The Power of Music to Reduce Stress

byjjacko

72 followers

3 years ago

• How does it work?
• Research
• Meditation
• Therapy
• Pain relief
• Focus
• Reduce anxiety
• Grounding
• Best genres for stress
• Summary

Listening to your favorite music may have more health benefits than you realize. Here’s how songs can reduce stress and help you heal.

It’s not until we forget our headphones that we realize just how much we rely on music to help us through the day. Our favorite music seems capable of pumping us up before an important moment, calming us down when we’re upset, and just about anything in between.

But is there actually a scientific explanation for this? As it turns out, yes!

Music has been widely studied and revered throughout human history for its ability to both entertain and heal. Countless experts have investigated how listening to music can potentially have therapeutic effects on a range of mental and physical health conditions, or just as a way to cope with everyday life.

Contemporary research suggests music has significant power to help reduce stress and anxiety, relieve pain, and improve focus among many more benefits.

How can listening to music reduce stress?

Stress — the feeling of emotional tension, overwhelm, or feeling unable to cope — affects us mentally and physically.

Stress has a biological impact that causes your body to release specific hormones and chemicals that activate your brain in certain ways. For example, when we are highly stressed, our heart rate and blood pressure can go up, and our adrenal gland begins producing cortisol, also known as “the stress hormone.”

Short term, cortisol can help us find the focus and energy we need to deal with a difficult situation, but when the body is exposed to excess cortisol for a prolonged period of time, it causes perpetual, exhausting states of fight, flight, or freeze. Ongoing or chronic stress can lead to developing an anxiety disorder, depression, chronic pain, and more.

Across time and space, music has had tremendous success as a tool for stress relief. While some types of music such as classical and ambient have long been studied for their calming effects, listening to your personal favorite music of any genre also has benefits.

A 2020 overview of research into music and stress suggests that listening to music can:

• lower our heart rate and cortisol levels
• release endorphins and improve our sense of well-being
• distract us, reducing physical and emotional stress levels
• reduce stress-related symptoms, whether used in a clinical environment or in daily life

How does music affect your brain?

As of 2019, the average hearing person across the world listened to 18 hours of music a week! This number is likely to be even higher in 2021.

So what is music actually doing to us during those hours we listen to it?

Well, here’s a super simple breakdown:

• Music sounds move through our ears as vibrations.
• The inner ear translates these vibrations into electrical signals.
• Neurons transmit these signals to certain areas of the cerebral cortex in the brain.
• Dedicated regions of the brain detect the different elements of the signals (like the tone, pitch, rhythm).
• As the brain puts together all of this information so that you can sense the musical experience, it can influence our emotions and bodily systems, which is why scientists are so interested in studying it!

What does the research say?

Most investigations into music’s health effects center on its ability to calm us down and relieve stress. In recent years, this research has expanded in exciting and surprising new directions.

Some recent findings include the following:

• Reduced cortisol levels. A recent 2021 study showed that adults who listened to both personal and neutral selections of music, at home and in a laboratory environment, had significantly “reduced cortisol levels.” This was found regardless of the music type.

• Benefits in mental health treatments. An overview of 349 studies on music’s usefulness as a mental health treatment for conditions including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression, found that 68.5% of music-based interventions had positive results.

• Reduced burnout. Music therapy also had significant benefit in preventing burnout in operating room staff. A 6-week studyTrusted Source showed that after having access to 30-minute music listening sessions each day at work for a month, staff reported decreased stress levels and less emotional exhaustion.

• Helps you fall asleep. 62%Trusted Source of respondents to a 2018 survey reported they use music (from multiple genres) to help them fall asleep, mostly because it relaxed them, and distracted them from daily stressors. People who used music less were more likely to have lower quality sleep.

• Reduced depression. Music listening or music therapy reduced depression levels, according to a 2017 reviewTrusted Source, and was associated with increased confidence and motivation, especially in group settings.

• Reduced anxiety in children. A 2021 review of articles from 2009 to 2019 showed that music significantly reduced anxiety for children leading up to and during medical procedures.

• Helps people cope with the pandemic. A surveyTrusted Source of over 5,600 people from 11 countries demonstrated that music has played a very important role during the COVID-19 pandemic in helping people cope during lockdown, and meet their well-being goals across culture, age, and gender lines.

• Improved quality of life with Alzheimer’s disease. Especially when tried in the form of personal playlists for relaxation, research showed that music interventions can have positive effects on the behavior and cognition of people with Alzheimer’s disease, improving quality of life.

Music as meditation

Meditation is an ancient tradition that is practiced in cultures all over the world and is an integral part of some religions and types of yoga. There are many types of mediation, and people use some types to help treat mental and physical health conditions.

Usually, meditation aims to focus, center, calm, or direct your attention. It can also help relax our bodies. So it can pair well with music for some people.

Often, music used for meditation has a slow tempo, which can reduce heart rate, and also lower anxiety and stress levels. Guided meditation involves music with a narrator or speaker that directs your energy flow and focus, or offers positive affirmations.