How Music Affects Your Mood
Not that it should come as a shock to anyone ever, but music in case you had any doubt that music has the ability to make you feel better, read on for some scienc-y facts that will make you feel even better about indulging in music immersion when you need a little pick-me-up.
You know it feels good to shake your hips to your favorite jam, but did you also know it can help lift your mood, reduce anxiety, and decrease stress hormones in your body? Yep, from the earliest drum rhythms played around a fire, till now, music has served as an integral and vital part of the collective human experience.
It has also been linked to better overall physical health by helping to manage stress, enhance memory, and even help alleviate pain. So much so that many hospitals play music of the patient’s choice before undergoing surgery. Further, it can help as an effective treatment with mood disorders, dementia, Parkinson’s, MS, and stroke.
So keep up the listening and know you’re doing your body some good.
Listening To Music Helps Ward Off Depression
Netflix binging is great and a cheaper route than Xanax. But if you’re feeling some level of screen fatigue like most human beings right about now, and needing to evade the blues, try taking a listen to some songs that will help you to get to your happy place, even if it’s for just a little while. Not to mention, there are loads of scientific studies showing music can improve your mood and ward off depression. It can also improve blood flow in ways somewhat similar to statins as well as lower your levels of stress-related hormones such as cortisol. Lastly, listening to music has been shown to ease pain. As a matter of fact, listening to music before surgery has been shown to improve post-surgical outcomes.
Listening to music seems to “selectively activate” neurochemical systems and brain structures associated with positive mood, emotion regulation, attention and memory in ways that promote beneficial changes, says Kim Innes, a professor of epidemiology at West Virginia University’s School of Public Health. Further, there’s no one single music listening center in the brain as it has the ability to activate nearly every region of the brain mapped out so far. This then would speak to the reason music is indeed so universal and why it’s such a powerful tool in affecting our moods.
So do yourself a solid and listen to some happy music the next time you’re starting to feel down. Who knows, it might just put a little spring in your step. And right now, that’s something we all could use a little more of.