The Healing Qualities of Music
How listening to music can vastly improve our mental and emotional wellbeing.
Music — how could we ever live without it? Music colours our lives and provides an essential outlet for expression. Besides the obvious creative and social benefits of playing your own music or going to a concert with friends, studies have shown that music can have highly beneficial effects on our mental health.
It doesn’t take an expert to understand how music can help us. Music has the amazing ability to make us feel happy – a feeling that can be hard to come by for lots of young people dealing with loneliness, uni stress, and growing up.
In particular, studies have shown that it can help reduce stress levels, boost happiness and ease anxiety. Music releases dopamine – the hormone associated with laughing, eating junk food and falling in love.
The release of dopamine is related to the ‘chill’ or ‘spine-tingling’ feeling you may get when listening. For most people, benefits of this include feeling more alert, happy and energetic. But this can also be great for people with depressive illnesses. One study of chronic pain in adults (2006) found that listening to music reduced pain, depression and disability. Whilst mental health charities such as Mind recommend listening to music you enjoy as a way to relax or boost your mood.
As someone who suffers with depression and anxiety myself, I find that music can help me to understand and untangle my emotions. It can also provide a valuable escape from stressful, anxiety-inducing situations; a familiar voice or tune to comfort me through a tough time.
“I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.”
― Billy Joel, interview with Rolling Stone (1986)
Surprisingly, recent research has shown that even sad music can lift our spirits. This is because we use music to regulate our mood, not just to change it. It was found that listening to sad music when experiencing interpersonal loss, such as the end of a relationship, helped to rehabilitate the individual – providing a sort of music therapy session.
Another earlier study by the Journal of Consumer Research found that listening to sad music compared to the presence of an empathetic friend – someone who understands and supports rather than trying to force you into a better mood.
Of course, music is subjective. Some studies have shown the negative effects of listening to loud and chaotic music, inducing stress and causing discomfort rather than relaxation. However, as Professor Daniel Levitin points out, “there is no one piece of music that will do the same thing for everyone.” If you’re used to listening to heavy metal or fast-paced DnB, other typically noisy genres such as hip hop or alternative rock might have the perfect tunes to ease your mind.
This points to the universality of music and it’s unique power to the individual. Learning your reactions and mapping your feelings is an intimate experience and music can be the perfect companion.
As students, one of the most important roles of music is in helping us focus. One of the most popular genres for this purpose is Lo-Fi music, which stands for ‘low fidelity.’ The characterising quality of this music is its imperfections – the deliberate inclusion of background noise, distortion or recording blips.
Besides it sounding cool and relaxing, there are many physical and psychological benefits of Lo-Fi. By creating a calming environment, listening can lower your blood pressure, relieve tension in your body and distract from external worries.
Your brain also focuses on the change in sounds, enhancing concentration and improving your ability to stay in a mindset for studying. And with more than 30 million views on one Lo-Fi mix on YouTube, it is no surprise that this genre is popular.
So, whether you’re cramming last minute for a deadline, feeling anxious about life or in the need for a mood boost, music can provide a valuable remedy.
