Let the Heavens Rejoice: A Framework for Physical and Spiritual Healing against Stress using Black Gospel Music

Black contemporary gospel music provides a womanist method for spiritual care and physical healing (Kernodle, 2006 and Fulton Minor, 2011). However, little scholarship has examined the capacity for gospel music to heal Black populations against health-reducing factors necessitating their healing, especially the physically and spiritually deleterious effects of stress. Given that music interventions offer a scalable, cost-effective approach to alleviate physiological stress and psychological stress (Bradt et al., 2013; Kamioka et al., 2014; Linnemann et al., 2015),  I propose the first-ever framework and evidence-base identifying the stress-reducing qualities of Black contemporary gospel music in this paper presentation.