By Isaac Atunlute
There are times when words fall short–when worry or grief or exhaustion make language feel too shallow to hold the weight of what we feel. In those moments, a melody or familiar refrain or even a gentle hum can reach places within us that words cannot.
Music gives form to our unspoken emotions and reminds us of needs we didn’t know we had.
Sometimes it’s a simple tune: a lovely hum from your mother’s kitchen, a classic Asa song drifting through the air, or gospel music wafting from your neighbour’s window. These sounds reach deep into our emotional core. Music isn’t always about entertainment; it is veiled therapy.
At its essence, music is more than art–it is healing. While science has shown how music reduces stress hormones and improves mental well-being, there’s a deeply personal and often spiritual aspect to its power.
Music connects us to culture, to memory and to ourselves. From Afrobeat to gospel, from fuji to highlife, music ties us to homeland and legacy.
Music also acts as an emotional mirror; it gives rhythm to sorrow space for things unsaid, brings rhythm to sorrow, and an unseen hand to hold in loneliness.
While music’s physical effects are well known, this explores how certain sounds speak to our interior lives and make us understood, comforted, and emotionally resettled in a way language cannot, especially when people carry a lot in silence.
What makes music so powerful is its quiet invitation to heal. it doesn’t describe healing. it initiates it. A soothing piece like Yiruma’s “River Flows in You”, for example, can calm a restless mind. A heartfelt worship song like “Onise Iyanu” by Nathaniel Bassey can open the floodgates of emotion, releasing years of bottled emotions.
Furthermore, timing is always uncanny in music. Music catches you at your worst, during ASUU strikes, breakups, losses, or at those long danfo rides when there is much on your mind. Music catches you where you are: hurting, lost, healing in silence.
Timi Dakolo’s “Great Nation” or 2Baba’s “Only Me” are songs and also prayers. They are a reminder that you are never alone. That you are alive.
The melodies become companions. The rhythms reshape inner geography. That is because when music simultaneously stimulates several areas of the brain responsible for memory processing, emotions, and sensory perception, music becomes a passive but full-body experience.
In mental health care, music is so frequently a meeting point where language-based care is stymied.
When the world feels heavy, listening to “Fix You” by Coldplay or “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa can soothe and emotionally express. “This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman empowers self-expression.
“Ye” by Burna Boy will give attitude to your street hope. The secret is a personal emotional playlist; music is not merely pleasant to hear but heals.
Music allows us to breathe, and in that sacred pause, healing begins. Whether blaring from your neighbour’s stereos, whispering through your earbuds at night, or echoing in your mind as you walk, recall this: music is never just something you hear; it’s something that hears too.
The article by Isaac Atunlute explores the profound emotional and healing power of music, highlighting how it can reach the depths of our emotions where words fall short. Music serves as an emotional mirror and a quiet invitation to heal, enabling us to understand and comfort ourselves in ways that language cannot, especially during times of silence and hardship. While it reduces stress and improves mental well-being, music connects us to culture, memory, and our inner selves, serving as more than just entertainment but as veiled therapy.
Furthermore, music's ability to accompany us during our worst moments—such as personal losses or difficult life events—proves its uncanny timing and deep personal resonance. Songs by artists like Timi Dakolo, Burna Boy, and Coldplay provide solace, expression, or empowerment, reshaping our inner emotional landscape. In mental health care, music stands as a critical tool where verbal communication may fail, illustrating that it is not just something we hear but something that listens and responds to our emotional needs. Ultimately, music allows for necessary emotional pauses for healing to begin, making it an essential companion in life's journey.
