Does Listening To Music Really Help? (part 1)

Music is present every day in our lives whether it is in the form of a song that we hear on the radio, or part of our favourite playlist that we listen to in our morning jog or while we’re making coffee, maybe a song that just gets stuck in our head all day long, or even when we hear that special song that we’ve put as a ringtone on our phone. Without realising, music is such an important part of our lives and we start feeling all these different emotions when we listen to something familiar or an amazing new song that we love for reasons that we can’t even explain. But, how are we emotionally affected by a simple combination of 7 music notes?

Let me get a bit ‘scientific’ on this blog and explain a study that has aimed to answer my previous question.

A study by doctoral student Emily Carlson and her team showed that trying to influence or control our emotions through music, could potentially be harmful to a person’s mental health. The data of the study was collected by asking a series of questions to 123 participants between the ages of 18-55. The aim of this study was to evaluate the individual’s levels of neuroticism (a scale of a person’s negative responses), depression, as well as their levels of anxiety. The tool used to evaluate the participants was called the ‘Music in Mood Regulation’ scale (MMR). The evaluation tool divided the ways that people use music to alter or regulate their mood into seven categories: revival, strong sensation, entertainment, solace, mental work, discharge, and diversion. However, only three of these categories can all be used to alter negative emotions: solace, diversion, and discharge.

Let’s look at these three categories one by one.

Sometimes, people like to listen to music that correlates with their current emotional state and they do that because of solace; this way, people feel more understood, connected and attached. For example, someone who is sad listens to a sad song and tries to connect. They try to find comfort in that particular kind of music and that helps them feel less alone. Or, on the other hand, someone who’s feeling particularly joyous would listen to an upbeat and ‘happy’ song.

Other people listen to music as a distraction from their negative emotions or mood. This is also known as diversion; in this case, the music does not necessarily match their emotions, and it is used as a tool to move their attention away from reality.

Discharge is similar to solace in the sense that people listen to music that matches their emotional state, but the difference between the two is that because of discharge, the music is used as a way to express one’s emotion. For example, someone who is sad might sing along to a sad song to physically express this particular emotion.

The study showed that men who used discharge had higher levels of anxiety and neuroticism when compared to women; this led the researchers to arrive in the conclusion that trying to alter negative emotions through music can have a negative effect. In a way, ‘self-medicating’ on music when we feel sad may not be the best go-to solution. We might try to go for a walk first, or read, or do something that we like and makes us happy.

A lot of us use music as a mechanism to cope with difficulties, negative emotions or experiences and the challenges that we face in our everyday lives. The results of numerous studies have shown that most of the time, listening to music to cope with negative emotions may not be as helpful as it seems and sometimes it might even be harmful. This, however, does not apply to positive emotions; it is healthy to listen to music when in a good mood, when feeling happy, energetic or excited. So, next time when you are in a low emotional point and you start using music as a coping mechanism, think and ask yourself why you’re listening to a particular song and how that’s going to affect your current state.

I am going to continue discussing this topic on another post, but this first conclusion shows the power that music can have in either helping our mood and emotions or hindering them. On the next post, I am going to write about WHY music affects us so and what processes occur when we listen to music.

‘Till next time…