HOW MUSIC AFFECTS YOUR HEALTH & WELLBEING

Just about every­one knows that music can impact how they think and feel, but have you ever thought about the intric­a­cies of how music has a pro­found impact on our brain and oth­er organs? This art­icle will share some of the effects that music can have on your body and how that trans­lates to your over­all health.

Your Cardiovascular System

Music can come in count­less dif­fer­ent forms, but many people can often nar­row things down as relax­ing or ener­get­ic or in-between.

Depend­ing on the tempo of the song you’re listen­ing to, music can affect your heart rate, blood pres­sure, and qual­ity of breath­ing in dif­fer­ent ways, which con­sequently alter your mood.

Slower tem­pos can help you wind-down and relax by decreas­ing the per­form­ance of these organs, where­as faster tem­pos can make you want to dance and have fun or feel motiv­ated to exer­cise, or even feel anxious due to how the body is respond­ing to the music.

Learning & Cognition

You may have noticed that many people love listen­ing to music while per­form­ing men­tally-intens­ive tasks, such as study­ing.

Clas­sic­al music, in par­tic­u­lar, has been shown to help people con­cen­trate and increase their cog­nit­ive abil­it­ies. It can improve your memory, and some stud­ies have shown that music can help people be quick­er and more pre­cise with their tasks.

Accord­ing to Har­vard Med­ic­al School, It is believed that music has these cap­ab­il­it­ies because it can stim­u­late the nerve cells in the right side of the cereb­ral cor­tex, which is respons­ible for vari­ous cog­nit­ive abil­it­ies like the ones men­tioned above.

Relieving Mental Disorders

As men­tioned earli­er in this art­icle, music can affect your mood, and this bene­fit should not be under­es­tim­ated since it can be thera­peut­ic for those who suf­fer from chron­ic men­tal health con­di­tions like anxi­ety and depres­sion.

Listen­ing to music has been shown to influ­ence sev­er­al vital neur­o­trans­mit­ters in the brain; for example, it can increase dopam­ine and sero­ton­in and can reduce stress hor­mones like cortisol. All of these are con­nec­ted to your men­tal health.

While it’s not a sub­sti­tute for med­ic­a­tion or ther­apy, it can cer­tainly be sup­ple­ment­al and make recov­ery easi­er for you, espe­cially when used in con­junc­tion with meth­ods like CBT, which you can learn about here:

https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/therapy/what-does-cbt-stand-for-and-what-can-it-help/

Pain Relief

Sim­il­ar to how music can be bene­fi­cial in treat­ing men­tal health issues, it may also be able to have phys­ic­al bene­fits as well by redu­cing pain.

The way music is believed to have anal­ges­ic prop­er­ties is because music may help increase endorph­in and cat­echolam­ine levels, or it can simply provide a tem­por­ary dis­trac­tion from the pain they are hav­ing.

In fact, along with CBT and exer­cise, music is some­times cited as a great non-phar­ma­co­lo­gic­al meth­od when it comes to pain man­age­ment, and there­fore, can be bene­fi­cial to both your phys­ic­al and men­tal health.

Social Connection

Humans have an innate desire to belong to groups and feel con­nec­ted with oth­ers and music can help facil­it­ate this.

Through­out his­tory, music has been used to bring people togeth­er. To name a few examples, you have tunes that are used for wor­ship­ping, enter­tain­ment, and even court­ship. Even lul­la­bies can make par­ents and chil­dren feel more con­nec­ted to each oth­er.

In a more cas­u­al sense, people can simply make new friends and bond over the same tastes of artists, and this can be observed in the fan base or com­munit­ies across all genres. This con­nec­tion and sense of belong­ing can def­in­itely con­trib­ute to the men­tal health of all indi­vidu­als, and may also give them increased mean­ing in life.

Conclusion

Music is one of the most sig­ni­fic­ant achieve­ments that humans have cre­ated, and hope­fully, this art­icle has shown you how this art­form can be appre­ci­ated bey­ond just listen­ing to it. Next time, you listen to music, pay closer atten­tion, and per­haps you’ll be more aware of the bene­fits that music can have on your health.

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Marie Miguel

Mar­ie Miguel has been a writ­ing and research expert for nearly a dec­ade, cov­er­ing a vari­ety of health- related top­ics. Cur­rently, she is con­trib­ut­ing to the expan­sion and growth of a free online men­tal health resource with BetterHelp.com. With an interest and ded­ic­a­tion to address­ing stig­mas asso­ci­ated with men­tal health, she con­tin­ues to spe­cific­ally tar­get sub­jects related to anxi­ety and depres­sion.

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