The true power of music might surprise you.
Music is one of the closest things we have to real-life magic. It’s an invisible force that travels through the air, but for something unseen, it affects the world so much. It makes us smile, laugh, cry, and shake our bodies around — it can even unite millions of people together and fill them with joy all at once. Perhaps most fascinating of all, music can heal. But how does music do all this?
In this article we’ll explore:
To understand why music makes us feel the way it does, it’s important first to acknowledge how outside stimuli like sights and sounds influence our mood.
We know that you are what you eat, but studies show that you are also what you see, feel, and hear. The stimulus around us is always affecting our feelings and shaping us into who we will be tomorrow. But what affects you the most isn’t the surroundings that you barely notice, it’s what you pay attention to. Your mood is influenced by what you intentionally notice and understand in the world — whether that is beauty, hate, joy, sadness, and so on.
So what we focus on affects how we feel, but how does that work? Well, those of us who are often sad, depressed, or pessimistic pay attention to negative things more than the positive. This can result from experiencing so much stress, loss, and rejection that negative things just become more familiar in day-to-day life.
In a visual sense, these people will pay more attention to negative scenes like news articles about how the government is corrupt, and swipe past positive stories like how an endangered species was saved from extinction.
The opposite is also true—optimistic people notice the beauty and joy in life more than the sadness. Instead of focusing on the cold of the snow outside, they marvel at the beauty of the white glow coating the ground. Instead of dwelling on the bad news on TV, optimists actively seek out positivity to enforce their mood and perspective.
The positive state of mind tends to take more effort to achieve than negativity. This can be largely attributed to how media outlets supply us with news and entertainment. News outlets, movies, and other media focus heavily on conflict rather than good. The news is overwhelmingly negative. The front page is made up of stories about crime, division, death, and tragedy. Every day there is another homicide or another threat to the country. Hearing about these stories every day conditions our minds to pay more attention to negativity.
When we pay more attention to the negative things in life, it is detrimental to our moods. When we pay more attention to positivity, it makes us happier. But how does music fit into the equation?
Typically, what affects our mood the most is what we see, what we’re surrounded with, and what messages we comprehend, but music can also be included in this environment. In fact, music envelops us in new, abstract surroundings that include sounds, feelings, and messages.
If you pay significant attention to the music you enjoy regularly for a good amount of time, it becomes a positive influence on your mood. Experiencing music can be the equivalent of focusing on positive things in your life.
We know that music makes us feel good, but what’s the science behind it? Why does it help us so much?
When we listen to positive and uplifting music, our brains associate the happy beats with good feelings, increasing levels of serotonin (a.k.a. the happiness chemical) in the brain and cultivating a good mood. Singing along increases the likelihood of a mood boost even more.
In a broader sense, music is actually closely linked to the brain’s reward system. In moments of happiness related to outside stimuli, like eating good food or receiving money, the body releases a chemical called dopamine. Dopamine is another feel-good hormone, but unlike serotonin which is associated with happiness, dopamine has more to do with rewarding the brain for doing something good. Frequent music listeners tend to have increased dopamine production in their brains, especially while listening to a tune they love!
But music affects more than our brains, it can also toy with our hearts! (In more ways than one)
Not only can slow, melancholic tunes make your heart ache, but the beat and tempo of the song you’re listening to can physically affect heart rate. Believe it or not, when you’re really immersed in a song, your heart will try to pulsate with the beat of the tune. Fast, energetic songs can make your heart beat faster, which can physically energize you. Slow, calm beats can soothe you as well. If you’re particularly stressed, listening to slow music can help lower your heart rate and calm you down.
And that isn’t all! There are even more ways music can affect us physically and emotionally. Here are some more examples:
We’ve gone over what music does to us and how it can make us feel great, but how can you use music to get a mood boost?
The easiest way to do this is just to listen to the songs you love as often as you can, but you can also use music as a way to actively control your emotions. If you’re tired, put on a quick, energetic song to inspire your heart to beat faster. If you find yourself stressed, put on a slow tune to mellow you out.
Catharsis through music is another tool you can utilize. Instead of trying to cheer yourself up when you’re sad, it can help more to put on a melancholy tune to help you let it out. This can work for anger as well — singing and dancing to more intense music like punk or metal is a healthy way to release anger. Sometimes we get the idea that we need to bottle up our emotions and never be in a bad mood, but bottling up negative feelings too much is unhealthy. We all need a little catharsis sometimes, and music can help with that.
If you’re curious how you can use music to help you on an even deeper level, then Music Therapy might be for you.
Music Therapy is the medical use of music interventions to accomplish patient-specific therapy goals. Music can have significant physical, psychological, and physiological effects on our bodies, and music therapy utilizes these effects to help patients through problems and conditions.
It is important to distinguish that music therapy and simply enjoying music on your own are extremely different. Music therapy is a licensed, professional, research-based practice that can yield real results for individuals suffering from mental and physical ailments.
But what does music therapy entail? Well, it’s far more than just listening to music with other people. When attending music therapy, patients will sing together, compose songs, improvise songs, play instruments, and listen to songs in guided therapy sessions. If you’re in need of therapy and appreciate the power of music, then music therapy may be an opportunity to utilize.
Music is far from just a jumble of sounds, it’s the closest thing we have to real-life magic. Not only does music make us laugh, cry, move, and sing, but it also has extremely interesting effects on our minds and bodies. It can heal us, help us control our emotions, and even make our lives better overall. Most of us probably take music for granted in our daily lives, but the truth is that we all have access to an amazing tool for boosting our moods, so why not make use of it?
