Listening to music can reduce your stress response!
I’ve written previously in the blog about how sound can affect sleep. Another interesting article about the effects of sound was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), but this time analyzing the effects of various sounds on our ability to adapt to stress.
The researchers compared the effects of listening to music vs. sounds from nature on the human stress response. Here’s what they found:
After a stressful event, those listening to music experienced improved positive mood and accelerated autonomic stabilization (as evidenced by a more rapid reduction in heart rate and salivary cortisol) compared to those listening to nature sounds.
Using functional MRI (fMRI) the authors found, “music drives a distinct reorganization of stress-regulation networks, establishing a directional, causal pathway from the auditory cortex to the insula and thalamus”. The authors also state, “We reveal that music does not simply provide a distraction; rather, the emotional dynamics of music—specifically the structural building and resolution of tension—actively reorganize communication between auditory processing centers and core stress-regulation networks.”
An excellent meta-analysis has also demonstrated that music is an effective intervention for stress reduction in both medical and mental health care settings. Perhaps we should be streaming music in our clinics?!
A very interesting study and result. Evidence that, when we are stressed out, a relaxing solution might be to listen to a good song! But this study does beg the question— would it be better to listen to Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No.1, or Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, 3rd Movement??!!
