struggle to stay quiet while you teach other students how to hold their instruments. Try having the students you are not working with practice bow control by tapping the frogs of their bows on each of their shoulders and knees, making creative patterns.

4. In an unruly elementary school classroom, have the students use rhythm sticks in their right hands to touch the toes of their left shoe, return to a neutral position, and then use the left sticks to touch their right toes for the duration of a song.

These are just a few examples of ways you can use bilateral stimulation in your classroom. I believe if you try these examples or attempt to create some of your own, you’ll see astounding results. Bilateral stimulation can be an important part of your classroom management plan. It is also an explanation of why music is an important part of a comprehensive education.

The crossovers of the music education world and mental health worlds are staggering. There are countless ways music education stimulates the mind and regulates emotions. This is just one powerful, practical explanation of how music education has mental health benefits that have been scientifically proven. So, keep helping students cross that midline, stimulate their brains bilaterally, and continue to give students tools to achieve greatness in their well-rounded lives!