Rhythmic Interventions, Musical Returns: The Health Benefits of Music as an Embodied, Everyday Practice

In this essay, I explore the intermodal nature of well-being by considering the health benefits of music as an embodied, everyday practice in the unrelenting tempo of contemporary society. I draw from Henri Lefebvre's concept of rhythmanalysis to perform an embodied appraisal of neoliberal ideology as I experience it within the everyday spaces of higher education, and to promote an appreciation for, and utilization of musical and rhythmic interventions that restore balance and well-being amid the compressing agenda of the doctoral-degree chase. I weave together autoethnographic accounts of my own experience as I alternate between the challenges of graduate school and my involvement in various musical projects. My oscillations between these differently rhythmed worlds prompts the imagining of new possibilities for wellness and social relations through their coalescence.