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This Quarter’s Article: Music’s Impact on our Wellbeing
Our New Music Appreciation Group
At Improving Lives we always led by the people we support. Over the years, our service has evolved continually, in line with the wishes and aims of the amazing people we work with.
Our latest innovation is a music group: a simple idea, to spend an hour listening to music. Requests can be put in beforehand and people have an opportunity to talk about where they first heard the piece of music, and why it's special to them.
What there is no doubt about, is the impact of music on our wellbeing. Intuitively, we all know of a song, a piece of music, a melody: which lifts our spirits. We can similarly think of music which gives us butterflies, makes us excited - or sometimes weep. Music has a capacity to influence our emotional state in a whole range of ways. What’s more mysterious is why a collection of pitches, rhythms and timbres can make us feel such emotions. Nobody knows exactly: but there are some theories.
The Language of Music
According to Alistair Jennings phD , music is akin to a language. It is literally speaking to us and as such can convey emotions that language can. On a basic level, quicker music is more exciting to us, and slower music is less so. Fascinatingly: you might notice that same language being conveyed the next time you hear someone speak. If they are speaking quickly, loudly and at a high pitch, you would normally interpret that they are happy or excited. Speaking slowly or softly, would indicate that someone may be feeling sad: holding a mirror to how music makes us feel (Inside Science 2017).
Music is akin to a language. It is literally speaking to us and as such can convey emotions that language can.
Suspense and Release: Expectation and Outcome
Music is also known to release a ‘hit’ of dopamine in our brains: this was shown when McGill University in Montreal undertook brain scans of individuals listening to pleasurable music. The limbic and paralimbic were lit up: the area of the brain which releases the dopamine (BBC Future 2013). Dopamine is released when we have sex, eat food or have a long drink when we’re thirsty or when we exercise. From an evolutionary perspective, we can see why our brain would incentivise these activities: it is incentivising procreation and survival.
Why dopamine is released when listening to music, is less clear. Philosopher and Composer Leonard Meyer suggested that this was because of our expectation versus the outcome of that expectation. When we are expecting something, a cold drink of water after a long run for example, to have that denied causes frustration. However to have your thirst quenched later, would be even more satisfying than it would have been the first time around. (BBC Future 2013)
Meyer argues that music follows this expectation vs frustrated outcome vs outcome pattern. When we listen to music, we are subconsciously preparing for what comes next. . The musicologist David Huron theorises that this may have been useful when we were still evolving. Predicting what came after a particular sound could mean distinguishing between the sound of a “predatory lion or a harmless monkey”. This could be another reason why listening to music releases dopamine: we are still reaping the benefits of that evolutionary reward.
Think about the final chords to the Beatles’ Let It Be. Without having heard the song before, you could predict exactly the note it finishes on. And yet that song, like most music, keeps you waiting, even frustrated, for that moment of release until the very end.
The Benefits of Music for our Wellbeing
None of this is proven, and there are other factors at play which provoke further discussion. Different cultures are more accustomed to different modes and time signatures. When we’re amongst others, at a gig we might experience the music differently to if we were sat listening at home – context matters.
Whatever the intersecting reasons may be, music can influence our feelings. The benefits are multiple. Music has been shown to lower stress, reduce pain in a study conducted post surgery and improve sleep (Very Well Mind 2022). We would do well to consider listening to music we love, when we’re not feeling at our best.
References
https://www.insidescience.org/video/why-does-music-make-us-emotional
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130418-why-does-music-make-us-feel-good
https://www.verywellmind.com/surprising-psychological-benefits-of-music-4126866