6 Studies on music and emotional well-being…
Friday, January 26, 2024.
Music is such an intrinsic part of being human.
In this post, I’ll discuss how breaking research has uncovered how impactful music can be on our sleep patterns, and our ability to retain what we study. I’ll also discuss how music can foster our emotional well-being, facilitate physiological peak states, and reducing our felt sense of stress.
Here are 6 incredible, new studies which explore how music shapes our experience as human beings…
For many humans, the profound impact of music resonates across not only lives, but generations.
Music can soothe a restless night. It can enhance our concentration when we seek to study, and master the content. Music may also improve our emotional well-being..no matter what sort of music we prefer
“Without music, life would be a mistake.” Friedrich Nietzsche
Familiar music for sleeping…
A study on sleep-related music has found that while typical sleep tunes are quieter, slower, and instrumental, there’s surprising diversity (Scarratt et al., 2023).
Researchers analyzed 225,000 music tracks from 985 sleep-related playlists on Spotify. They found that the typical sleep music tends to be quieter, slower, instrumental, and sometimes lacks a human voice.
However, some tracks were louder, high-energy vocal tracks, including popular songs like BTS’s “Dynamite” and Billie Eilish’s “Lovely.”
Despite being odd choices on the surface, these songs might aid sleep due to familiarity of the words and music, and the personal associations that humans attach to particular music and lyrics.
There is, apparently, a huge diversity in what we listen to to fall asleep.
Music for studying…
The same diversity did not emerge in an analysis of the overlap between music used for sleeping and studying (Scarratt et al., 2023). This was a separate study from their study on music and sleeping that I previously discussed.
Both music for studying and music for sleeping shared characteristics like slow tempo, repetitive patterns, and specific genres such as lo-fi, classical, certain types of pop music, and the old sleepy music standby…ambient music.
These superficial musical similarities create a calming and relaxing effect on the brain, aiding in lowering heart rate and reducing stress, making them suitable for both studying and sleep.
The tranquility induced by really listening…
Listening to music is often done in the background, but what about if we really focus on it for an hour?
That is what 200 people did as part of a study on focused music listening (Krause et al., 2023).
The results showed that despite diverse emotional reactions, participants described the experience as cathartic: fostering a positive and tranquil state.
Integrating focused music listening techniques into daily practices could aid in managing emotional well-being, offering meaningful experiences beyond routine music engagement.
Music before exercise, or a workout…
It is well-known that music during exercise boosts performance, but even listening to music before you exercise can make you go faster.
A study using specially composed techno tracks found that people exposed to faster music before exercise showed increased effort during rowing (Pusey et al., 2023).
However, regardless of tempo, participants felt more mentally prepared and motivated after listening to the music compared to no music.
So, theoretically even Chopin’s nocturnes could improve performance — though I wouldn’t recommend listening to them during exercise.
Music for overall mental health…
Proponents of music therapy believe it can be useful for treating mental health issues — perhaps even as effective as traditional talking therapies.
One study of online group music therapy has found that it significantly reduced stress and anxiety levels among undergraduate students during the early stages of the COVID pandemic (Finnerty et al., 2023).
The research, involving nearly 100 (ok, 85) study subjects, revealed lower stress levels when humans received music or talk therapy compared to those humans without therapy.
Both music and talk therapies were equally effective in reducing anxiety after sessions.
Music for managing stress…
Everyday experience strongly suggests that listening to music reduces stress and the studies continue to agree.
One such found a correlation between reduced stress levels and listening to music, especially when it is upbeat or Joyful, (Feneberg et al., 2023).
This lines up with earlier research which indicated that upbeat, happy music can stimulate brain regions associated with mood regulation.
But wait…there’s more. Humans who listened to more happy music during COVID lockdowns reported feeling less anxious afterward, the researchers found.
Incorporating happy music into coping strategies could benefit humans experiencing stress, lift their mood regulation and help curb stress!
Final thoughts…
Eddie Wilson was right. Humans are soothed by words and music.
Be well, stay kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Feneberg AC, Stijovic A, Forbes PAG, et al. Perceptions of Stress and Mood Associated With Listening to Music in Daily Life During the COVID-19 Lockdown. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(1):e2250382. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.50382
Finnerty R, McWeeny S, Trainor L. Online group music therapy: proactive management of undergraduate students' stress and anxiety. Front Psychiatry. 2023 Apr 21;14:1183311. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1183311. PMID: 37151974; PMCID: PMC10160410.
Krause, A. E., Pardon, M., Hoang, M., & Lucano, R. (2023). Listen Up: A case study examination of focused listening. Musicae Scientiae, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/10298649231203628
Pusey, C. G., Haugen, T., Høigaard, R., Ivarsson, A., Røshol, A. W., & Laxdal, A. (2023). Put Some Music on: The Effects of pre-Task Music Tempo on Arousal, Affective State, Perceived Exertion, and Anaerobic Performance. Music & Science, https://doi.org/10.1177/20592043231174388
Scarratt RJ, Heggli OA, Vuust P, Jespersen KV (2023) The audio features of sleep music: Universal and subgroup characteristics. PLoS ONE 18(1): e0278813. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278813
Scarratt, R.J., Heggli, O.A., Vuust, P. et al. Music that is used while studying and music that is used for sleep share similar musical features, genres and subgroups. Sci Rep 13, 4735 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31692-8
