October 15, 2025 • 41 mins
Join Lynn Hoffman for this new episode of Music Saved Me with Doctor Tasha Golden.
From touring musician to Johns Hopkins scientist - Dr. Tasha Golden’s journey through creative burnout led her to pioneer “arts on prescription” research. She shares how music both broke and remade her, and what science reveals about creativity’s power to heal. A raw, hopeful conversation about transformation, resilience, and why your doctor might soon prescribe you a concert.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Music Saved Me. Welcome back to Music Saved Me.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm Lynn Hoffman, and today we are diving into an
extraordinary story that bridges the passion of music with the
precision of science. Our guest today is doctor Tasha Golden,
a former singer songwriter with the acclaimed band Ellery, whose
music career ended due to severe burnout, and from that loss,
(00:23):
she forged a new path as a behavioral scientist and
the first director of research at the International Arts and
Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins. Recognized as one of twenty
twenty four's Fierce Fifty by Fierce Pharma, Doctor Golden now
leads groundbreaking work in Arts on Prescription, including America's first
(00:44):
program culture RX, and she's also a lead author of
Arts on Prescription, a field guide for US communities. And
today we'll explore how music both broke and rebuilt her
and how she's now using science and art to harness
create activity for healing and innovation. Lucky as we get
to spend this time with you, doctor Golden, thank you
(01:06):
so much for joining us today on Music Save Me.
I've been waiting to talk to you about all of
this stuff, so thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Oh, thank you so much for having me if.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You wouldn't mind, can you take us back to your
early days with the band ellery and tell us a
little bit about what music meant to you, sort of
as a young artist living the dream of being in
a rock band.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, you know, I'll go back even further than that.
I started writing songs when I was really young because
I found, you know, without the music, I found that
as a little girl, I didn't necessarily have much of
a voice. People weren't necessarily interested in hearing my opinions
in the particular place where I was at the time
where I was being brought up. But I noticed very
early on that when I sang, people paid attention. And
(01:51):
it started to become clear that if I wrote my
own songs, if I could put my ideas, my story is,
the things that were important to me into those songs,
it was sort of like work around a way that
I could find power in a community and in a
society that I otherwise didn't really feel that I had
very much power and voice. And and that's kind of
how I started writing. And that effect of music in
(02:14):
my life really is a through line as far as
music's ability to allow me to say things that I
found that I couldn't say otherwise to share things with audiences.
You know, there's lots of things that have happened in
my life that I have shared with hundreds of people,
I just show before I had ever told a single
fund about it, you know. And I found that was
(02:35):
very true for my audiences as well, people coming to
music for the same reasons that it was allowing them
to discover something about themselves that they couldn't share otherwise
or hadn't realized about themselves otherwise. And so when you
ask about, you know, living the dream, there were so
many cool things about our career, like being able to
travel the world the country, see so many different things,
(02:57):
meet so many different people, work with just absolutely astonishingly
great musicians. And I think though that my favorite part
was always just that seemingly mysterious sense that music made
something possible that wasn't possible otherwise. This kind of, like
I said, a sort of work around for our limitations
and our norms, and you know, a way for people
(03:18):
and for myself to find a different path where we
could find power and voice and opportunity.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It's pretty exciting stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I mean, when you're a young person and you join
a band, like you said, travel the world. But I'm
curious when this is kind of a difficult, I mean juxtaposition.
And I want to start off by saying that having
severe burnout, from what I read, really just ended your
(03:48):
music career. And I was curious if you could describe
that experience and the moment that you realized it was over.
Because I myself suffered from burnout. I know a lot
of people did, and it's a really tough moment where
you either just throw it away or you turn it
into something positive.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah. I mean at the time, I didn't realize how
common this was for people in the music industry. It
seems to me now I can't imagine how I wouldn't
have known that. I did know that depression and anxiety
were very common among my music friends. We had lots
of conversations about those things, but it wasn't something that
I knew how to talk about or that I just
felt anomalous. And I felt like, you know, this was
(04:27):
something that was happening to me because I wasn't maybe
I wasn't passionate enough, or I wasn't you know. There
was these ways that you start to blame yourself or
an experience that you're having because you don't realize that
it's actually a very common experience and you don't necessarily
have words for it. And for me, I think I
would describe that burnout as you know, death by a
thousand cuts, Like it just was over years and years
(04:49):
of you know, hundreds of shows nights, who knows where
you're going to be that night, where you're going to
be sleeping, who you're going to be talking to, and
just a kind of unpredicted b of it. I much
later in my life was diagnosed as like neurodivergence. There's
all kinds of things that make so much sense now
that like that unpredictability was was really hard on me
(05:10):
in ways that I didn't even realize. I always thought
of myself as this really impulsive like artist that just
go exploit the world, like you know, come what may,
And actually it turns out that is not the way
that my brain thrives, but I didn't know that at
the time. And we recorded our most ambitious project one
(05:32):
year Grammy winning producer, lots of amazing studio musicians working
with us, songs that I really believed in. I was
just so excited to put that record out, and we
got home from recording it and we were going to
do a short tour to help promote it before it released,
and you know, one night in December, we were coming
back from I think it was our last show of
(05:54):
the year, our last planed show of the year, and
I just was, you know, curled over in the passenger
seat of our vehicle, is sobbing, and I all that
I could say. You know, I remember turning to my partner,
like my partner in life, but also my music partner.
This was his dream, also his job also, you know,
(06:14):
and I said something like I don't want to do
anything other than this. This is all that I've ever
wanted to do, and I can't do this anymore. I'm
just I'm exhausted. I don't know how to like, I
just reached this point where I couldn't imagine waking up
and doing it again and then again and then again.
I just I just I wound up going to bed
(06:36):
and staying there for weeks. I was just, you know,
it felt like I had been exhausted for years by
that point, and it was something that I kept trudging through,
like expecting that maybe the next and I think career
musicians will relate to this, or career creatives of many
kinds that like, the next milestone, the next opportunity is
going to change things just enough to worry. Maybe you'll
be able to like relax a little bit, you'll get
a little of a break, and you just keep rounding
(06:58):
the next corner, the next corner, the next corner. And
I just kept doing that, expecting it to change until
I just couldn't move anymore. Right, And Yeah, one of
those days in bed, it became very clear to me that, yeah,
I was definitely not going to be able to tour again.
I assumed that I would still be doing full time
music in some way, but I knew that something had
(07:20):
fundamentally and sort of irrevocably changed.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Two questions as a follow up to that one, what
did your partner what was this response?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And to.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Can you describe what neurodivergent means? I heard you say that,
I'm just curious. I don't know what it means, but
it sounds extremely interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, it's sort of an umbrella term for all kinds
of you know, for people's brains who just work differently
from what we would call typical like a neurotypical brain,
so it can encompass things like ADHD, autism, you know,
also some mental illnesses OCD and things like that. So
it's kind of like an umbrella term for describing somebody
whose brain function differently. Not it's not necessarily pathological, like
(08:04):
something is wrong with it, but it's a brain that
functions different a neurotype that is, you know, that works
differently than what we've kind of commonly recognized as that's
what we would expect or that's that's kind of like
society is designed around one kind of neurotype and this
one is different.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
That's so interesting though, because sometimes people walk around and
they think, you know, what's wrong with me? I am
so different, I think so differently, or I do things
so different than everyone else, and you're actually not alone.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah, I mean it's amazing to to explore that so
late in life. And of course, like young people now
might get a diagnosis earlier, when I was young, it
wasn't something that people were talking about as much. So
it took a lot of years for me to come
across people who are very similar to me, who were like, oh,
this is my experience, and I'm like wait, hold up,
what are you talking about? So yeah, really really really
(08:53):
helpful to explore those things. And my partner's response, lynn,
to his eternal credit, he was just concerned and like, oh, okay,
well we if this is this is what's going on,
we got to change something, you know, and he had
no idea what that would be. We thankfully had some
good friends who were sort of like, you know, all
that I knew was at that moment was that I
(09:15):
can't do this anymore. I didn't know what the next
thing was. They didn't know what that meant or like
what and some friends kind of gave us this helpful language.
They were like, what if you take like a six
month sabbatical, Tasha, And it was just like such a
helpful framing, just that word of like, oh, like some
time set aside to do something different than this thing
that I cannot do, okay, And just like that framing
(09:35):
of it helped my brain and my partner's brain like
make sense of this. Okay, let's take six months and
then we'll decide. And by the way, we hadn't put
that record out yet, so this was also six months
of like, we'll just hold on to that record and
not release it for another six months. It felt bananas,
but it was also so helpful to have that, and
then my partner was able to find other work to
(09:57):
support the two of us, which is such a pre
woods to me and has always been one of the
great gifts of my life, one of the great gifts
that he gave to me, you know, to as somebody
who had always like kind of like, oh, I founded
this band, this is my work, and I'm doing it,
and for somebody to step in and say, like, no,
figure this out. Heel up and we'll take things on
(10:19):
the other side of that. We'll know what to do.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Don't let on that one get away for sure. Right,
I could talk about someone in your corner. That's pretty amazing,
especially with everything that you had built up in that
dark period that you found yourself in after losing music,
so to speak, at that point, what kept you going
and gave you hope that you were going to move
on to that next thing, whatever that may be.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
M I think a couple of different things.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I have always thought of that my life in terms
of like a story. You know, people talk about sometimes
wanting to find their purpose. I had always had this
mentality of like oh, but purpose is something that I'm creating.
It's sort of always evolving, like where the story. Your
story is not something that you're not following a map
that somebody handed to. You're making up the map as
(11:09):
you go. And that can be very unsettling in many
ways for a lot of people, sort of just like
accepting endless uncertainty. But for me in that moment, what
was helpful to me was that I felt like a
story was ending, and that just meant that I knew
that there was another story. And to be really clear,
this was like the most awful thing that it ever
happened to me end my life. So I'm not saying
(11:31):
it like, oh, one story's gone, let's just find the
next one, like it was awful, but I did have
this underlying sense that, okay, this must me that there's
a different story to tell, and I just have to
stay curious about what that might be. Like here was
one story I was telling the story of a singer
songwriter who's touring and for a living and things like that,
I wonder what the next story is going to be,
(11:51):
and I have no idea, and it was just an
absolutely terrifying gap in my understanding of my future right,
But I did understand it as a story and that
was such a help to me. And it's part of
what I've researched and how I helped other people now
is understanding their work as a story that you know
that isn't done until.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
They are right. Yeah, I love saying.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
The other thing that helps so much is poetry. I
found myself reading Mary Oliver all the time, and I'm
trying to spend some time in nature and with animals,
like just something that felt grounding and real and present.
Those things were incredibly important.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yes they are.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
And wow, talk about a transformation though. You took the
love of music and artistry and you shifted to just
a PhD researcher studying music and well being and creating
programs that are you know, in major universities and hospital studies.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
So can you what was that shift?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Like?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
When did you know that was the direction that you
were going to go? And then what led you to
where you are now?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
That came very slowly, you know.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
I had a mentor in the in the middle of
like the darkest time of my depression, after after getting
off the road. So like I think that you might
like academia, like it's really predictable and like you could
study writing and and I was like, you know what, sure, Okay,
I applied to this master's program in creative writing. I
(13:23):
sent them CDs at like a lyric sheets. I didn't
expect to get in because I didn't think of myself
as as a poet per se, or like I was
a songwriter, and that wasn't what they did.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
You know, that's such a great idea that you would
that you would do that.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
So I then I got in and I was like, oh,
what the heck, Like what am I going to do this?
It was like a two year commitment or whatever. And
I got into that program and quickly realized that I
was so much more of a nerd than I ever
thought that. I was like my favorite aspects of this
process worth, like the research, and like a lot of
(14:00):
my peers, who were wonderful poets, were like, ah, the
research was like this kind of hoop they had to
jump through because they really just wanted to do workshops
and things like that. And I was like, oh no,
this is this is it. This is like I love this.
Let's dig in some more. And I knew then that
I wanted to keep doing research to answer my questions.
But the questions that I had were, like I said, about,
(14:22):
you know, how and why does music and the arts
have the effects that they have?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Why are we able to you know?
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I was once talking about it as like committing social heresies,
like say things that you're not supposed to say to
people you're not supposed to talk to. But the arts
let you do all of that? Why Like why would
that be possible? And I spent a few years trying
to figure out which what field that belongs? And is
that you know, is that psychology? Is it sociology. I
wound up in public health, which is just never my plan.
(14:53):
Like I could tell you more of a story about
like I started my PhD in rhetoric. I wound up
in the circuitous way in public health, and I'm grateful
for all the time, because public health really somebody that
I met when I first started my PhD program in
rhetoric was like, why are you not researching this in
public health? She was in public health, And I was like,
I'm going to be honest with you, I don't really
know what y'all do.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I'm like, I'm a musician. I'm a poet.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
I don't know what public health even is. I've never
been in a stem field.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Go what, but it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, because it's everything, Like is what contributes to the
public's health can literally be every It's everything. And it
was such a cool way for a thinker like me
who always kind of takes this system's perspective and a
meta perspective, like to be able to look at music
and the arts from this zoom dot way of how
(15:42):
is this affecting human beings and what does that mean
for our systems and our structures, whether that's a healthcare system,
but also our schools, our communities, our general policies. What
can we learn about how the arts affect us and
how can we use that to make a better world?
Just always an exciting intersection.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
It is.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
It's very exciting and before I want to get more
into how it all works, but first I'm curious was first,
how did your experiences with music and healing sort of
shape the research? And also did you get any pushback
from academia in any of this, because you know, they
kind of I can only imagine the pushback, and we
(16:23):
have gotten on it, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, Okay, so.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yes, my personal experiences really informed the research because my
research question was was kind of different than what other
people in the intersection of music and health were talking about.
Like a lot of times, when I told people that
I researched intersections of like arts and public health or
something like that, they immediately think of things like music
therapy or art therapy, dance therapy, which is really great.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Those are wonderful things. It's not really what I particularly.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Study or engage with communities, although I've many fine colleagues
who do. But my particular research question was a little
was unique in the field, and it was more about
why do people communicate different things via the arts than
we do otherwise? What is the art's role in communication?
(17:10):
How does it change what we're thinking, what we think
of To say, it's not just that it changes what
we say, but it changes what we think, and then
whether we choose to share that and how we choose
to share it and with whom we choose to share it.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
That's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
What the heck and my dissertation question wound up being
around what does that mean for health research?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
There?
Speaker 3 (17:29):
If there are things that people are only telling me
as a singer songwriter after a show in a random
city in the US. That story of that person's suicide
idation or abuse history is something that they are not
telling their doctor or their therapist. But that doctor or therapist,
I guarantee you thinks that they're working with adequate information
(17:49):
about their patient or their client, and they don't know
what they don't know, right, And so I was just
really curious around, Okay, if it's true that the arts
allow us to share things that we cannot share otherwise, than,
how do we integrate that as a kind of data
collection process. How do we learn from that data to
change our to improve our healthcare, to change our systems,
(18:12):
to change what we know about our populations and their experiences,
because there's so much that we don't know. If we're
not that's okay, that's the easiest way I can lay
it out. If you're not paying attention to the arts,
there is a lot that you do not know, just inevitably,
and if you if you open your yourself to the
information that can come via the arts, you're going to
(18:33):
have more accurate information, better information. And So to answer
your question about pushback, I actually did not get any
It was such a kind of intuitive inarguable point, like
just set up that way, but like, if there are
things that people are only sharing in the context of
the art, then what might those things be, Why might
that be? And then how are we going to integrate
(18:54):
that into the way that we typically do health and medicine.
And you know, I was able to show but we
got a lot more information from arts based methods than
we did from traditional surveys. They were also more trauma responsive.
We were able to share the information in much cooler
ways with our communities. It went much further than just
if you write some kind of boring report. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah,
(19:16):
there was a lot of There was a lot of
openness to that work. And I also credit the institution
that I was in, which had a big focus on
how we on equity and on increasing our ability to
connect with people who have historically not been heard or included,
and that was important to them.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
We'll be right back with more of the Music Saved
Me Podcast. Welcome back to the Music Saved Me Podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
The Day you are a leader on arts on prescription,
which I think is amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I think it's amazing that an artist would come up
and and.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Just blow away all of these medical minds of things
that could be without prescribing drugs as a source, more
of arts experiences that work as like a medical intervention,
which is astounding to me. How does prescribing music or
arts work. Can you give us sort of like an
(20:21):
example or.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, yeah, it works in so many different ways. I
will say it sounds like a really novel idea, But
this is this kind of thing has been going on
in other countries for decades at this point.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Why doesn't that surprise me?
Speaker 5 (20:34):
By the way, Yeah, people have been prescribing sort of
like local community experiences, whether that's joining a choir or
gardening or volunteering or things like that to benefit their health.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
And in the US we've done versions of that, like
we do have in most communities. There are physicians who
will refer patients to things like housing assistants or support
groups or you know, just basically things in a community
that they know will help their patient that aren't typical
like pharmacological interventions or you know, like a physical therapist
intervention or something like that. Just things that they know
that their patient needs and it's in the community. And
(21:08):
really arts and prescription is just adding some more tools
to that tool belt, right like, Oh, if there are
things in your community that can benefit people's health, there's
no reason to not integrate that into your healthcare process,
right Like the not integrating it would not be scientific, right, Like,
there's no reason to not do that other than of course,
(21:28):
you know, how are you going to fund it? Who's
going to pay for those kinds of logistic questions that
do cause you know, those are barriers in some communities.
But we do see you know, the first state wide
arts and prescription program in the US because in Massachusetts
called culture RX, and you know, across the state, a
lot of different arts entities, whether it's different museums, playhouses,
(21:50):
even park system, the park system in Massachusetts, dance studios
have partnered with a variety of different health providers that
can be a pediatric, a chain of pediatric offices, some
people who are doing work with Parkinson's patients, young people
like whatever the specific health provider was trying to do,
(22:13):
they were partnered with arts organizations to come up with
new ways to benefit those patients.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
And so, yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Saw in the evaluation of that program and in many
other programs across the US that have come up since then,
we see people being prescribed experiences in their community, arts, culture,
and nature in order to benefit their health or mental
health or physical health, their quality of life. And typically
with the prescription, the patient does not have to pay
for that experience, it's provided for free.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And how much does focus have to do with this
focusing your mind on something in the world of art
or experience that type of thing.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Oh, it's a great question. Yeah, it really just depends
on what the outcomes are that you're looking for. Certainly,
if somebody is We've heard from some therapists, for example,
that if they have a patient who's kind of stuck
in a way of life they want to get past
but they're not sure how, or maybe there's a lot
of rumination, then yeah, kind of some kind of novel
experience that interrupts that and jolts them out of that
(23:12):
and maybe helps them to have a different thought about
something can be really helpful. So yeah, sometimes it is
a change of focus combined with some other things, or
certainly stress reduction people who are experiencing life stress and
anxiety to be able to if you're taking a class
that's maybe maybe you're learning glass blowing. I don't know,
or pottery, or you're writing a song or a poem,
(23:35):
than that time that you're spending doing that. We have
seen that that can lower the heart rate, lower blood pressure,
lower cortisol, and yeah, help people feel in general that
they have had a kind of soothing experience.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I would have to say, doing this podcast is it
for me for sure? I have to focus all of
my crazy brains going in a million directions all the time,
and when I do this, I feel very grounded, especially
when I get to talk to lovely people like yourself.
I love that it started in Massachusetts. That's where I
was born and raised, so of course another wonderful thing
(24:09):
that comes out of there. I also spoke to a
veteran who said to me that when he would take
his archery courses when he came home from battle after
it was pretty tough experience that, you know, those eight
seconds they would hold the bow back to focus on
the target was so calming. And then when when that
(24:32):
person found music, they realized while that eight seconds turned
into like eight minutes and then eight hours, and realized
realizing that doing things that are you know, within the
arts and experience artful experiences like that were really helpful.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
So it's so exciting.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
That's a great example. There's been so many of these
arts and prescription programs that have been initiated for veterans,
specifically Veteran program in Florida and Georgia and kind of
like all over the country, and there's a lot of
programs that are like this that don't call themselves this
right like your friends might. A program might be an
(25:12):
example of this that a program that has connected veterans,
for example, or college students or whatever the case might be,
with a specific kind of arts program for their well being,
but they might not think of themselves as quote unquote
arts on prescription, or it might not be functioning in
quite the same way. But they've been doing it for
a long time, and it's always it's always interesting to
hear from organizations all over of like how they've approached
(25:34):
this work and how they're connecting it with people's health.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
It's very exciting now as a part of Culture Art X,
which by the way, is America's first arts prescription program.
From yours truly, which is just congratulations on that. What
were the most surprising findings that you found with that?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Oh, well, first, I have to say, I was so
glad to evaluate that program. But I have to credit
my amazing friends at Mass Cultural Accounts for their work
kind of ideating around this and coming up with the
coming up with the structure for it, which was just
very courageous of them and have has led to so much,
so much great work across the country. But yeah, surprising
(26:14):
findings we did, you know, in a way, because based
on the research around arts and pacts on health, we
did expect to see certain kinds of things like, oh,
people who people who were being prescribed as experience because
they were lonely might have made some more connections. And
we saw that people who were prescribed as experience because
of great stress or depression might see an alleviation of
(26:35):
the symptoms. And we did see that. What was surprising
was our responses from the healthcare providers themselves, who told
us that they were getting benefits from the existence of
this program that and not even and you might be
thinking like, oh, maybe they went to the player, they
went to the museum. The experience, No, the experience of
(26:56):
being able to prescribe these kinds of things to their
patients was so enlivening for them, felt so good for them,
especially at a time right after COVID where there was
a lot of moral injury and a lot of kind
of despair and a lot of people feeling like I
do not have enough tools to really do right by
my patients and I'm stuck. And the idea that you
(27:18):
could have something like some physicians said, like, we're used
to telling people you need to cut back on this,
you need to stop doing this, need to start doing this,
And they said this was a chance to be like,
here's this thing that you love and are interested in,
go do it. And that felt so good for them.
One physician said, this feels like prescribing beauty, and they
(27:39):
talked about the amazing reactions that they got from their patients.
And so, yeah, we expected physicians to use it and
be glad about it, because we had heard things in
advance from them about how they would use this and
why it would be useful to them. But we did
not expect that kind of emotional response to it. And
I'm always thinking about those unexpected findings are sometimes the
(28:03):
most fascinating parts of research, but also what that tells
us about how integrating the arts benefits not only our
patients but also our systems and our providers and has
these ripple effects that we might not expect.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Now, for someone suffering from depression or anxiety right now,
can you share a specific example, say, or guidance on
how an art prescription might help someone with that depression
or anxiety.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Well, one of the main things that we have found
in the research is that it is really dependent on
the person. That there is not a universal activity that
has universal results. What matters the most is that you
are interested in the work, interested in the activity, interested
in the pursuit whatever it might be. So that personal
(28:54):
interest has to be valued. So for yourself, if you're
kind of like thinking about prescribing something for your you
might think of, like, what is something that you're interested
in but you haven't given yourself time for, Or what's
the song that you love to hear, but you know what,
you haven't heard it in several days or maybe several months.
Do you want to put that on? So there's a
connection between your interest and curiosity as a human and
(29:16):
the well being benefits.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
That you get.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
And then, of course, you know some things that are
probably intuitive to people. You know, there are some kinds
of music that can lead to rumination, and you might
not want to go down that path. But then we
also know that there are types of music that when
you need to cry, will help you cry, will help
you feel your grief, and it is helpful to move
through that. So it can be helpful sometimes to have
(29:39):
some guidance as far as, Okay, when does this turn
into me just sitting in a negative feeling in a
way that's not actually helpful to me? And when is
this helping me move through something? And oftentimes we can
tap into that we know for ourselves whether we're moving
through something or moving into it and staying there.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Right, Yes, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
And if you need more energy of cour these are
some ways that we all self medicate. Like if you
have to do a workout or clean your house, you
might turn on a certain kind of song that energizes you.
And that's real. There's you know, measurable impacts of that.
So if that's something that you feel inclined to do,
like use it more intentionally, use it more mindfully, like oh,
I'm feeling just like bored and down. Okay, turn on
some surround some music. If you haven't thought to do that,
(30:19):
it can be helpful for you. And that's true of
like not just music, but other things that energize you
and that make you curious and interested in the world.
These are things that the arts and culture in general
offer us that we don't always purposefully tap into for
our health.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, well that you know, you just got me with
that gym thing, because there isn't anybody that I know
not even have a friend of mine, Georgia.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
She's actually in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
She is a fitness trainer full time, Like she does
it every day and has to do it because she
teaches classes. And I can't even imagine as just someone
sitting at home with maybe like a treadmill that is
more of like a clothing rack. How do you Is
there any specific type of music or something that you
would suggest to get you in that mood specifically?
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Oh no, I have the kinds of things that are
a go to for me. Things that feel like a
kind of like a steady drum beat that's at a
march tempo or higher. And some of these things kind
of feel like they're almost universal, like something that really
gets you going. But it's truly different for everybody. Some
people will turn on, you know, something that for me
would feel soothing and they're just like ready to go. Right.
(31:31):
So it's again like giving yourself permission to tap into well,
you know, what does inspire me or feel energizing like that,
And then here's the thing if you don't know, here's
the permission slip to do your own experimenting, like put
on some different things and just notice the emotion, notice
the heart rate, notice what you feel like you want
to do or like, oh I really want to turn
that off. Oh that's interesting too. Why was it too sad?
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Was it too boring?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
You know?
Speaker 3 (31:56):
And just being able to learn about your own tastes
and how those might be useful to you.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, and also stopping procrastination, which I think goes along
with what was that that you said you were diagnosed with?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Oh, I'm neurodivergent. It's not a diagnosis in itself, but
is that part? Would you say that? The procrastinating?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
What is it about a creative mind that constantly procrast.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
It certainly can be for some neud nerdi emergent folks.
I tend to be a little bit the opposite and
dive in and then no surprise, I could burn the
candle at both ends, just wanting to do do do
all the time. But yeah, certainly it's a kind of
it's a it can be traced to perfectionism, it can
be traced to uh, you know that that sense of oh,
(32:43):
there's sorry, my brain was like I'm going to give
you like we'll do a whole God, we could do
a whole podcast.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I'm procrastinos.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Is that when you're using both sides of your brain
too much? Or is that kind of when you're cursed
with having both brain sides working.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Oh, that's an interesting question. I'm I'm much sure.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
I'm not sure that there's a connection there, but I
do think that people who procrastinate are kind of having
competing priorities in their own brains. And this is important.
But this is also important, and you know there is
some connection as well. Procrastination can be caused by lots
of different things, by the way, but one of them
can also be you know, early signs of burnout that
you know your body knows that you need to be resting.
(33:21):
Then you're telling it to like do this thing and
it's like I really don't want to. That might not
just that might not just be laziness, which you know,
some sociologists would say that's not even a real thing,
Like people are not lazy, Like we call it lazy
when people need to rest right right, So that's an
interesting avenue to go down if you're interested. But like, yes,
sometimes it can be a sign that you're putting off
(33:43):
the work because you really do need to rest, not
just because you're stupid and can't get yourself to work.
But then other times you have plenty of rest and
you just have these competing things that are going on,
and it can be easier to not do anything than
to try to figure out what the next step would
be to take action. And then sometimes you know, with
ADHD for example, might need the strong sense of urgency
(34:04):
that comes with a deadline that's tomorrow morning in order
to have enough dopamine to go ahead and do their work.
And that's that's part of it too.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Wow, there are so many directions we could go. I
feel like we could probably fill a few hours discussing
all the myriad ways we can combat issues with the arts,
which I think is one more question for you if
you don't mind, what excites you the most about arts
and healing, arts and health, I should say research.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Currently, I think it's been it's been the same for
the last few years. But the thing that I find
most interesting about something like arts and prescription is not
just that, oh, you can prescribe somebody an arts based
experience and it can improve their condition or their life.
(34:54):
But what I'm interested in is what this tells us
about the world overall, that you know you can change,
We can change even our most entrenched systems. It can
seem like healthcare just is what it is and here's
how it works, and turns out like now, that's not
the case at all. There are people being doving, really innovative,
(35:15):
super fascinating things in healthcare systems, in hospitals, in lots
of facilities, in university medical centers, like exploring lots of
different things. We can as a society decide what kind
of systems we want to have, what kinds of communities
we want to have, and we can decide to build those.
And for me, it's never just been oh, isn't it
(35:36):
so cool that art can improve people's health. It's more
like for me, like I've never thought of myself as
an arts advocate. I've always thought of myself as like
an advocate for the things we need in order to thrive.
It happens that art is one of those. And so
I'm always encouraging people to let this, you know, spark
their creativity. As far as what else can we change?
(35:58):
What else can we think bigger about?
Speaker 2 (36:00):
That?
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Healthcare doesn't need to look one specific way. It can
grow and change along with our sciences, along with our
understanding of how humans work and how we connect and
what we need, and our other systems can change as well.
We just have to have enough imagination to envision what
canon should be different and then act to make those changes.
And it's possible.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
And if you are suffering from burnout, even if you're
doing the job that you love. I worked in radio
for years and I could feel it building in me,
like I need to change something, but I don't know
what that is? What am I an idiot? I can't
leave this job. It pays well, I'm doing what I
always wanted to do, But yet is there more? And
(36:41):
if you're feeling that way, just know that you can
change your life. I used to tell people all the time,
like whatever you've done, you can change. You can change
if it's going to be a better thing for you.
People are so afraid of change in general. I think,
so it's nice to get permission from the.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Doc to make the change.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yes, And you know, if I can speak to that
for just one moment, Yes, there's somebody dealing with burnout.
There's a couple of things that I often tell people, like,
I think it's really important to recognize that, especially if
you're in a creative career, but many different types of
careers that in the US, at least, we do not
have a lot of supportive systems for these kinds of careers.
(37:21):
And that is wearing. It's not your faults specifically, if
you're experiencing burnout and you're like, wow, I have a
lot of unpredictability in my life. I have a lot
of concern about my finances. I've concerned about whether I'm
ever going to be able to buy a house. You
have young creative friends who are having that conversation right Like,
there are a lot of things, how am I going
(37:42):
to pay for my own health care if I'm an
independent musician or creative or things like that. There's really
big questions and difficulties that are very real that have
really real impacts on our brains and our bodies. As
a result of the systems and the communities and the
structures that we live in and under, and sometimes reckoning
with that can make us feel a little bit powerless. Well,
I can't change those, so I'm stuck. But I have
(38:02):
found in practice it's often empowering because it helps people
to stop putting all of the blame on themselves and
be like, well, this is happening to me because I'm
not good enough. I should be more talented, I should
be more charismatic, I should be more energetic, I should
be able to fix myself and heal myself whatever. Right,
But when we recognize that there are structural factors, then
a couple things happen. We can find camaraderie with other
(38:23):
people who are also affected by those, we can find
pass forward that include not just some kind of the
things that we can do for ourselves, and there are
plenty of those things, but also how we can impact
our communities and our systems and change things for our
entire industry. And it also helps us to get more
imaginative about our work and how we want to engage
it in the world. And then, of course, in addition
(38:44):
to that, there are always ways that we can re
narrate our story and choose a different one. And if
the story, if the story isn't one that you can
tell and be healthy, to find a different one, because
there's your health and your well being is more important
than than any specific story, even if it's a really
amazing one.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
On that note, doctor Tasha Golden, thank you so much
for coming on Music Save Me. Your journey from burning
out in being a rock star to pioneering the science
of arts and healing is just so inspiring to me
and I'm sure all of our listeners as well. And
your story definitely reminds us that creativity can change and
(39:26):
challenge and transform us. And also, if you'd like to
learn more about doctor Golden's work, you can find it
at the International Arts and Mind Lab and her book
Arts on Prescription, a field guide for US communities, and
we will definitely have links in the show notes. And
also I want to put out there that if you
are grappling with burnout like we've been discussing, discussing or
(39:50):
questioning your creative path, or just wanting to know which
direction to go, please know you're not alone. Art can
break us, but it can also lead to new beginnings.
I'm just so grateful that you were able to flush
that out of this conversation and hopefully give some people
some hope out there.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Doctor Golden, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
I did used to work with the International Arts and Mindland,
but they don't have I don't know if they would
have a link to me now they probably do. Oh
but but I can't add well, I'll say it this
way just in case you want to drop it in.
But if people want to connect with me or find
some free resources, they can go to Tasha Golden dot
com slash Music Saved Me and get some you know,
(40:33):
free links to the arts and Prescription field Guide. We
mentioned some other things that might be interesting to you,
and feel free to reach out if you'd like to wait.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
So they can go to doctor Tasha Golden slash Music
Save Me.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
It'll be Tasha Golden dot com slash Music Saved Me.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
That's great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
It's so wonderful to be connected to you and let's
do some good work together.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Yeah, thank you so much for your timeline. Have a
great came in.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
I
Music Saved Me. Welcome back to Music Saved Me.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
I'm Lynn Hoffman, and today we are diving into an
extraordinary story that bridges the passion of music with the
precision of science. Our guest today is doctor Tasha Golden,
a former singer songwriter with the acclaimed band Ellery, whose
music career ended due to severe burnout, and from that loss,
(00:23):
she forged a new path as a behavioral scientist and
the first director of research at the International Arts and
Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins. Recognized as one of twenty
twenty four's Fierce Fifty by Fierce Pharma, Doctor Golden now
leads groundbreaking work in Arts on Prescription, including America's first
(00:44):
program culture RX, and she's also a lead author of
Arts on Prescription, a field guide for US communities. And
today we'll explore how music both broke and rebuilt her
and how she's now using science and art to harness
create activity for healing and innovation. Lucky as we get
to spend this time with you, doctor Golden, thank you
(01:06):
so much for joining us today on Music Save Me.
I've been waiting to talk to you about all of
this stuff, so thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Oh, thank you so much for having me if.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You wouldn't mind, can you take us back to your
early days with the band ellery and tell us a
little bit about what music meant to you, sort of
as a young artist living the dream of being in
a rock band.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, you know, I'll go back even further than that.
I started writing songs when I was really young because
I found, you know, without the music, I found that
as a little girl, I didn't necessarily have much of
a voice. People weren't necessarily interested in hearing my opinions
in the particular place where I was at the time
where I was being brought up. But I noticed very
early on that when I sang, people paid attention. And
(01:51):
it started to become clear that if I wrote my
own songs, if I could put my ideas, my story is,
the things that were important to me into those songs,
it was sort of like work around a way that
I could find power in a community and in a
society that I otherwise didn't really feel that I had
very much power and voice. And and that's kind of
how I started writing. And that effect of music in
(02:14):
my life really is a through line as far as
music's ability to allow me to say things that I
found that I couldn't say otherwise to share things with audiences.
You know, there's lots of things that have happened in
my life that I have shared with hundreds of people,
I just show before I had ever told a single
fund about it, you know. And I found that was
(02:35):
very true for my audiences as well, people coming to
music for the same reasons that it was allowing them
to discover something about themselves that they couldn't share otherwise
or hadn't realized about themselves otherwise. And so when you
ask about, you know, living the dream, there were so
many cool things about our career, like being able to
travel the world the country, see so many different things,
(02:57):
meet so many different people, work with just absolutely astonishingly
great musicians. And I think though that my favorite part
was always just that seemingly mysterious sense that music made
something possible that wasn't possible otherwise. This kind of, like
I said, a sort of work around for our limitations
and our norms, and you know, a way for people
(03:18):
and for myself to find a different path where we
could find power and voice and opportunity.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It's pretty exciting stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I mean, when you're a young person and you join
a band, like you said, travel the world. But I'm
curious when this is kind of a difficult, I mean juxtaposition.
And I want to start off by saying that having
severe burnout, from what I read, really just ended your
(03:48):
music career. And I was curious if you could describe
that experience and the moment that you realized it was over.
Because I myself suffered from burnout. I know a lot
of people did, and it's a really tough moment where
you either just throw it away or you turn it
into something positive.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Yeah. I mean at the time, I didn't realize how
common this was for people in the music industry. It
seems to me now I can't imagine how I wouldn't
have known that. I did know that depression and anxiety
were very common among my music friends. We had lots
of conversations about those things, but it wasn't something that
I knew how to talk about or that I just
felt anomalous. And I felt like, you know, this was
(04:27):
something that was happening to me because I wasn't maybe
I wasn't passionate enough, or I wasn't you know. There
was these ways that you start to blame yourself or
an experience that you're having because you don't realize that
it's actually a very common experience and you don't necessarily
have words for it. And for me, I think I
would describe that burnout as you know, death by a
thousand cuts, Like it just was over years and years
(04:49):
of you know, hundreds of shows nights, who knows where
you're going to be that night, where you're going to
be sleeping, who you're going to be talking to, and
just a kind of unpredicted b of it. I much
later in my life was diagnosed as like neurodivergence. There's
all kinds of things that make so much sense now
that like that unpredictability was was really hard on me
(05:10):
in ways that I didn't even realize. I always thought
of myself as this really impulsive like artist that just
go exploit the world, like you know, come what may,
And actually it turns out that is not the way
that my brain thrives, but I didn't know that at
the time. And we recorded our most ambitious project one
(05:32):
year Grammy winning producer, lots of amazing studio musicians working
with us, songs that I really believed in. I was
just so excited to put that record out, and we
got home from recording it and we were going to
do a short tour to help promote it before it released,
and you know, one night in December, we were coming
back from I think it was our last show of
(05:54):
the year, our last planed show of the year, and
I just was, you know, curled over in the passenger
seat of our vehicle, is sobbing, and I all that
I could say. You know, I remember turning to my partner,
like my partner in life, but also my music partner.
This was his dream, also his job also, you know,
(06:14):
and I said something like I don't want to do
anything other than this. This is all that I've ever
wanted to do, and I can't do this anymore. I'm
just I'm exhausted. I don't know how to like, I
just reached this point where I couldn't imagine waking up
and doing it again and then again and then again.
I just I just I wound up going to bed
(06:36):
and staying there for weeks. I was just, you know,
it felt like I had been exhausted for years by
that point, and it was something that I kept trudging through,
like expecting that maybe the next and I think career
musicians will relate to this, or career creatives of many
kinds that like, the next milestone, the next opportunity is
going to change things just enough to worry. Maybe you'll
be able to like relax a little bit, you'll get
a little of a break, and you just keep rounding
(06:58):
the next corner, the next corner, the next corner. And
I just kept doing that, expecting it to change until
I just couldn't move anymore. Right, And Yeah, one of
those days in bed, it became very clear to me that, yeah,
I was definitely not going to be able to tour again.
I assumed that I would still be doing full time
music in some way, but I knew that something had
(07:20):
fundamentally and sort of irrevocably changed.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Two questions as a follow up to that one, what
did your partner what was this response?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
And to.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Can you describe what neurodivergent means? I heard you say that,
I'm just curious. I don't know what it means, but
it sounds extremely interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, it's sort of an umbrella term for all kinds
of you know, for people's brains who just work differently
from what we would call typical like a neurotypical brain,
so it can encompass things like ADHD, autism, you know,
also some mental illnesses OCD and things like that. So
it's kind of like an umbrella term for describing somebody
whose brain function differently. Not it's not necessarily pathological, like
(08:04):
something is wrong with it, but it's a brain that
functions different a neurotype that is, you know, that works
differently than what we've kind of commonly recognized as that's
what we would expect or that's that's kind of like
society is designed around one kind of neurotype and this
one is different.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
That's so interesting though, because sometimes people walk around and
they think, you know, what's wrong with me? I am
so different, I think so differently, or I do things
so different than everyone else, and you're actually not alone.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah, I mean it's amazing to to explore that so
late in life. And of course, like young people now
might get a diagnosis earlier, when I was young, it
wasn't something that people were talking about as much. So
it took a lot of years for me to come
across people who are very similar to me, who were like, oh,
this is my experience, and I'm like wait, hold up,
what are you talking about? So yeah, really really really
(08:53):
helpful to explore those things. And my partner's response, lynn,
to his eternal credit, he was just concerned and like, oh, okay,
well we if this is this is what's going on,
we got to change something, you know, and he had
no idea what that would be. We thankfully had some
good friends who were sort of like, you know, all
that I knew was at that moment was that I
(09:15):
can't do this anymore. I didn't know what the next
thing was. They didn't know what that meant or like
what and some friends kind of gave us this helpful language.
They were like, what if you take like a six
month sabbatical, Tasha, And it was just like such a
helpful framing, just that word of like, oh, like some
time set aside to do something different than this thing
that I cannot do, okay, And just like that framing
(09:35):
of it helped my brain and my partner's brain like
make sense of this. Okay, let's take six months and
then we'll decide. And by the way, we hadn't put
that record out yet, so this was also six months
of like, we'll just hold on to that record and
not release it for another six months. It felt bananas,
but it was also so helpful to have that, and
then my partner was able to find other work to
(09:57):
support the two of us, which is such a pre
woods to me and has always been one of the
great gifts of my life, one of the great gifts
that he gave to me, you know, to as somebody
who had always like kind of like, oh, I founded
this band, this is my work, and I'm doing it,
and for somebody to step in and say, like, no,
figure this out. Heel up and we'll take things on
(10:19):
the other side of that. We'll know what to do.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Don't let on that one get away for sure. Right,
I could talk about someone in your corner. That's pretty amazing,
especially with everything that you had built up in that
dark period that you found yourself in after losing music,
so to speak, at that point, what kept you going
and gave you hope that you were going to move
on to that next thing, whatever that may be.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
M I think a couple of different things.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I have always thought of that my life in terms
of like a story. You know, people talk about sometimes
wanting to find their purpose. I had always had this
mentality of like oh, but purpose is something that I'm creating.
It's sort of always evolving, like where the story. Your
story is not something that you're not following a map
that somebody handed to. You're making up the map as
(11:09):
you go. And that can be very unsettling in many
ways for a lot of people, sort of just like
accepting endless uncertainty. But for me in that moment, what
was helpful to me was that I felt like a
story was ending, and that just meant that I knew
that there was another story. And to be really clear,
this was like the most awful thing that it ever
happened to me end my life. So I'm not saying
(11:31):
it like, oh, one story's gone, let's just find the
next one, like it was awful, but I did have
this underlying sense that, okay, this must me that there's
a different story to tell, and I just have to
stay curious about what that might be. Like here was
one story I was telling the story of a singer
songwriter who's touring and for a living and things like that,
I wonder what the next story is going to be,
(11:51):
and I have no idea, and it was just an
absolutely terrifying gap in my understanding of my future right,
But I did understand it as a story and that
was such a help to me. And it's part of
what I've researched and how I helped other people now
is understanding their work as a story that you know
that isn't done until.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
They are right. Yeah, I love saying.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
The other thing that helps so much is poetry. I
found myself reading Mary Oliver all the time, and I'm
trying to spend some time in nature and with animals,
like just something that felt grounding and real and present.
Those things were incredibly important.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yes they are.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
And wow, talk about a transformation though. You took the
love of music and artistry and you shifted to just
a PhD researcher studying music and well being and creating
programs that are you know, in major universities and hospital studies.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
So can you what was that shift?
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Like?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
When did you know that was the direction that you
were going to go? And then what led you to
where you are now?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
That came very slowly, you know.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
I had a mentor in the in the middle of
like the darkest time of my depression, after after getting
off the road. So like I think that you might
like academia, like it's really predictable and like you could
study writing and and I was like, you know what, sure, Okay,
I applied to this master's program in creative writing. I
(13:23):
sent them CDs at like a lyric sheets. I didn't
expect to get in because I didn't think of myself
as as a poet per se, or like I was
a songwriter, and that wasn't what they did.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
You know, that's such a great idea that you would
that you would do that.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
So I then I got in and I was like, oh,
what the heck, Like what am I going to do this?
It was like a two year commitment or whatever. And
I got into that program and quickly realized that I
was so much more of a nerd than I ever
thought that. I was like my favorite aspects of this
process worth, like the research, and like a lot of
(14:00):
my peers, who were wonderful poets, were like, ah, the
research was like this kind of hoop they had to
jump through because they really just wanted to do workshops
and things like that. And I was like, oh no,
this is this is it. This is like I love this.
Let's dig in some more. And I knew then that
I wanted to keep doing research to answer my questions.
But the questions that I had were, like I said, about,
(14:22):
you know, how and why does music and the arts
have the effects that they have?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Why are we able to you know?
Speaker 3 (14:29):
I was once talking about it as like committing social heresies,
like say things that you're not supposed to say to
people you're not supposed to talk to. But the arts
let you do all of that? Why Like why would
that be possible? And I spent a few years trying
to figure out which what field that belongs? And is
that you know, is that psychology? Is it sociology. I
wound up in public health, which is just never my plan.
(14:53):
Like I could tell you more of a story about
like I started my PhD in rhetoric. I wound up
in the circuitous way in public health, and I'm grateful
for all the time, because public health really somebody that
I met when I first started my PhD program in
rhetoric was like, why are you not researching this in
public health? She was in public health, And I was like,
I'm going to be honest with you, I don't really
know what y'all do.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
I'm like, I'm a musician. I'm a poet.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
I don't know what public health even is. I've never
been in a stem field.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Go what, but it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, because it's everything, Like is what contributes to the
public's health can literally be every It's everything. And it
was such a cool way for a thinker like me
who always kind of takes this system's perspective and a
meta perspective, like to be able to look at music
and the arts from this zoom dot way of how
(15:42):
is this affecting human beings and what does that mean
for our systems and our structures, whether that's a healthcare system,
but also our schools, our communities, our general policies. What
can we learn about how the arts affect us and
how can we use that to make a better world?
Just always an exciting intersection.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
It is.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
It's very exciting and before I want to get more
into how it all works, but first I'm curious was first,
how did your experiences with music and healing sort of
shape the research? And also did you get any pushback
from academia in any of this, because you know, they
kind of I can only imagine the pushback, and we
(16:23):
have gotten on it, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, Okay, so.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yes, my personal experiences really informed the research because my
research question was was kind of different than what other
people in the intersection of music and health were talking about.
Like a lot of times, when I told people that
I researched intersections of like arts and public health or
something like that, they immediately think of things like music
therapy or art therapy, dance therapy, which is really great.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Those are wonderful things. It's not really what I particularly.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Study or engage with communities, although I've many fine colleagues
who do. But my particular research question was a little
was unique in the field, and it was more about
why do people communicate different things via the arts than
we do otherwise? What is the art's role in communication?
(17:10):
How does it change what we're thinking, what we think
of To say, it's not just that it changes what
we say, but it changes what we think, and then
whether we choose to share that and how we choose
to share it and with whom we choose to share it.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
That's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
What the heck and my dissertation question wound up being
around what does that mean for health research?
Speaker 1 (17:29):
There?
Speaker 3 (17:29):
If there are things that people are only telling me
as a singer songwriter after a show in a random
city in the US. That story of that person's suicide
idation or abuse history is something that they are not
telling their doctor or their therapist. But that doctor or therapist,
I guarantee you thinks that they're working with adequate information
(17:49):
about their patient or their client, and they don't know
what they don't know, right, And so I was just
really curious around, Okay, if it's true that the arts
allow us to share things that we cannot share otherwise, than,
how do we integrate that as a kind of data
collection process. How do we learn from that data to
change our to improve our healthcare, to change our systems,
(18:12):
to change what we know about our populations and their experiences,
because there's so much that we don't know. If we're
not that's okay, that's the easiest way I can lay
it out. If you're not paying attention to the arts,
there is a lot that you do not know, just inevitably,
and if you if you open your yourself to the
information that can come via the arts, you're going to
(18:33):
have more accurate information, better information. And So to answer
your question about pushback, I actually did not get any
It was such a kind of intuitive inarguable point, like
just set up that way, but like, if there are
things that people are only sharing in the context of
the art, then what might those things be, Why might
that be? And then how are we going to integrate
(18:54):
that into the way that we typically do health and medicine.
And you know, I was able to show but we
got a lot more information from arts based methods than
we did from traditional surveys. They were also more trauma responsive.
We were able to share the information in much cooler
ways with our communities. It went much further than just
if you write some kind of boring report. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah,
(19:16):
there was a lot of There was a lot of
openness to that work. And I also credit the institution
that I was in, which had a big focus on
how we on equity and on increasing our ability to
connect with people who have historically not been heard or included,
and that was important to them.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
We'll be right back with more of the Music Saved
Me Podcast. Welcome back to the Music Saved Me Podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
The Day you are a leader on arts on prescription,
which I think is amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
I think it's amazing that an artist would come up
and and.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Just blow away all of these medical minds of things
that could be without prescribing drugs as a source, more
of arts experiences that work as like a medical intervention,
which is astounding to me. How does prescribing music or
arts work. Can you give us sort of like an
(20:21):
example or.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, yeah, it works in so many different ways. I
will say it sounds like a really novel idea, But
this is this kind of thing has been going on
in other countries for decades at this point.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Why doesn't that surprise me?
Speaker 5 (20:34):
By the way, Yeah, people have been prescribing sort of
like local community experiences, whether that's joining a choir or
gardening or volunteering or things like that to benefit their health.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
And in the US we've done versions of that, like
we do have in most communities. There are physicians who
will refer patients to things like housing assistants or support
groups or you know, just basically things in a community
that they know will help their patient that aren't typical
like pharmacological interventions or you know, like a physical therapist
intervention or something like that. Just things that they know
that their patient needs and it's in the community. And
(21:08):
really arts and prescription is just adding some more tools
to that tool belt, right like, Oh, if there are
things in your community that can benefit people's health, there's
no reason to not integrate that into your healthcare process,
right Like the not integrating it would not be scientific, right, Like,
there's no reason to not do that other than of course,
(21:28):
you know, how are you going to fund it? Who's
going to pay for those kinds of logistic questions that
do cause you know, those are barriers in some communities.
But we do see you know, the first state wide
arts and prescription program in the US because in Massachusetts
called culture RX, and you know, across the state, a
lot of different arts entities, whether it's different museums, playhouses,
(21:50):
even park system, the park system in Massachusetts, dance studios
have partnered with a variety of different health providers that
can be a pediatric, a chain of pediatric offices, some
people who are doing work with Parkinson's patients, young people
like whatever the specific health provider was trying to do,
(22:13):
they were partnered with arts organizations to come up with
new ways to benefit those patients.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
And so, yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Saw in the evaluation of that program and in many
other programs across the US that have come up since then,
we see people being prescribed experiences in their community, arts, culture,
and nature in order to benefit their health or mental
health or physical health, their quality of life. And typically
with the prescription, the patient does not have to pay
for that experience, it's provided for free.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And how much does focus have to do with this
focusing your mind on something in the world of art
or experience that type of thing.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Oh, it's a great question. Yeah, it really just depends
on what the outcomes are that you're looking for. Certainly,
if somebody is We've heard from some therapists, for example,
that if they have a patient who's kind of stuck
in a way of life they want to get past
but they're not sure how, or maybe there's a lot
of rumination, then yeah, kind of some kind of novel
experience that interrupts that and jolts them out of that
(23:12):
and maybe helps them to have a different thought about
something can be really helpful. So yeah, sometimes it is
a change of focus combined with some other things, or
certainly stress reduction people who are experiencing life stress and
anxiety to be able to if you're taking a class
that's maybe maybe you're learning glass blowing. I don't know,
or pottery, or you're writing a song or a poem,
(23:35):
than that time that you're spending doing that. We have
seen that that can lower the heart rate, lower blood pressure,
lower cortisol, and yeah, help people feel in general that
they have had a kind of soothing experience.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I would have to say, doing this podcast is it
for me for sure? I have to focus all of
my crazy brains going in a million directions all the time,
and when I do this, I feel very grounded, especially
when I get to talk to lovely people like yourself.
I love that it started in Massachusetts. That's where I
was born and raised, so of course another wonderful thing
(24:09):
that comes out of there. I also spoke to a
veteran who said to me that when he would take
his archery courses when he came home from battle after
it was pretty tough experience that, you know, those eight
seconds they would hold the bow back to focus on
the target was so calming. And then when when that
(24:32):
person found music, they realized while that eight seconds turned
into like eight minutes and then eight hours, and realized
realizing that doing things that are you know, within the
arts and experience artful experiences like that were really helpful.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
So it's so exciting.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
That's a great example. There's been so many of these
arts and prescription programs that have been initiated for veterans,
specifically Veteran program in Florida and Georgia and kind of
like all over the country, and there's a lot of
programs that are like this that don't call themselves this
right like your friends might. A program might be an
(25:12):
example of this that a program that has connected veterans,
for example, or college students or whatever the case might be,
with a specific kind of arts program for their well being,
but they might not think of themselves as quote unquote
arts on prescription, or it might not be functioning in
quite the same way. But they've been doing it for
a long time, and it's always it's always interesting to
hear from organizations all over of like how they've approached
(25:34):
this work and how they're connecting it with people's health.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
It's very exciting now as a part of Culture Art X,
which by the way, is America's first arts prescription program.
From yours truly, which is just congratulations on that. What
were the most surprising findings that you found with that?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Oh, well, first, I have to say, I was so
glad to evaluate that program. But I have to credit
my amazing friends at Mass Cultural Accounts for their work
kind of ideating around this and coming up with the
coming up with the structure for it, which was just
very courageous of them and have has led to so much,
so much great work across the country. But yeah, surprising
(26:14):
findings we did, you know, in a way, because based
on the research around arts and pacts on health, we
did expect to see certain kinds of things like, oh,
people who people who were being prescribed as experience because
they were lonely might have made some more connections. And
we saw that people who were prescribed as experience because
of great stress or depression might see an alleviation of
(26:35):
the symptoms. And we did see that. What was surprising
was our responses from the healthcare providers themselves, who told
us that they were getting benefits from the existence of
this program that and not even and you might be
thinking like, oh, maybe they went to the player, they
went to the museum. The experience, No, the experience of
(26:56):
being able to prescribe these kinds of things to their
patients was so enlivening for them, felt so good for them,
especially at a time right after COVID where there was
a lot of moral injury and a lot of kind
of despair and a lot of people feeling like I
do not have enough tools to really do right by
my patients and I'm stuck. And the idea that you
(27:18):
could have something like some physicians said, like, we're used
to telling people you need to cut back on this,
you need to stop doing this, need to start doing this,
And they said this was a chance to be like,
here's this thing that you love and are interested in,
go do it. And that felt so good for them.
One physician said, this feels like prescribing beauty, and they
(27:39):
talked about the amazing reactions that they got from their patients.
And so, yeah, we expected physicians to use it and
be glad about it, because we had heard things in
advance from them about how they would use this and
why it would be useful to them. But we did
not expect that kind of emotional response to it. And
I'm always thinking about those unexpected findings are sometimes the
(28:03):
most fascinating parts of research, but also what that tells
us about how integrating the arts benefits not only our
patients but also our systems and our providers and has
these ripple effects that we might not expect.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Now, for someone suffering from depression or anxiety right now,
can you share a specific example, say, or guidance on
how an art prescription might help someone with that depression
or anxiety.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Well, one of the main things that we have found
in the research is that it is really dependent on
the person. That there is not a universal activity that
has universal results. What matters the most is that you
are interested in the work, interested in the activity, interested
in the pursuit whatever it might be. So that personal
(28:54):
interest has to be valued. So for yourself, if you're
kind of like thinking about prescribing something for your you
might think of, like, what is something that you're interested
in but you haven't given yourself time for, Or what's
the song that you love to hear, but you know what,
you haven't heard it in several days or maybe several months.
Do you want to put that on? So there's a
connection between your interest and curiosity as a human and
(29:16):
the well being benefits.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
That you get.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
And then, of course, you know some things that are
probably intuitive to people. You know, there are some kinds
of music that can lead to rumination, and you might
not want to go down that path. But then we
also know that there are types of music that when
you need to cry, will help you cry, will help
you feel your grief, and it is helpful to move
through that. So it can be helpful sometimes to have
(29:39):
some guidance as far as, Okay, when does this turn
into me just sitting in a negative feeling in a
way that's not actually helpful to me? And when is
this helping me move through something? And oftentimes we can
tap into that we know for ourselves whether we're moving
through something or moving into it and staying there.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Right, Yes, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
And if you need more energy of cour these are
some ways that we all self medicate. Like if you
have to do a workout or clean your house, you
might turn on a certain kind of song that energizes you.
And that's real. There's you know, measurable impacts of that.
So if that's something that you feel inclined to do,
like use it more intentionally, use it more mindfully, like oh,
I'm feeling just like bored and down. Okay, turn on
some surround some music. If you haven't thought to do that,
(30:19):
it can be helpful for you. And that's true of
like not just music, but other things that energize you
and that make you curious and interested in the world.
These are things that the arts and culture in general
offer us that we don't always purposefully tap into for
our health.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, well that you know, you just got me with
that gym thing, because there isn't anybody that I know
not even have a friend of mine, Georgia.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
She's actually in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
She is a fitness trainer full time, Like she does
it every day and has to do it because she
teaches classes. And I can't even imagine as just someone
sitting at home with maybe like a treadmill that is
more of like a clothing rack. How do you Is
there any specific type of music or something that you
would suggest to get you in that mood specifically?
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Oh no, I have the kinds of things that are
a go to for me. Things that feel like a
kind of like a steady drum beat that's at a
march tempo or higher. And some of these things kind
of feel like they're almost universal, like something that really
gets you going. But it's truly different for everybody. Some
people will turn on, you know, something that for me
would feel soothing and they're just like ready to go. Right.
(31:31):
So it's again like giving yourself permission to tap into well,
you know, what does inspire me or feel energizing like that,
And then here's the thing if you don't know, here's
the permission slip to do your own experimenting, like put
on some different things and just notice the emotion, notice
the heart rate, notice what you feel like you want
to do or like, oh I really want to turn
that off. Oh that's interesting too. Why was it too sad?
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Was it too boring?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
You know?
Speaker 3 (31:56):
And just being able to learn about your own tastes
and how those might be useful to you.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, and also stopping procrastination, which I think goes along
with what was that that you said you were diagnosed with?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Oh, I'm neurodivergent. It's not a diagnosis in itself, but
is that part? Would you say that? The procrastinating?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
What is it about a creative mind that constantly procrast.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
It certainly can be for some neud nerdi emergent folks.
I tend to be a little bit the opposite and
dive in and then no surprise, I could burn the
candle at both ends, just wanting to do do do
all the time. But yeah, certainly it's a kind of
it's a it can be traced to perfectionism, it can
be traced to uh, you know that that sense of oh,
(32:43):
there's sorry, my brain was like I'm going to give
you like we'll do a whole God, we could do
a whole podcast.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
I'm procrastinos.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Is that when you're using both sides of your brain
too much? Or is that kind of when you're cursed
with having both brain sides working.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Oh, that's an interesting question. I'm I'm much sure.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
I'm not sure that there's a connection there, but I
do think that people who procrastinate are kind of having
competing priorities in their own brains. And this is important.
But this is also important, and you know there is
some connection as well. Procrastination can be caused by lots
of different things, by the way, but one of them
can also be you know, early signs of burnout that
you know your body knows that you need to be resting.
(33:21):
Then you're telling it to like do this thing and
it's like I really don't want to. That might not
just that might not just be laziness, which you know,
some sociologists would say that's not even a real thing,
Like people are not lazy, Like we call it lazy
when people need to rest right right, So that's an
interesting avenue to go down if you're interested. But like, yes,
sometimes it can be a sign that you're putting off
(33:43):
the work because you really do need to rest, not
just because you're stupid and can't get yourself to work.
But then other times you have plenty of rest and
you just have these competing things that are going on,
and it can be easier to not do anything than
to try to figure out what the next step would
be to take action. And then sometimes you know, with
ADHD for example, might need the strong sense of urgency
(34:04):
that comes with a deadline that's tomorrow morning in order
to have enough dopamine to go ahead and do their work.
And that's that's part of it too.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Wow, there are so many directions we could go. I
feel like we could probably fill a few hours discussing
all the myriad ways we can combat issues with the arts,
which I think is one more question for you if
you don't mind, what excites you the most about arts
and healing, arts and health, I should say research.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Currently, I think it's been it's been the same for
the last few years. But the thing that I find
most interesting about something like arts and prescription is not
just that, oh, you can prescribe somebody an arts based
experience and it can improve their condition or their life.
(34:54):
But what I'm interested in is what this tells us
about the world overall, that you know you can change,
We can change even our most entrenched systems. It can
seem like healthcare just is what it is and here's
how it works, and turns out like now, that's not
the case at all. There are people being doving, really innovative,
(35:15):
super fascinating things in healthcare systems, in hospitals, in lots
of facilities, in university medical centers, like exploring lots of
different things. We can as a society decide what kind
of systems we want to have, what kinds of communities
we want to have, and we can decide to build those.
And for me, it's never just been oh, isn't it
(35:36):
so cool that art can improve people's health. It's more
like for me, like I've never thought of myself as
an arts advocate. I've always thought of myself as like
an advocate for the things we need in order to thrive.
It happens that art is one of those. And so
I'm always encouraging people to let this, you know, spark
their creativity. As far as what else can we change?
(35:58):
What else can we think bigger about?
Speaker 2 (36:00):
That?
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Healthcare doesn't need to look one specific way. It can
grow and change along with our sciences, along with our
understanding of how humans work and how we connect and
what we need, and our other systems can change as well.
We just have to have enough imagination to envision what
canon should be different and then act to make those changes.
And it's possible.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
And if you are suffering from burnout, even if you're
doing the job that you love. I worked in radio
for years and I could feel it building in me,
like I need to change something, but I don't know
what that is? What am I an idiot? I can't
leave this job. It pays well, I'm doing what I
always wanted to do, But yet is there more? And
(36:41):
if you're feeling that way, just know that you can
change your life. I used to tell people all the time,
like whatever you've done, you can change. You can change
if it's going to be a better thing for you.
People are so afraid of change in general. I think,
so it's nice to get permission from the.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Doc to make the change.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Yes, And you know, if I can speak to that
for just one moment, Yes, there's somebody dealing with burnout.
There's a couple of things that I often tell people, like,
I think it's really important to recognize that, especially if
you're in a creative career, but many different types of
careers that in the US, at least, we do not
have a lot of supportive systems for these kinds of careers.
(37:21):
And that is wearing. It's not your faults specifically, if
you're experiencing burnout and you're like, wow, I have a
lot of unpredictability in my life. I have a lot
of concern about my finances. I've concerned about whether I'm
ever going to be able to buy a house. You
have young creative friends who are having that conversation right Like,
there are a lot of things, how am I going
(37:42):
to pay for my own health care if I'm an
independent musician or creative or things like that. There's really
big questions and difficulties that are very real that have
really real impacts on our brains and our bodies. As
a result of the systems and the communities and the
structures that we live in and under, and sometimes reckoning
with that can make us feel a little bit powerless. Well,
I can't change those, so I'm stuck. But I have
(38:02):
found in practice it's often empowering because it helps people
to stop putting all of the blame on themselves and
be like, well, this is happening to me because I'm
not good enough. I should be more talented, I should
be more charismatic, I should be more energetic, I should
be able to fix myself and heal myself whatever. Right,
But when we recognize that there are structural factors, then
a couple things happen. We can find camaraderie with other
(38:23):
people who are also affected by those, we can find
pass forward that include not just some kind of the
things that we can do for ourselves, and there are
plenty of those things, but also how we can impact
our communities and our systems and change things for our
entire industry. And it also helps us to get more
imaginative about our work and how we want to engage
it in the world. And then, of course, in addition
(38:44):
to that, there are always ways that we can re
narrate our story and choose a different one. And if
the story, if the story isn't one that you can
tell and be healthy, to find a different one, because
there's your health and your well being is more important
than than any specific story, even if it's a really
amazing one.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
On that note, doctor Tasha Golden, thank you so much
for coming on Music Save Me. Your journey from burning
out in being a rock star to pioneering the science
of arts and healing is just so inspiring to me
and I'm sure all of our listeners as well. And
your story definitely reminds us that creativity can change and
(39:26):
challenge and transform us. And also, if you'd like to
learn more about doctor Golden's work, you can find it
at the International Arts and Mind Lab and her book
Arts on Prescription, a field guide for US communities, and
we will definitely have links in the show notes. And
also I want to put out there that if you
are grappling with burnout like we've been discussing, discussing or
(39:50):
questioning your creative path, or just wanting to know which
direction to go, please know you're not alone. Art can
break us, but it can also lead to new beginnings.
I'm just so grateful that you were able to flush
that out of this conversation and hopefully give some people
some hope out there.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Doctor Golden, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
I did used to work with the International Arts and Mindland,
but they don't have I don't know if they would
have a link to me now they probably do. Oh
but but I can't add well, I'll say it this
way just in case you want to drop it in.
But if people want to connect with me or find
some free resources, they can go to Tasha Golden dot
com slash Music Saved Me and get some you know,
(40:33):
free links to the arts and Prescription field Guide. We
mentioned some other things that might be interesting to you,
and feel free to reach out if you'd like to wait.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
So they can go to doctor Tasha Golden slash Music
Save Me.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
It'll be Tasha Golden dot com slash Music Saved Me.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
That's great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
It's so wonderful to be connected to you and let's
do some good work together.
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Yeah, thank you so much for your timeline. Have a
great came in.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
I
Host
Lynn Hoffman
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