According to Mona Lisa Chanda and Daniel Levitin, music does affect our neurochemical systems for reward and pleasure, stress and arousal, immunity, and social affiliation [“The Neurochemistry of Music”, Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2013), V.17(4), pp 179-193].
Already many studies have been conducted to help us understand how and why music affects mind body and emotions over the years but there is a significant gap in research that explores how we use music to help us process every-day emotions, self-regulate and even self-medicate.
You must have heard too, of the famous line from a play by 17th century writer William Congreve, “Music has charms to soothe the savage breast” – but the line doesn’t say how long it takes.
And so, researchers at the British Academy of Sound Therapy surveyed 7,581 people to learn about their relationship with music.
It’s interesting to know that 89% of participants agreed to music being important for their health and wellbeing; 90.15% used music to relax; 28.15% to manage anger; 81.80% to make them happy; 32.53% to aid concentration and 46.5% to process and/or release sadness.
They determined that the most common amount of time it takes for people to receive the therapeutic benefit from self-selected music preferences is 11 minutes. This is true across 3 of the four domains of relaxation (i.e. anger, happiness, concentration and sadness).
The only exception is the domain of happiness where the most common length of time for people to become happier after listening to their chosen music is reduced to just 5 minutes, suggesting that happy music takes less time to take effect than other music.
More studies would need to be undertaken to establish a ‘before’ and ‘after’ mood-state to support these findings – but I agree with Ray Charles that “music is powerful. As people listen to it, they can be affected. They respond”.
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