How Music Can Affect Our Mood
The fact that music has an impact on humans, plants, and animals is already discovered and proven. However, some people doubt it, although music is a great tool to control your emotions and mood. To do this, it is not at all necessary to have a special music taste or to understand the art of music. To get started, it is worth understanding how you can use music to control your mood and improve your emotional state.
We all know there are different types of musical instruments – pianos, guitars, violins, flutes, and many more. To get the best sound from these instruments, you need to choose the one you best manage. For example, William Young Pianos offer pianos for both beginners and experts. If you’re an expert, buying a piano for beginners will not produce the kind of music to change the mood of your audience. Hence the instrument you choose to use plays a big role when playing music.
Why Can Music Affect Mood?
Our brain responds to each external stimulus instantly, and the sound of the music is one of them. Music stimulates the part of the brain that produces the dopamine hormone. This hormone affects emotional behavior and mood. The influence of music is both behavioral and neural. That is, this means that music not only affects the mood but also affects what we cannot control ourselves. Luckily, sometimes, music helps us while studying even in writing a paper but you also can hire a writing expert from Dissertation Team to have more time on doing your plans.
That’s why, even in ancient times, music was the mouth of the rest of the arts. According to ancient researchers, it obeyed an objective law and existed regardless of a person. The ancient Greek scientist Pythagoras was the first to take a scientific approach towards music and its influence. Of course, music existed before, but he was the first who described in mathematical terms what notes and pleasant or unpleasant consonances for humans are.
Understanding how music affects mood is important for several reasons. This will allow you to change your view of what kind of music you listen to and understand how it affects you.
If you are feeling anxious and annoyed, it may be because of the music you prefer. It may be time to start listening to calmer music that will lift your spirits and add energy. And on the contrary, if you feel you need some more brevity or creativity for getting started with a difficult task, the right and optimized music may add you some power to cope.
There is a lot of research on music therapy and the studies are going on. Most researchers believe that music may help improve mental health, enhance mood and teach everyone to differentiate their emotions.
How Can Music Help to Evoke Emotions?
As already mentioned, the influence of music on a person is an interesting topic that psychologists and researchers are working on. Below there are several effects that can be achieved with music that are noted by psychologists and supported by several studies.
Music May Help You Better Deal with Problems
Most likely, you have noticed this from your own experience – music gives strength to cope with problems and relieve the soul without harming your mental state. This phenomenon evoked the interest of the researcher and psychologist Stefan Koelsch who have revealed that sad music evokes a sense of empathy in a person.
That is, a person begins to empathize with the emotions of the lyrics, and at this time the human brain regulates our emotional background. This allows for getting rid of negative emotions and experiences, but without harm to the mental health of a person.
Music Boosts Dopamine Production
Dopamine is responsible for a person’s good mood and usually occurs as a result of doing what you love, playing sports, or achieving goals, and music can influence the production of this hormone as well.
There is a study confirming that listening to music that you like activates the production of this hormone in the brain. Therefore, regular listening to music can cheer you up in a short time, and playing sports with music increases your mood doubly.
Music Lets You Relax
An increased level of cortisol is a problem for modern society. To put it simply, this is the hormone of stress, and it can be challenging to reduce it. However, the right music in the morning or at the end of the day can normalize the level of this hormone.
As a result of the experiment, it was found that music can relieve stress. The experiment made it possible to find out that music makes us more relaxed. However, not all types of music are suitable for this purpose. It is believed that classical music, for example, Chopin’s masterpieces have especially beneficial effects on reducing blood cortisol and overall relaxation of body and mind.
Music Can Create Good Feelings
Many researchers believe that classical music has a beneficial effect on both physical and spiritual well-being. However, this statement may sometimes be ambiguous. Not all music can have such an impact, since classical music may also be about heavier compositions that can cause sadness and even develop depression, for example, some of the compositions by Strauss and Wagner.
Mozart’s music has no “contraindications”, and the work of this particular composer has repeatedly got in the spotlight of scientists and researchers. There are many studies that suggest that the work of this composer improves productivity, and some studies suggest that music can increase the level of intelligence.
However, in general, listening to classical music allows you to experience feelings of elation, good mood, and relaxation from tension.
Music May Cause Aggression
In addition to positive emotions, some music can have a negative impact on mental health, for example, hard rock compositions. Psychologists agree that such a musical direction creates an aggressive mood in listeners, and contributes to the adrenaline surge. Some psychologists believe that violent behavior after rock concerts among listeners may be explained by this “reverse” effect of the music on their hormones, and consequently, mood.
On the other hand, such a musical direction allows you to release negative emotions and get an influx of energy. Therefore, if you listen to this kind of music from time to time to get adrenaline, it is unlikely to badly affect your mental health. But, psychologists are inclined to believe that frequent listening to such music can cause mental health problems.
Wrap Up
As you can see, music can affect our mood in different ways, and luckily, most of the opportunities that music opens up for our mental health are positive. However, be careful when compiling your daily playlist as certain songs can actually worsen your condition. Of course, everyone chooses music to their liking, but balance and variety will always be the right choice.
