1
00:00:00,913 --> 00:00:04,310
I'd like you to imagine
what it would feel like

2
00:00:04,334 --> 00:00:09,381
if for two whole minutes
your left arm was continuously flapping,

3
00:00:09,405 --> 00:00:11,947
your eyes were constantly rolling,

4
00:00:11,971 --> 00:00:13,901
your jaw was clenching so hard,

5
00:00:13,925 --> 00:00:16,425
that it felt like your teeth
were about to break.

6
00:00:16,725 --> 00:00:18,432
And every ten seconds,

7
00:00:18,456 --> 00:00:22,733
you were forced to let out
a loud, high-pitched screech.

8
00:00:25,149 --> 00:00:28,156
This is how I lived
at the young age of six.

9
00:00:28,736 --> 00:00:31,814
Every waking moment, seven days a week.

10
00:00:32,950 --> 00:00:35,362
And these were only some of my symptoms.

11
00:00:36,298 --> 00:00:39,798
When these symptoms surfaced,
my life literally changed over night.

12
00:00:40,395 --> 00:00:44,593
I could no longer go to school,
see my friends or even eat out,

13
00:00:44,617 --> 00:00:48,786
because my tics would attract
the attention of everyone in the room.

14
00:00:49,700 --> 00:00:52,263
In search for a cure, we flew to New York

15
00:00:52,287 --> 00:00:56,199
to meet with the best pediatric
neuropsychologist my parents could find.

16
00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:02,986
But the doctor did not give us
the easy remedy we had hoped for.

17
00:01:03,530 --> 00:01:08,093
Instead, she diagnosed me
with an incurable neurological disorder,

18
00:01:08,117 --> 00:01:09,517
Tourette's syndrome.

19
00:01:10,776 --> 00:01:14,172
Oftentimes, medication can be
an essential and valuable part

20
00:01:14,196 --> 00:01:16,029
of many treatment processes.

21
00:01:16,466 --> 00:01:19,419
But in my case, the drugs
only made things worse.

22
00:01:20,442 --> 00:01:22,474
One drug put me in a wheelchair,

23
00:01:22,498 --> 00:01:25,894
because my legs had gotten so numb,
that I couldn't move them.

24
00:01:27,157 --> 00:01:29,323
Another one caused me to hallucinate.

25
00:01:29,347 --> 00:01:31,664
I would see green people running after me,

26
00:01:31,688 --> 00:01:34,506
threatening to boil me in a pot
and drink me as soup.

27
00:01:34,530 --> 00:01:36,130
And it was really scary.

28
00:01:36,815 --> 00:01:38,213
We tried drug after drug

29
00:01:38,237 --> 00:01:41,241
to find something that would bring me
some sort of relief.

30
00:01:41,546 --> 00:01:45,331
But every single attempt
just ended up making things worse.

31
00:01:47,038 --> 00:01:52,265
It is estimated that in 2013
in the United States alone,

32
00:01:52,289 --> 00:01:53,964
the prescription drug expenditure

33
00:01:53,988 --> 00:01:56,932
to treat neurological conditions
and mental illness

34
00:01:56,956 --> 00:02:00,903
was about 89 billion dollars annually.

35
00:02:01,818 --> 00:02:04,659
But imagine if there were a way
to treat these conditions

36
00:02:04,683 --> 00:02:08,342
without a price or without side effects.

37
00:02:09,112 --> 00:02:13,073
Imagine if your doctor prescribed you
a daily dose of music.

38
00:02:14,067 --> 00:02:18,439
I'm here today to share with you
my personal experience with music,

39
00:02:18,463 --> 00:02:21,482
and the effect that it had
on my neurological disorder.

40
00:02:23,978 --> 00:02:26,015
Tourette's syndrome
is essentially a series

41
00:02:26,039 --> 00:02:29,318
of involuntary movements
and sounds, known as tics.

42
00:02:30,374 --> 00:02:34,418
And the best way for me to really describe
what it's like to have Tourette's syndrome

43
00:02:34,442 --> 00:02:37,093
is something I'm sure
you're all very familiar with --

44
00:02:37,117 --> 00:02:38,498
the hiccups.

45
00:02:38,522 --> 00:02:40,536
You can try to stop yourself from the act.

46
00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:44,395
You can hold your breath and count to 10,
or drink water upside down,

47
00:02:44,419 --> 00:02:46,537
but there is just nothing
you can do about it

48
00:02:46,561 --> 00:02:50,185
until the sensation passes
and the hiccups have taken their course.

49
00:02:51,441 --> 00:02:55,234
I often lay on my bedroom floor
after an attack of tics,

50
00:02:55,258 --> 00:02:57,305
feeling exhausted and in despair.

51
00:02:58,974 --> 00:03:02,847
My equally desperate mother
would attempt to soothe me and herself

52
00:03:02,871 --> 00:03:04,538
by putting on some music.

53
00:03:04,958 --> 00:03:08,069
She would play peaceful music,
to soothe our aching hearts.

54
00:03:08,664 --> 00:03:10,347
And we'd lie together on the floor,

55
00:03:10,371 --> 00:03:12,672
and allow the beat
of the drums to uplift us.

56
00:03:13,124 --> 00:03:15,728
And as the rhythms and the tunes unfolded,

57
00:03:15,752 --> 00:03:19,053
our spirits would rise,
our moods would be lighter,

58
00:03:19,077 --> 00:03:20,944
and we would be rejuvenated.

59
00:03:23,922 --> 00:03:28,002
Very soon, and rather unknowingly,
I became an addict of this newfound drug.

60
00:03:28,772 --> 00:03:32,712
When I found myself slipping
into my bouts of sadness and self-pity,

61
00:03:32,736 --> 00:03:35,299
I would rush to the 88 keys of my piano,

62
00:03:35,323 --> 00:03:39,664
knowing in my heart that the tones
and rhythms from each one of those keys

63
00:03:39,688 --> 00:03:41,222
would soon set me free.

64
00:03:41,981 --> 00:03:45,259
At the time, I didn't realize
how much music was helping me.

65
00:03:45,283 --> 00:03:47,505
It was just something I did by default.

66
00:03:47,845 --> 00:03:50,513
When I wrote my songs
it wasn't to impress anybody,

67
00:03:50,537 --> 00:03:52,003
it was just a release.

68
00:03:52,807 --> 00:03:55,553
But the more I played,
the less my symptoms surfaced,

69
00:03:55,577 --> 00:03:58,013
and the intensity of my attacks reduced.

70
00:03:58,466 --> 00:04:02,236
So I became curious as to how
these songs were soothing my symptoms.

71
00:04:02,260 --> 00:04:06,462
And I wondered if there were
any other cases of medicinal music.

72
00:04:07,641 --> 00:04:09,041
So I began to search.

73
00:04:10,768 --> 00:04:13,734
I found that there was
a highly successful US congresswoman,

74
00:04:13,758 --> 00:04:16,202
Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head.

75
00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:18,560
She lost her ability to speak.

76
00:04:19,187 --> 00:04:22,122
Because the ability to speak
and the ability to sing

77
00:04:22,146 --> 00:04:24,339
lay in two separate parts of the brain,

78
00:04:24,363 --> 00:04:27,109
her doctors brought in
music therapist to work with her.

79
00:04:27,887 --> 00:04:30,283
The therapist encouraged her
to sing her thoughts,

80
00:04:30,307 --> 00:04:32,450
since she was incapable of speaking them.

81
00:04:32,474 --> 00:04:33,832
And through this technique,

82
00:04:33,856 --> 00:04:37,352
the congresswoman was finally able
to regain her speech.

83
00:04:37,697 --> 00:04:39,897
Music helped heal Gabby Giffords.

84
00:04:41,720 --> 00:04:45,641
Scientists have found that music causes
our brains to release a natural painkiller

85
00:04:45,665 --> 00:04:47,133
known as oxytocin,

86
00:04:47,157 --> 00:04:49,315
and a feel-good chemical dopamine.

87
00:04:49,625 --> 00:04:52,260
Dopamine is essential
for a healthy nervous system,

88
00:04:52,284 --> 00:04:54,817
and strongly impacts emotional health.

89
00:04:55,149 --> 00:04:59,005
Music also affects our heart rate,
breathing and pulse rate,

90
00:04:59,029 --> 00:05:00,829
as it stimulates blood flow.

91
00:05:01,243 --> 00:05:04,092
In addition, it lowers
our cortisol levels,

92
00:05:04,116 --> 00:05:05,616
thus reducing anxiety,

93
00:05:05,640 --> 00:05:08,818
which is a common stimulant
for neurological symptoms.

94
00:05:10,122 --> 00:05:14,399
In our lifetimes, we are all going to know
someone with a neurological disorder.

95
00:05:15,050 --> 00:05:16,804
If it's not a family member,

96
00:05:18,019 --> 00:05:20,352
it could be a friend or a coworker.

97
00:05:20,784 --> 00:05:23,117
Please help me spread this message.

98
00:05:23,474 --> 00:05:27,233
Music has the ability to uplift our lives
and heal us from within.

99
00:05:28,616 --> 00:05:30,251
I still have Tourette's syndrome,

100
00:05:30,275 --> 00:05:32,531
I deal with it every day, every hour.

101
00:05:32,555 --> 00:05:34,997
I'm going to deal with it
for the rest of my life.

102
00:05:35,021 --> 00:05:38,537
And that means that I have to frequently
excuse myself from my classroom,

103
00:05:38,561 --> 00:05:41,582
because my verbal tics
can be extremely distracting.

104
00:05:41,958 --> 00:05:45,149
That means that sometimes
when I wink my eyes involuntarily,

105
00:05:45,173 --> 00:05:48,053
the guy sitting opposite from me
thinks I'm flirting with him

106
00:05:48,077 --> 00:05:49,315
when I'm really not.

107
00:05:49,339 --> 00:05:52,954
And I have to tell him, "Sorry,
I wasn't trying to flirt."

108
00:05:53,704 --> 00:05:56,188
But the most amazing thing is

109
00:05:56,212 --> 00:06:00,641
that when I sing, play music
and even just listen to music,

110
00:06:00,665 --> 00:06:01,815
I don't tic.

111
00:06:02,974 --> 00:06:06,744
I've been onstage numerous times
in highly stressful situations,

112
00:06:06,768 --> 00:06:09,196
with thousands of people watching me.

113
00:06:09,220 --> 00:06:11,953
And while I do tic before my performance,

114
00:06:12,823 --> 00:06:16,175
when the music starts,
the tics take a back seat.

115
00:06:17,993 --> 00:06:22,795
So, I may have written my own lyrics
and composed my own music,

116
00:06:22,819 --> 00:06:26,952
but in reality I realized
it was the music that composed me.

117
00:06:27,745 --> 00:06:28,896
Thank you.

118
00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:35,911
(Applause)

119
00:06:41,247 --> 00:06:44,509
(Music)

120
00:07:10,434 --> 00:07:13,952
I think I took my mask off too soon.

121
00:07:14,276 --> 00:07:17,294
'Cause you were there
and then you were not

122
00:07:17,318 --> 00:07:20,715
I think I pushed it all onto you

123
00:07:20,739 --> 00:07:22,675
I should have dragged it out

124
00:07:22,699 --> 00:07:23,934
dragged it out

125
00:07:23,958 --> 00:07:30,545
I think that maybe each time
I lose a bit of myself I put it back on

126
00:07:30,569 --> 00:07:36,953
Just to fake ti till I break
my own heart in two

127
00:07:39,499 --> 00:07:42,667
And oh I wanted you

128
00:07:42,691 --> 00:07:45,937
To know the real me

129
00:07:45,961 --> 00:07:48,743
And take it seriously

130
00:07:51,465 --> 00:07:52,636
But now

131
00:07:52,660 --> 00:07:54,167
I'm not loving you

132
00:07:54,191 --> 00:07:55,866
I'm not loving you

133
00:07:55,890 --> 00:07:59,285
I'm not loving you

134
00:07:59,309 --> 00:08:01,206
I thought I could trust you

135
00:08:01,679 --> 00:08:05,879
But you're running away
from me and my mask

136
00:08:05,903 --> 00:08:07,546
I'm not loving you

137
00:08:07,570 --> 00:08:09,234
I'm not loving you

138
00:08:09,258 --> 00:08:11,753
I'm not loving you

139
00:08:18,416 --> 00:08:20,806
right now

140
00:08:21,490 --> 00:08:25,147
I think I took my mask off too soon

141
00:08:25,171 --> 00:08:28,108
because you screamed when I pulled it off

142
00:08:28,132 --> 00:08:32,967
You told me you were
unprepared and like that

143
00:08:32,991 --> 00:08:34,821
just like that

144
00:08:34,845 --> 00:08:41,642
I think that maybe this time
it hurt more than it ever has before

145
00:08:41,666 --> 00:08:46,540
I think maybe this blow
I took was a little more

146
00:08:46,564 --> 00:08:49,093
a little more

147
00:08:49,876 --> 00:08:53,010
And oh I wanted you

148
00:08:53,034 --> 00:08:55,309
To know the real me

149
00:08:56,532 --> 00:08:59,203
And take it seriously

150
00:09:02,001 --> 00:09:03,152
But now

151
00:09:03,176 --> 00:09:04,781
I’m not loving you

152
00:09:04,805 --> 00:09:06,398
I'm not loving you

153
00:09:06,422 --> 00:09:08,825
I'm not loving you

154
00:09:09,894 --> 00:09:12,217
I thought I could trust you

155
00:09:12,241 --> 00:09:16,518
but you're running away
from me and my mask

156
00:09:16,542 --> 00:09:18,212
I'm not loving you

157
00:09:18,236 --> 00:09:19,917
I'm not loving you

158
00:09:19,941 --> 00:09:22,505
I'm not loving you

159
00:09:29,680 --> 00:09:32,738
right now

160
00:09:33,183 --> 00:09:38,944
(Applause)