Listening to good music is beneficial to your health. Like a tried and true medicine, it treats you for exactly what's ailing you. A singer's deep breath before the first note is like the first calm inhale of an asthmatic after an attack. You know that when that breath is over, everything is going to be alright. Every beat of a drum, strum of the guitar, or chord on the piano beats soothingly and acts like a heart, pumping each note through every fiber of your being. But it’s more than just a dosage of the most potent antidote for aches and pains of the body and soul. When you're in need of an escape from life’s harsh realities, music can take you where you want to go. If you close your eyes, the cold quiet sounds can make you believe you're in a hushed winter forest or on a secluded tropical island. Music shares its experiences, its deepest darkest secrets and desires to comfort and soothe to make you feel as though you aren't alone. Like love, hate, or sadness, music is something you feel deep in your soul. It reads your mind and tells you what you need to hear. It's a warm blanket on a chilly winter night. It's that sweet, steamy hot chocolate that gives you a placebo escape from the troubles of the world. It's as if the artists can see into your heart and know who you are and what you want to be. Each song is an inside joke, a private whisper between you and a friend who are the only ones who know its true meaning. Every song, every vibrant and somber note across the spectrum has that miraculous ability to soothe every ache and pain of the human spirit. Music is a personal, private, and individual experience. Yet many a time I’ve turned the dial so high that the lyrical vibrations pulsate throughout the entire room, and I hope that the entire building, the entire neighborhood, and most of all the entire world will hear what I’m hearing, experience what I’m experiencing, and feel what I’m feeling. Love pounding steady like the beat of a drum. How could anyone feel so sick with the troubles of the world when there’s such beautiful sound all around? It’s this shared understanding that music provides, the sense that our greatest wishes and fears are felt by someone so distant yet so seemingly close to us, that is the ultimate gift that music delivers to our ever-aching hearts. What music provides is a comforting hand to hold and an understanding shoulder to cry on that helps us make it through the inevitable ups and downs of the emotional roller coaster of life.