You’ve probably heard of the runner’s high, where the brain releases endorphins—feel-good chemicals—during a sweaty exercise session. “Patients frequently report decreases in their own perception of pain, anxiety and nausea after a typical 30-minute music therapy session,” says Ringgold. Like most forms of language and expression, music has the power to express a full range of emotions. Studies confirm that music can improve your mood and your sense of self-awareness. Not only that, but the catharsis of playing and feeling your emotions itself can be a powerful release from negative energy.
Professional music therapists will meet your needs on both an emotional and physical level. Overall, music therapy has the ability to change your life and help you manage social anxiety in a beneficial and healthy way. In order to know which styles of music help you reduce stress, start with the ones you like! The musical styles that we find pleasant and pleasing are the ones that have the most positive affect on our emotions and our stress levels. It’s not helpful to force yourself to listen to classical music to relax if you know you hate classical music.
People have used music for its powerful effects on mood and emotions for a long time. There is also evidence to suggest that those undergoing music therapy experience reduced anxiety immediately after the session, which indicates that music therapy could be a convenient way to reduce symptoms quickly. Music therapy does not rely on verbal communication, so it can be better for people who struggle to communicate verbally.
In one 2013 study, participants took part in one of three conditions before being exposed to a stressor and then taking a psychosocial stress test. Some participants listened to relaxing music, others listened to the sound of rippling water, and the rest received no auditory stimulation. The psychological effects of music can be powerful and wide-ranging. Music therapy is an intervention sometimes used to promote emotional health, help patients cope with stress, and boost psychological well-being. Some research even suggests that your taste in music can provide insight into different aspects of your personality. I love listening to music as a way to make myself feel better or to relax.
Given that, to the best of our knowledge, no study so far has investigated the effects of natural sounds on stress-related HPA axis responses, we did not anticipate this outcome. The sound of rippling water was equally preferred and perceived as relaxing as music by our participants. This may be a hint to differential effects on the HPA axis of music and non-music acoustic stimulation. Due to the lack of studies on neuronal activation patterns of natural sounds it is difficult to determine the exact mechanisms for this effect, though. According to this view, humans, who have lived in natural environments throughout evolution, are equipped with brains / mental functioning that “…subconsciously seek connection with all that is alive and vital” (p. 4660) .
This involves making music up on the spot in response to a mood or a theme, such as making the sound of a storm using drums and a rainstick. Live musical interaction between a person and their therapist is important during music therapy. Many of the pathways the brain uses to process music are the same as the ones that process pain. So if the brain is focused, for instance, on the melody of a Mozart concerto, there won’t be much room left to relay the pain messages coming from a needle stick. Given below is a list of the ways in which music therapy affects the body as well as the brain. You'll also want to check your health insurance benefits prior to starting music therapy.
Surgeons have long played their favorite music to relieve stress in the operating room, and extending music to patients has been linked to improved surgical outcomes. In the past few decades, music therapy has played an increasing role in all facets of healing. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, social anxiety affects more than 15 million adults in the United States alone.
Music has the quality of sharing relatable experiences in a way that allows your burdens to feel recognized and expressed. Chances are, you already have a number of songs that feel like an intimate part of your life. Learning to play these same songs can be a powerful expression of the same feelings. It enables you to get closer to the music than you’ve ever been, which can give you the perfect mind relaxing experience for catharsis and relief. Music can be extremely effective for people who are physically or mentally unstable.
There are a variety of coping strategies that people use to manage social anxiety. Many people also seek professional help and treatment; one option for treatment is music therapy. Prolonged experiences of stress are related to poor individual health and associated with substantial financial costs for the society . As a result, the development of cost effective stress prevention or stress management approaches has become an important endeavor of current research efforts. Music has been shown to beneficially affect stress-related physiological [4–6], as well as cognitive , and emotional processes .
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.