Cardenas 1

Jose G. Cardenas

Professor Gonzalez

ENGL 1302-680

22 September 2021

Music’s impact in our lives

Music is a strong instrument used in today's modern world, preventing mental health

issues from getting any worse or to alleviate pre-existing mental disorders. Many individuals

from all types of ages and backgrounds suffer from anxiety, depression and trauma thus leading

them to seek some sort of medication to alleviate their mental health issues. These three

disorders can poorly affect an individual’s mental health overall within time if not treated with

time. Music tends to be used as a form of free therapy to enhance and improve mental health

issues and exterminate all the negative thinking, comments and perspectives accumulated. Music

is beneficial to individuals because it can help treat anxiety, depression, and alleviate stress. One

thing is for certain that music is such a common essential in the modern world that it could never

be destroyed and be a use of help to many generations ahead.

Music helps treat anxiety which unfortunately is a problem that many individuals face in

their daily lives. Anxiety is a terrible mental disorder to acquire, because not only does the

individual feel trapped, but their mind also completely throws the individual off their task; it can

lead to more serious mental health issues. Music listening is beneficial because it can alleviate

pressure feeling and decrease anxiety levels. For example, in the peer reviewed article “The

Effect of Music on Simulated Surgical Performance: A Systematic Review” the authors

Osmanoglu, et al. state that “music is an important stimulus for physical and phycological
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treatments” due to the rhythms of a song it can decrease anxiety levels, slow down heart rate, and

lower blood pressure (3). This shows that music is an important source that contribute to

phycological issues, and help alleviate anxiety overall. Osmanoglu, et al. performed a study on

15 students to determine the results of listening to “classical music” and to see if it helped release

the anxiety the students carried. The study performed resulted with 12 out of the 15 students

responding to decreasing levels of anxiety while studying or doing homework. Furthermore

Oomens, et al. claim that music is beneficial for nurses and surgeons because “background music

makes them feel calmer, decrease stress and work more efficient” which show that music is

beneficial to medical professionals when under stress and anxiety (2774). This helps show music

is commonly used throughout a different range of people through the world. Not only do students

use music as a tool to alleviate anxiety, but individuals in medical field use it too. Moreover,

when nurses and surgeons go through a challenging surgery, they listen to background classical

music which is referred to “the Mozart Effect” (2773). This proves that the “Mozart Effect” is a

highly effective system that many physicians and nurses use to conquer a challenging task. These

articles show that it is clear that music is a great system when surgeons are undergoing surgery

on their patients while concentrating, or when a student is nervously studying for an exam trying

to grasp as much information as possible.

Nonetheless another unfortunate mental health disorder is depression, which many

individuals face in today's modern world. Depression is one of the harshest mental disorder a

person can go through; however, with music listening present it can keep their minds occupied

while decreasing levels of depression. For example, in the peer reviewed article, “Mindful Music

Listening as a Potential Treatment for Depression,” authors Kristen J Eckhardt, and Julie A.

Dinsmore conducted a study and stated that “music listening can be an effective tool to arouse
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emotions and music particularly sad music, can act as a springboard to help clients put emotions

into words” (3). Which shows us that individuals going through depression use sad music as a

coping mechanism that help them express verbal emotions, that they cannot express themselves

thus decreasing their depression levels. Furthermore, in the peer reviewed article, “Music to

Improve Sleep Quality in Adults with Depression-Related Insomnia (MUSTAFI): Study Protocol

for a Randomized Controlled Trial,” Lund,et al. state that “music listening will reduce symptoms

of depression in adults when the music listening is conducted regularly” (2). Which clearly

shows us that daily amount of music can reduce the depressive feelings and emotions that adults

face. It also shows that regularly use of music has an influential impact on individuals that face

depression. The authors conducted a study on outpatients diagnosed with depression and made

them “listen to music for at least 30 minutes before going to sleep every night for a period of two

weeks”, which will show us how beneficial music is on individuals dealing with depression (4).

During those two weeks that individuals were listening to music as an exercise for their mind,

impressive results came back to show that the exercises were effectively assisting these

participants to control their levels of depression. Many people go to music when they are down

and feel depressed to cope with the emotional pain built up and can’t find their way to truly

express their feelings. Jaime De Leon exclaimed about what he does when he feels depressed and

can’t talk about what he feels so he locks himself in his room and typically listens to sad music,

because he can relate to the lyrics and shout his lungs out all that he can into his pillow, thus

decreasing his depression feeling (Personal Interview). Music is a beneficial form of therapy for

anyone facing depression because it is their coping mechanism when life gets too hard, and can’t

find the correct words, or emotion to let it all out. It is a great effective coping mechanism that

many find useful.

Music also helps individuals with stress, a common mental issue that many face in their

day-to-day lifestyle; music listening has been suggested to beneficially impact health via stress-

reducing effects. In the peer reviewed article, “Music Listening and Stress in Daily Life-a Matter

of Timing,” the authors Linnemann, et al. state that “stress is one of the leading causes of the

increasingly rate of suicide all over North America” (225). Which indicates that stress can evolve

serious life-threatening mental situations; however soothing and relaxing music can exterminate

and reduce that stress. Linnemann, et al. also found in their studies that participants reported

more “positive emotions after having listened to music” (224). This shows us that music is a

great source of tool to bring down stress levels that individuals face in their daily lives, whether

it’s work, school, husband, wife, etc. The studies conducted found associations between music

listening and stress in daily life and found that music listening does reduce stress. The

participants had all responded positively to the result that music listening was a huge help to

alleviate all that stress built up. Furthermore, in the article, “he effect of music on the human

stress response,” the authors Thoma, et al. state that “music has been shown to beneficially affect

stress related physiological emotions...” (1). Thus the use of listening to music as a free form of

therapy that has received special interest in stress management and stress related mental health

issues. The authors also conducted a study in which it had appeared that “listening to music has

the inherent ability to decrease the psychobiological stress response,” which resulted in

responses from the participants saying that “relaxing” music made them feel more like

themselves and felt like all their stress had gone away. This comes to prove that music is

beneficial in many aspects of stress, which most of the world's population all go through.

In Conclusion, music listening has an enormous impact when it comes to individuals

facing pre-existing mental issues like decreasing anxiety levels, alleviate depression, and reduce
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stress. Music is much more than just noise or sound coming from a phone, or speaker; it is an

incredible form of therapy that helps improve and enhance mental health to get past mental

obstacles. This paper shows that it has many studies and experiments conducted to back up the

beneficial effects of music, however, if needed it is possible to further investigate more into this.

Many people don’t know the true amazing powers music has on themselves. Hopefully, this

paper will prove that music is beneficial for an individual's mental health. As a result, music

listening is an art form of therapy that can promote and enhance mental health for every

individual.

Works Cited

Oomens, Pim, et al. “The Effect of Music on Simulated Surgical Performance: A Systematic

Review.” Surgical Endoscopy, vol. 33, no. 9, Sept. 2019, pp. 2774–2784. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1007/s00464-019-06868-x.
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Osmanoglu, Devrim Erginsoy, and Hüseyin Yilmaz. “The Effect of Classical Music on Anxiety

and Well-Being of University Students.” International Education Studies, vol. 12, no. 11, Jan.

2019, pp. 18–25. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1232294&scope=site.

Lund, Helle Nystrup, et al. “Music to Improve Sleep Quality in Adults with Depression-Related

Insomnia (MUSTAFI): Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.” Trials, vol. 21, no.

1, Apr. 2020, p. 305. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/s13063-020-04247-9.

Eckhardt, KristenJ., and JulieA. Dinsmore. “Mindful Music Listening as a Potential Treatment

for Depression.” Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, vol. 7, no. 2, Apr. 2012, pp. 175–186.

EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/15401383.2012.685020.

Thoma, Myriam V et al. “The effect of music on the human stress response.” PloS one vol. 8,8

e70156. 5 Aug. 2013, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0070156

Linnemann, Alexandra et al. “Music Listening and Stress in Daily Life-a Matter of Timing.”

International journal of behavioral medicine vol. 25,2 (2018): 223-230. doi:10.1007/s12529-

017-9697-5
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