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Listening to classical and self-selected relaxing music after exposure to a stressor should result in significant reductions in anxiety, anger, and sympathetic nervous system arousal, and increased relaxation compared to those who sit in silence or listen to heavy metal music. Fifty-six college students, 15 males and 41 females, were exposed to dif...
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... significant (F(3,49) = 1.94, p = .145). Post hoc paired- sample t tests indicates that the group listening to silence (t(10) = 3.53, p = .00) or self-selected (t(12) = 3.41, p = .00) music experienced more of a decrease in state anger than participants listening to heavy metal (t(12) = -.43, p = .67) or classical (t(15) = .60, p = .56), refer to Fig. ...
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... 5.4.1 Implication #1: Support in creating personalized treatment content. From our findings, we can see music therapy practitioners are increasingly expected to deliver personalized interventions, which align with previous research that adapting the chosen musical elements with the client's preferences enhances the likelihood of relaxation, stress alleviation, and the elicitation of positive emotions [53,66]. To facilitate personalized therapeutic interventions, therapists often need to consider various individual characteristics of clients, such as personal developmental experiences and cultural backgrounds. ...
... According to Labbé, Schmidt, Babin, and Pharr (2007), our bodies respond to music in conscious and unconscious ways. While we may take the influence of hip-hop music produced for granted, there are complex interactions occurring in our brains and bodies that impact our physical movement, thoughts, and feelings (Altenmüller & Schlaug, 2012). ...
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... Studies show that soft music vastly decreases anxiety, anger, and other negative feelings. At the same time, it increases relaxation, which provides students with a comfortable and soothing environment for information processing [5,6]. Therefore, students and educators need to learn the effects of different sorts of music on adolescents' long-term memory so that students can find more applicable ways of studying and provide a better educational environment for students to learn. ...
To examine the effects of different music genres on adolescents' long-term memory. Thirty participants were recruited to take part in the study. First, they were given a list of random letter combinations to memorize while listening to a soothing song or fast-paced rap music. After learning for five minutes, they were given some randomly generated arithmetic questions to complete within two minutes. Then, they did a recognition test on the previously memorized words. Results show that the memory-recalling abilities of the participants while listening to rap or soft music are significantly different. Most participants scored higher in tests with soft music than with rap music. The researcher conclude that it would be beneficial for students to do memorization tasks with relaxing background music because soft music could facilitate the process of information encoding and keep them motivated to study for longer, reducing their stress and anxiety. Students should avoid listening to music with a fast, rhythmic beat while memorizing since this type of music appears distractive. Future research could be conducted with a larger sample size.
... Others deciding what music is likely to evoke sadness will not necessarily evoke sadness to a sufficient degree in a randomly sampled participant to address the phenomenon of interest (enjoyment of evoked negative emotion in music). It is well documented that familiar music can evoke stronger emotions than unfamiliar music, with self-selected music being a particularly effective way to elicit the strong emotions [e.g., 43,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. Similarly, others deciding what music someone likes is riddled with problems. ...
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... Listening to self-selected music for solace or distraction can decrease loneliness and nervousness and increase happiness (Schäfer et al., 2020). Listening to self-selected music is also associated with greater reductions in anxiety following a stress induction task compared with silence or listening to experimenter-selected heavy metal (Labbé et al., 2007). ...
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... Thoma et al. (2013) defined the difference between the peak values after the stressor and the first baseline value after the stressor as recovery. Other studies have conducted between-group analyzes of variance comparisons, but due to the limited number of measurement points, they were only able to compare intergroup differences in stress levels after the stress test, failing to provide an overall description of the trajectory during the stress recovery phase (Labbé et al., 2007;Groarke and Hogan, 2019;Groarke et al., 2020). In a study by Koelsch et al. (2016), repeated measures MANOVA was used with time points as a within-subject factor and stimulus conditions as between-subject factors. ...
Introduction
Studies have suggested that listening to music can reduce psychological and biological responses to a stressor. However, it is unclear whether music has the same effect on stress recovery. According to field studies, people commonly use music in daily life for the specific purpose of relaxation. We explored whether individuals who generally use music for relaxation purposes show improved recovery from an acute stressor.
Methods
In two independent studies, twenty-seven healthy female participants (Mage = 24.07) (Study 1) and twenty-one healthy male participants (Mage = 23.52) (Study 2) were separated into two groups based on their frequency of using music for relaxation purposes (low vs. high). All participants underwent a lab-based psychosocial stress test. Subjective stress levels were measured using visual analogue scales. Salivary cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase were measured to assess endocrine and autonomic stress responses, respectively. Subjective stress levels and saliva samples were measured nine times throughout the stress induction and recovery procedure. Chronic stress levels were assessed using the Perceived Stress Scale and the Screening Scale of Chronic Stress.
Results
No significant differences were observed in subjective stress levels, salivary alpha-amylase activity, or cortisol concentration between the two groups in either of the two studies. Further analyses revealed that among male participants, increased use of music for relaxation purposes was related to more chronic stress levels (t (10.46) = 2.45, p = 0.03, r = 0.60), whereas female participants exhibited a trend in the opposite direction (t (13.94) = −1.92, p = 0.07, r = 0.46).
Discussion
Contrary to our expectations, the results indicate that habitual music listening for relaxation purposes is not associated with improved recovery from a stressor. However, due to the small sample size, future exploration is necessary to enhance the statistical power of the results of the study.
... This treatment is referred to as Music Therapy, which refers to "an established health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals" [2]. Additionally, some music can be known as media that can assist individuals in lowering their blood pressure and help people to hostile negative feelings [3]. ...
... The result of this experiment reveals that listening to the music of self-selection and classical music considerably lowers uncomfortable feelings and "physiological arousal". This is in marked contradiction to the effect that is produced by listening to the music of heavy metal or sitting quietly [3]. ...
The influence of music on human emotions is a hotly studied topic due to the widespread recognition of the importance of the problem in Psychology. Unfortunately, the relationship between stress-reducing and music genres is little addressed due to the lack of studies. The essay aims to address the gap in knowledge by analyzing previous studies. The study indicates that different music genres have different levels of influence on the human stress system. Furthermore, the author confirms that listening to Classical Music can have a number of advantages for relaxation and stress-reducing through investigating and analyzing different existing studies and papers. This essay may help audience to better understand the positive effects of music on human body.
... A summary of the most important findings of the included studies is reported in Tables 1-3. In particular, Table 1 describes the results of physiological studies about both outer and inner silence (Arslan et al., 2022;Bernardi et al., 2006Bernardi et al., , 2009Blase and van Waning, 2019;Cysarz and B€ ussing, 2005;Dillman Carpentier and Potter, 2007;Dousty et al., 2011;Harada et al., 2017;Hilz et al., 2014;Hoshi et al., 2022;Kirste et al., 2015;Perez-Lloret et al., 2014;Philips et al., 2019;Selvaraj et al., 2008;Sharma et al., 2015;Siragusa et al., 2020;Tayade and Tucker, 2022;Trivedi et al., 2020;Ukaegbe and Tucker, 2022;Vishnubhotla et al., 2021), Table 2 shows the findings of studies about the effects of different activities performed in a silent environment (Bellamy et al., 2021;Desai et al., 2015;Hasegawa et al., 2004;Khalfa et al., 2003;Labb e et al., 2007;Proverbio et al., 2015;Radun et al., 2021;Song et al., 2021;Voisin et al., 2006), and Table 3 reports the effect of exposure to outer silence in patients with different health conditions (Akdemir et al., 2010;Cotoia et al., 2018;De Haro and Bleda, 2019;Ferrer-Torres and Gim enez-Llort, 2021;O'Kelly et al., 2013;L eonard et al., 2021;Piñeros et al., 2023;Suedfeld and Hare, 1977). ...
... If we consider the studies about the effects on the nervous system of activities performed in a silent environment, the number of participants ranged from 8 to 75 and the control condition often implied accomplishing the same task while listening to some music, environmental noises or natural sounds (Table 2). It was demonstrated that silence does not reduce psychophysical stress levels associated with specific mental or physical exercises (Desai et al., 2015;Hasegawa et al., 2004;Khalfa et al., 2003;Labb e et al., 2007), but it can help in performing different tasks requiring high levels of concentration (Bellamy et al., 2021;Proverbio et al., 2015;Radun et al., 2021). Additionally, pictures of pleasing wild environments, such as forests, can better increase the ventral vagal tone when accompanied by natural sounds than when contemplated in full silence (Song et al., 2021). ...
This systematic review explores the influence of silence on the autonomic nervous system. The Polyvagal Theory has been used as a reference model to describe the autonomic nervous system by explaining its role in emotional regulation, social engagement, and adaptive physiological responses. PubMed, Scopus, PsycInfo, EMBASE, and Google Scholar were systematically searched up until July 2023 for relevant studies. The literature search yielded 511 results, and 37 studies were eventually included in this review. Silence affects the autonomic nervous system differently based on whether it is inner or outer silence. Inner silence enhances activity of the ventral vagus, favoring social engagement, and reducing sympathetic nervous system activity and physiological stress. Outer silence, conversely, can induce a heightened state of alertness, potentially triggering vagal brake removal and sympathetic nervous system activation, though with training, it can foster inner silence, preventing such activation. The autonomic nervous system response to silence can also be influenced by other factors such as context, familiarity with silence, presence and quality of outer noise, and empathy.
... In addition, about 71.5% of the participants acknowledged that certain music genres affect their mood more than others, reaffirming the premise that music's influence on emotions can be genre-specific [37]. This finding also corroborates previous research suggesting that different music genres can elicit a variety of emotional responses [17,38]. ...
Aim: The impact of music on mental health, specifically among Nigerian undergraduate students, is an area yet to be fully explored. This study therefore sought to investigate the impact of music listening habits on the mental health of Nigerian undergraduate students. Methodology: This study employed a cross-sectional survey research design. The population of this study comprised of students from three tertiary institutions in Moor Plantation, Ibadan, Nigeria, namely: Federal College of Animal Health and Technology, Institute of Agricultural Research and Training, and Federal College of Agriculture. A random sampling technique was employed to select four hundred (400) undergraduate students who were studying for the National Diploma (ND) and Higher National Diploma (HND) respectively. Results: A majority of the respondents (56.75%) listen to music several times a week, with 78% admitting to listening to music while studying. The genres most listened to were Hip hop (35.15%) and Gospel (27.12%). Most students reported feeling happier (39.87%) and more relaxed (33.26%) after listening to music, indicating a positive influence on mood and emotion. Furthermore, 83% of respondents claimed their mood influenced the type of music they chose to listen to, and 71.50% noted that different genres affected their mood distinctly. When asked about their mental health status, most students rated their mental health as good (71.25%) or excellent (26.75%). The majority acknowledged that music significantly influences their mood (87.25%), reduces stress levels (84%), and helps with concentration (85.25%). Up to 95.25% of the students have used music as a coping mechanism during emotional distress. Despite these benefits, a small percentage (2%) observed negative impacts on their mental health linked to their music listening habits. Overall, a significant 86.25% of students believe music positively influences their mental health. Notably, only 2.75% of students have sought professional help for mental health issues, and of these, 72.73% were recommended music as a therapeutic tool. Up to 93% expressed openness to the idea of music therapy. Conclusion: These findings underscore the potential of music as a tool for enhancing mental health among Nigerian undergraduate students. However, the observed negative impacts on a minority of students highlight the need for further exploration and potential regulation of music-based interventions.
