Listening Training is an effective method of using music and sound to influence and eventually strengthen our brain functions with specific and repeated stimulation, based on a concept known as neuro-plasticity.
Sound stimulation is received by more parts of the brain than any other sensory input. One of the parts affected is the limbic system, which plays a major role in our emotional well-being. By expanding our perception and interpretation of sound, we automatically strengthen existing neural pathways as well as create new ones, which results in a different awareness of ourselves and the world around us. Doing Listening Training has an effect on how we interpret events, and how our mind and body react to stress.
These changes do not happen overnight but are part of a gradual process. Yet this method has produced measurable effect in weeks, even days.
Noteworthy: Just as we all have different fingerprints, we also have our own characteristic way of filtering out what we are not comfortable with. This is a subconscious process. We may hear, but we may in fact not really be listening.
Listening deals with perception; with being able to focus, pay attention, and having an inner willingness to communicate. Besides this more psychological component, there is a physiological level to the process. The ear controls our posture and sense of balance. In fact, every tiny muscle in your body is connected to both sides of your vestibular system, your ears.
And nearly all cranial nerves – the optic nerve, the oculomotor nerve, the vagus nerve – are connected or interrelated. Thus vision, breathing, heart rate, digestion as well as many other bodily functions can be affected by this primary sensory organ, the one that is the first to be fully developed and the last to go.