For millennia, humans have attempted to understand the emotional impact of music and its importance across cultures. Music affects us profoundly, and by knowing how it impacts our psyche, we can develop new ways to improve the human experience. So, why does music affect your mood?
Music affects your mood because it boosts motivation, triggers memories, lowers anxiety, improves learning, and reduces pain. This happens because music leads to increased dopamine production, the development of new neural pathways, and the synchronisation of muscle patterns.
You likely have access to music at all times. It’s probably on your phone, in your vehicle, and in your home — you might even play an instrument. But do you know why music is so important to us and what happens in your brain when you listen to it?
Music’s Effect on Mind State, Body, and Soul
Not only is it a universal language, there is also no doubt music affects the human brain. Different melodies, harmonies, tones, and pitches can change your mood, activate physical responses, and aid you in your spiritual pursuits.
Music and Mental Health
When I listen to music, I feel the music — and not just the vibrations from the beat. I actually experience emotions in response to melodies, lyrics, resonance, pitch, and the passion behind the vocals. If you’ve ever felt chills after hearing a heartfelt tune, then you, too, have had an emotional response to music. This is not an uncommon occurrence.
But, why does music affect your mood?
Well, these experiences help us regulate our emotions and deal with the everyday stresses of life. That’s why listening to music is cathartic for many of us — and it isn’t all in your head.
Science backs up the theory that music can lower anxiety levels, shift negative moods, and motivate individuals to achieve their goals. In fact, there’s so much evidence affirming the positive neurologic effects of melodies that music has become an established therapy.
Music therapy utilises evidence-based musical interventions to improve the patient’s life in more ways than one. Some practices include singing, songwriting, dancing, listening to music, and playing instruments.
In addition to helping boost your overall well-being, music can even help you become a better learner. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville suggested that listening to and even playing music can help with focus and better performance in school.
How Music can Influence Mental Health
Why does music affect your mood? Well, there are many parts of the brain affected by music, which is how music plays such a profound role in our mental health.
Some of the parts of the brain that allow music to help you with emotions, memory, and learning include the following:
- Auditory Cortex – The auditory cortex processes sound information (i.e., pitch, tone, etc.) and helps you interpret music which allows you to feel the melody. As such, you can use music to work through traumatic experiences by activating emotional memories. Even in deaf individuals, the auditory cortices work the same, they just use vibrotactile input instead of sound. As such, deaf people can still feel emotions related to music.
- Hippocampus – The hippocampus is a part of the brain responsible for memory and learning. It is susceptible to changes in its neural networks (including development, damage, and rearrangement). This could spell trouble in instances of damaged neurons but could mean improved memory and learning when making new neural connections. When listening to music, the hippocampus can invoke feelings of reminiscence.
- Temporal Cortex – When solving spatial-temporal mathematical problems, you use the hippocampus and the temporal cortex. These parts of the brain also activate when listening to music. Scientists believe that this could indicate a correlation between music and mathematical performance.
- Nucleus Accumbens – If you’ve ever heard someone say they are addicted to music, they’re not lying. When you listen to music, dopamine production increases in the nucleus accumbens. This is the same hormone the brain releases that get us hooked on drugs, such as cocaine. So, the next time someone asks you why music affects your mood, you can tell them to blame the dopamine.
For more information on how we process music, check out this video on YouTube:
Music and Physical Health
In addition to having a positive impact on your mental health, music can improve your physical health. And good physical health can lift your mood, which in turn improves your mental health. So, it’s a beneficial cycle.
The American Music Therapy Association is one of many organisations that believes in a strong link between music and physical well-being. They are so passionate about it, they suggest building music therapy programs to aid those experiencing chronic pain.
Their beliefs are backed by science. The Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal, published an article in 2015 stating that music has a positive effect on pain levels. The report compiled data from dozens of medical trials involving thousands of patients.
Results concluded that music exposure (pre-op, during, and post-op) reduced the amount of pain medication required after surgical procedures.
Additional studies have indicated that music may also alleviate symptoms associated with chronic conditions, including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia.
A side benefit of this, is that music in the operating theatre can benefit the surgeon and his team.
How Music can Influence Physical Health
It’s one thing for music to affect you on an emotional level, but how can it affect you physically?
It gets the body moving, increases heart rate, and can improve cardiovascular health. However, there are other ways that music affects us, particularly from a physiological standpoint. Hormone production, neurological responses, muscle movement — all of this and more play a vital role in how music affects your physical health.
Here are two examples:
- Dopamine Production – It’s not fully understood exactly how music reduces aches, but it’s believed that it also has to do with dopamine production. Dopamine is usually associated with reward and motivation, but it is also heavily involved in the reduction of pain. Since music causes the release of dopamine, this hormone may be responsible for reducing discomfort while listening to tunes.
- Muscle Patterns – Interestingly, the synchronising of muscle patterns in the brain using rhythm can actually help those with Parkinson’s disease by temporarily stopping tremors.
Music and Spirituality
Music has been used in ancient rituals since the beginning of humankind. Drums, flutes, hymns, chants, and various other musical methods have been used to elevate the human psyche and bring people closer to a power greater than ourselves. Churches today still have music as a central part of their practices.
Whether or not you believe in a higher power, it’s safe to say that music exceeds usual limits. It crosses language barriers without resistance. And it brings together multiple disciplines, revealing similarities that would have otherwise been ignored.
My experience with music and spirituality has been a positive one. Soft, soothing music can easily shift my thoughts from the daily challenges of life to a more tranquil meditative state. On days when I’m struggling with useless, wandering thoughts, the repetitive beat of a drum is all it takes to bring me back to centre.
There are so many ways in which music can help you on a spiritual level.
Visualisation With Music
Visualisation is excellent for inducing deep meditative states, and music is a very effective visualisation tool.
According to the University of the Pacific, 22 percent of participants in a music-based study claimed to always see mental images while listening to music. Another 41 percent stated they frequently conjured up images while hearing melodies.
Try using music as a visualisation aid yourself, and see how it works for you. Select music that aligns with the things you want to imagine. For example, choose soft, tranquil songs for envisioning bodies of water.
Over time, you can enhance the visions, adding more detail. You could listen to slow, soothing music and dream up pictures of slow-moving bubbles. Then, imagine negative emotions filling these bubbles. As they move into your field of vision, pop them one by one, releasing the negativity inside.
Mood Congruence and Mood Challenging
In spiritual practices, music can help us boost our current state of mind. For example, if you’re feeling empowered, you can enhance that feeling by playing a song that empathises with your mood. This is called mood congruence, and can help push you to achieve what you set out to do by amplifying positive emotions.
On the contrary, you can also challenge a mood using music. If you feel downtrodden or melancholy, throwing on an upbeat tune can soon improve your mood. This is an effective method for reducing stress, and research suggests as much.
West Virginia University states that those who intentionally listen to positive music with the goal of boosting their overall mood, regularly achieve success.
Final Thoughts
By attempting to understand how music affects our mood, we can better treat stress, pain, and mental health conditions. There is loads of evidence suggesting that music has a positive impact on emotional regulation.
However, more research is needed before we can apply it universally in a clinical setting. Hopefully, one day we can enjoy the benefits of music as a safe, non-invasive, accessible therapy available across the globe.
