How Music Can Help Soothe Stress, Anxiety, And The Soul

With your intended mood in mind, think of how you might organize the songs to bring you from your current emotional state to your desired. For example, if you started with an up-tempo piece of music that matched your initial state of high anxiety, find something a little slower for your next song. If you are trying to move toward a more relaxed state, select a piece of music that is slightly slower for your third song. The third piece should also have less instrumentation or vocals. The idea is to decrease the amount of stimulation in the music so that your playlist can facilitate a gradual transition while allowing you time to adjust to the music.

Instead, identify those styles of music that you genuinely enjoy. Once you have identified them, consider how these different styles make you feel. By understanding how certain kinds of music affect your body, you can use that music to achieve the emotion you want. Do you want to feel energetic, happy, relaxed, or optimistic after listening to your playlist?

Another line of research has focused on the effects of music on anxiety, which may be considered an adaptive response to the experience of stress. Given that music listening can trigger activity in brain regions linked to the experience of emotions [8,34–36], listening to music might also modulate anxiety levels induced by the experience of stress. Indeed, a decrease in anxiety after listening to music is the most consistent findings reported in field studies with patients and laboratory-based studies . Nevertheless, not all investigations found anxiety reductions through music listening [40–42]. Also here, no final conclusions can be drawn whether or how music is able to influence cognitive and emotional components of the stress response.

People can also enjoy a great sense of achievement from creating a piece of music, which can help improve their mood and self-esteem. This is not specific to music therapy, though, as many other types of psychotherapy can take place in the home. The American Music Therapy Association can provide you with a free list of qualified music therapists in your area. The idea that songs can have therapeutic powers dates back to early civilization, where it can be found in the writings of ancient philosophers Aristotle and Plato. Listening to those top workout tracks can boost physical performance and increase endurance during a tough exercise session. Music can meaningfully reduce the perceived intensity of pain, especially in geriatric care, intensive care or palliative medicine.



It plays an important role in making you think positive and increasing happiness. When music has a positive effect on the body of one person, it helps in spreading the positivity to other people as well. In the active music therapy, both the patients and the therapists work together by making use of instruments or using their voices and bodies for dancing and stretching. The instruments that are used in music therapy has been structured to involve a number of sensory organs that incorporate touch, sound, and sight. This increased dopamine production helps relieve feelings of anxiety and depression.

It may seem like we are living in an age of anxiety, where feeling worried, upset and stressed has become the norm. But we should remember that anxiety is a natural human response to situations. Pick a piece of music that matches your heartbeat, your breathing and how fast you feel you are moving. Music has definite affects on your brain - and it can be harnessed as therapy for your anxiety. While it might not be a physical treatment, it brings comfort to those in distress. Huffman says the benefit from music is due to its enormous presence in our lives.

Passive music therapy is just as helpful, but involves a patient listening to either live or recorded music. Heart rate in response to the TSST (means ± SEM) in the experimental group listening to relaxing music , the control group listening to sound of rippling water , and the control group resting without acoustic stimulation . This is where best guided sleep music therapy comes in.Music therapists work with individuals of all ages to help them communicate, process difficult experiences, and improve motor or cognitive functioning.

Music therapy also had significant benefit in preventing burnout in operating room staff. A 6-week study 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. Ongoing or chronic stress can lead to developing an anxiety disorder, depression, chronic pain, and more.

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. If you’re feeling anxious or stressed, calming music can help to settle your mind. Several studies have shown that when people undergoing surgery hear calming music, they have lower blood pressure and need less pain medication than those who don’t listen to soothing music. Aside from helping with mental health conditions, music therapy also has numerous other benefits, such as providing a creative outlet, expanding knowledge and cultural awareness, and improving cognitive skills such as memory. In addition to lessening acute pain, music can also help decrease chronic pain from recurrent bleeds in muscles and joints.

This form of treatment may be helpful for people with depression and anxiety, and it may help improve the quality of life for people with physical health problems. The results suggested that listening to music had an impact on the human stress response, particularly the autonomic nervous system. Those who had listened to music tended to recover more quickly following a stressor. It can be difficult in our society to talk about mental illness. It can also feel embarrassing for people who suffer to ask for help, but many solutions are available.