The Effectiveness of Music in Relieving Stress and Anxiety

This essay examines the relationship between music and stress relief, focusing on music therapy as a method to address psychological problems and improve well-being. It begins by defining stress and its causes, including work-life imbalances, personal issues, and external stressors, and highlights the physical, emotional, and cognitive symptoms of stress. The essay then introduces music therapy, explaining how it utilizes various techniques to improve clients' quality of life by addressing motor, cognitive, emotional, and social domains. It emphasizes music's ability to influence the sympathetic nervous system, increase endorphin levels, and reduce pain. The essay also discusses how listening to music can aid in memory skills and learning. Concluding that music therapy can effectively reduce stress levels and prevent severe disorders if implemented promptly. The essay references multiple studies to support its claims and underscores the importance of music in mental health management.

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Running head: MUSIC HELPS TO RELIEVE STRESS
MUSIC HELPS TO RELIEVE STRESS
Name of Student
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Author Note

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Music relaxes our bodies and minds, usually quiet, slow classical music. These types
of slow, soft music have a favorable effect on slowing the heartbeat and pulse rate,
psychological functions, maintaining the blood pressure level, and decreases the stress
hormones levels. Music therapy deals with the clinical use of music intervention to solve
various problems of people. Music therapy uses music as a method of treatment to solve the
clients problem and improve his life.(Ansdell, 2016). The study focus on how music helps
relieve stress from people's lives and improves their health helps people deal with social
issues and music serves the purpose of entertainment.
Stress is a way the body reacts to dangerous situations. It is the body's way of acting
and responding to any demand from the environment (Lovallo, 2015). It can result from both
bad and good experiences. People who feel stressed by something, their bodies respond to the
situation by releasing chemicals. When a person feels threatened a specific chemical reaction
occurs that causes the body to act in a certain way. This is what makes them work in a fight
or flight situation. Since the chemicals released in the body can give extra strength, it is okay
if any physical form of threats is there. On the other hand, this can also be bad, if the stress is
in reaction to emotional activity and there is no way this extra strength can be displayed
When a person suffers from stress their heartbeat increases, blood pressure increases,
breathing quickens and the person acts to protect themselves from that situation.
The pressures and situations that cause stress are called stressors or stress trigger.
Anything that puts pressure on a person can be stressor (Levine, 2017). There can be some
reasons – work-life related issues, personal life related issues, some tragedy or incidents, and
others. A person may be facing stress due to improper work-life balance, being unhappy in
their jobs, working for long hours can be a reason, heavy work-load, being insecure about a
chance of promotion, facing any form of harassment, discrimination, and others. Some
examples of personal life related stress are- it may happen due to loss of job, some serious

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illness, depression and anxiety, some traumatic event such as theft, violence, and others. In
case of increased financial burden can all lead to stress. Some other causes of pressure can be
fear of uncertainty that is the fear that what will happen in future, it can be related to people’s
perception and attitude that is the person's attitude towards the environment plays a
significant role. If they have a habit of exaggerating even small incidents as a significant
event, then they may always be in stress. If people expect unrealistic things to happen to
them- these people expect everything good to happen to them. A significant life-changing
event can be the reason for stressful behavior.
A few symptoms of stress are – it can affect physical health, behavior, emotions and a
person’s thinking capability. If a person can be emotionally stressed - they become easily
frustrated, may feel like they are losing control, may have difficulty relaxing their minds,
may suffer from lower self-esteem, they tend to avoid others and like isolation (Carleton et
al., 2018). People can suffer from physical symptoms such as - headaches, chest pain,
stomach issues, insomnia, dry mouth leading to difficulty in swallowing, frequent infections
and intense shaking and nervousness. The patients may additionally suffer from a few
cognitive symptoms such as- forgetfulness, having too many thoughts at the same time, lack
of focus, seeing only the negative side of things, being indecisive, always worrying. Some
behavioral changes may be noticed as- increased use of alcohol, loss of appetite and others,
displaying nervous behaviors- nail biting, fidgeting with things and many more.
Music therapy can overcome the problems of the sympathetic nervous system, which is
involved with the flight or flight stress reaction of the body. Music Therapy is a process of
solving the psychological problems of a person suffering from stress disorders and solving
them to improve their lives. In this music therapist uses music and all other aspects such as
physical, mental, social, emotional, spiritual and aesthetic. Music therapy helps clients
improve the quality of life and their health’s. Music therapy is used in cancer centers,

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schools, rehabilitation centers, medical hospitals, a psychiatric hospital. Music therapists help
clients in various domains such as the motor, cognitive, emotional, communication,
educational and social by using music experiences such as re-creation, improvisation,
receptive and composition methods. Models that are used in music are Neurologic Music
Therapy(NMT) and the Bonny method of music and guided imagery (Thaut, McIntosh &
Hoemberg, 2015). When people feel stressed, they avoid listening to music because it feels
like a waste of time and it does not increase productivity. People who have bipolar disorder
or clinical depression listen to music to deal with their lowest moods. Singing can also be a
great release of tension. Listening to soothing and calm music can help deal with insomnia.
Listening to music can help the brain by memory skills and improves learning, always useful
when people are under stress. This is known as the Mozart Effect. Music helps people
identify and state the feelings associated with the pressure they are facing. In a music therapy
session, the client can express their emotions, providing an critical psychological release.
With continuous music therapy, the endorphin levels will be increased, and the client
will have the effects of stress reduced. Music can cut substance p from our bodies that cause
the feeling of pain. However, prolong stress not treated using music therapy or other
techniques can result in – mental issues leading to depression and anxiety, obesity and eating
disorders, heart diseases, bipolar disorder, gastrointestinal problems. It has emerged as a field
of study the same has to be continued in the near future for avoiding stress-related problems.
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that people suffer from some
disorders when they are stressed such as – physical disorders, emotional disorders, and many
cognitive issues. There can be many reasons behind such stress- their work life can be a
reason, their personal experience can be a reason and others. Those who suffer from anxiety
can adopt music therapy or resort to just merely listening to music. By doing this there, stress

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levels can be reduced, and as a result, their productivity will increase. However, if stress is
not treated immediately, it can lead to other severe disorders.

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References
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