It’s official!

Drumming reduces stress and helps produce cancer-fighting cells, according to preliminary research published in the January 2001 edition of Alternate Therapies.

The study conducted at the Meadville Medical Centre used control groups and blood tests to demonstrate that drumming actually increases cancer-killing (NK) cells which help the body combat cancer and other viruses like AIDS.

“Group drumming tunes our biology, orchestrates our immunity and enables healing to begin,” says author and research leader and drum enthusiast, Dr Barry Bittman.

Another study conducted by clinical psychologist Barry Quinn indicates that drumming for brief periods can actually change a person’s brainwave patterns, dramatically reducing stress. Drumming has been used with Alzheimer’s sufferers, Parkinson’s patients, difficult teenagers, autistic children, addicts, traumatised war veterans, prisoners, corporate executives and people suffering from stress-related illnesses.

The underlying premise is that sound therapies can create new neural pathways in the brain at any age, bypassing damaged pathways and re-wiring the brain to wellness.

Playing the drum, and feeling the rhythms reverberating trough your body relaxes and relieves stress.

People in my workshops find they feel enormously uplifted afterwards, which often stays with them for days, Drumming in a group creates a feeling of togetherness.

Drumming is easy. You don't have to be particularly fast or good, or even musical, we can all play a part in the rhythm. It is amazing how quickly it is possible to get a group of complete strangers to play a rhythm and work together to produce what sounds like a complicated beat, but really is made up out of several different rhythms.

Everyone plays their part which is often a simple beat, but integral to the whole funky sound! The finished result is what is important and makes us what the Africans call a JO MARCHE (all one together). It is a tribal thing.

It's a well known fact that rhythms affects the way we feel, drumming has an excellent way of freeing us up and encouraging us to express ourselves. When we drum we both listen and "talk" to each other, trough the drum.

"Talking Drums"? What does this mean you say? Well you'd better believe it the drum talks and can get things out of your head that words can't say, as Bob Marley once said "He who feels it knows it", Listening to rhythms is nice, but by playing we get inside the beat and "FEEL IT"!

How Drums are Used in Healing

The drum has been used for healing purposes throughout the world for thousands of years, in tribal societies with their shamanic traditions to communicate with the spirit world, as well as a tool for social integration and to restore harmony. According to West-African wisdom teachings, emotional disturbance manifests as an irregular rhythm that blocks the vital physical energy flow. As regular even rhythms are regarded as a sign of health, these rhythms can heal the person by touching him or her in an immediate and powerful way, removing blockages and releasing tension. Thus dance and drumming serve as preventive remedies, and they help people to become more aware and balanced. According to Layne Redmond, author of When Drummers Were Women, "The frame drum have been used for thousands of years in the act of worship in the Mediterranean world. Ancient sources say that the frame drum was not just a powerful symbol of spiritual presence, it was an important tool for many spiritual experiences."

According to current medical research, stress is a cause of 98% of all disease. Not only heart attacks, strokes, immune system breakdowns, but every disease known, with the exception of two viruses, has now been linked to stress. Recent biofeedback studies show that drumming along with our own heartbeats for 15 minutes alters brainwave patterns (increasing alpha) and dramatically reduces stress. So drumming actually "meditates" us.