Listening to music after an acute stressor improved mood and accelerated physiological recovery compared with calming natural sounds in a controlled study that tracked heart rate, nervous system activity and changes in brain networks.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Listening to relaxing music after a stressful event may help the brain and body recover more quickly than listening to calming natural sounds, according to research examining how structured music affects the human stress response.
The study, published online Sept. 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS, found that music was associated with greater improvements in positive mood and faster normalization of heart rate and autonomic nervous system activity following acute stress.
The findings were reported Sept. 12 by mindbodygreen, which described the research as an attempt to determine whether music produces effects beyond those generated by any pleasant and relaxing sound.
Researchers led by Prof. Yi Du of the Institute of Psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted two experiments involving a total of 120 healthy young adults. Participants were exposed to a stressful mental arithmetic task and then monitored as they recovered.
Rather than comparing music with silence, investigators used calming, water-based natural sounds as an active control.
That design allowed them to examine whether the benefits came specifically from music or simply from listening to something pleasant after a stressful experience.
The first experiment tested music both before and after the stressful task.
Listening beforehand did not significantly reduce participants’ initial response to stress. The larger differences appeared afterward, during recovery, when participants who listened to music showed greater improvement in positive mood and faster recovery across several physiological measures.
Those measurements included heart rate and electrodermal activity, which reflects changes in electrical properties of the skin associated with autonomic nervous system arousal.
Acute stress can increase heart rate, electrodermal activity and stress hormones such as cortisol. Researchers were therefore able to track whether participants’ bodies were returning toward their pre-stress state rather than relying only on reports of whether they felt calmer.
A second experiment used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine what was happening inside the brain during recovery.
The scans indicated that music altered communication among brain regions involved in hearing, emotional processing, bodily awareness and regulation of arousal.
Researchers identified changes involving the auditory cortex, which processes sound, and the insula and thalamus, which participate in monitoring internal bodily signals and coordinating responses to important stimuli.
The sequence of those changes appeared to matter.
Early in recovery, researchers observed stronger directional communication from the auditory cortex toward the insula. Later, communication between the insula and thalamus increased, and that later change was associated with larger improvements in positive mood.
The study also found that the brain’s response shifted along with the structure of the music itself.
Songs typically develop through changing patterns of anticipation, tension and resolution. Researchers found that moment-to-moment changes in perceived musical tension corresponded with changes in communication among stress-related brain networks.
As musical tension rose and fell, activity shifted between networks associated with stress and neural patterns associated with recovery. Participants showing more of those music-related network changes also tended to experience greater improvements in mood.
“Music is a highly structured signal that unfolds through cycles of anticipation, tension, and resolution,” Du said. “Our findings suggest that the brain may use this evolving structure as a scaffold to reorganize its stress-regulation networks, helping both the mind and body return to a more balanced state.”
The findings suggest that music’s effects may involve more than distraction from an unpleasant experience.
Instead, the changing structure of music may provide the brain with a continuously evolving auditory signal that helps coordinate neural systems involved in returning the body toward physiological balance after stress.
The study adds to decades of research examining music as a non-drug intervention for pain, anxiety and physiological stress.
A review of 73 randomized clinical trials led by Dr. Catherine Meads at Brunel University examined music’s potential role in reducing pain and anxiety, according to Mercola.com.
Other researchers have examined what is sometimes called audiotherapy, in which patients listen to music or recorded natural sounds during medical recovery.
A 2011 study involving 100 patients recovering from heart surgery divided participants into groups that either listened to soothing recordings for 20 minutes daily on the second through fourth days after surgery or spent the same period relaxing without the recordings.
Research has also suggested that having control over the music being played may influence how strongly people respond.
A PLOS ONE study by researchers associated with Queen Mary University and University College Dublin examined whether perceived control over music affected pain. The researchers reported that “perceived control over musical choices displays a link with more acute pain relief,” according to NaturalNews.com.
That finding raises the possibility that familiarity, preference and personal choice could influence the usefulness of music during stress recovery.
The new PNAS study did not identify a single genre as most effective.
That means the results do not establish that classical music, ambient music, acoustic recordings or any other particular category is inherently superior.
A familiar song that an individual finds relaxing may therefore be useful even if it would not have the same effect on another listener.
The way a song develops over time may be more important than assigning it to a particular genre, according to the researchers’ findings.
That also suggests that constantly skipping tracks could change the experience. Allowing a piece of music to progress through its natural patterns of tension and resolution may give the listener exposure to the temporal structure researchers identified in the brain scans.
Earlier research into music-based therapies has similarly emphasized that more evidence is needed to determine which musical characteristics are most useful for particular conditions.
A nursing reference on complementary and alternative therapies has noted the need for additional high-quality research on music interventions and cited applications ranging from relaxation to auditory stimulation in patients with traumatic brain injuries.
Other rehabilitation references have listed music, relaxation recordings, progressive relaxation and deep-breathing exercises among methods used to help reduce muscular tension.
An alternative medicine handbook has described massage environments as often being “softly lit and bathed in low, soothing music.”
The current findings, however, concern a much narrower question: recovery after an acute episode of stress.
That distinction limits how broadly the results can be applied.
The researchers studied healthy young adults exposed to a controlled laboratory stressor. They did not establish that music would produce the same neurological or physiological response in people living with chronic stress, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders or other diagnosed mental health conditions.
The study also does not establish an ideal listening duration, playlist or therapeutic protocol.
Its primary contribution is evidence that music outperformed a pleasant natural-sound comparison under controlled conditions and produced measurable changes in both physiological recovery and communication among brain regions involved in stress regulation.
The findings fit within a broader research field examining simple behavioral approaches to stress management.
Separate studies cited by NaturalNews.com have reported associations between foundational daily habits — including regular sleep, exercise and breakfast consumption — and the ability to cope with stress.
Other research has linked higher daily step counts with lower reported levels of anxiety, depression and stress.
Those findings involve different study designs and do not demonstrate that music, walking, sleep or other individual behaviors are substitutes for medical or mental health treatment when treatment is needed.
For everyday acute stress, however, the new research offers a possible explanation for why turning on familiar music after an argument, demanding meeting, difficult commute or other short-term stressor can feel restorative.
The mindbodygreen report summarized the finding this way: “Music may help the brain and body recover after a stressful moment, especially as its changing sounds guide the listener through tension and release.”
Researchers said additional studies will be needed to determine whether the same mechanisms operate outside controlled laboratory conditions and whether music-based interventions can be developed for clinical use.
For now, the evidence suggests that after acute stress has already occurred, music may do more than provide pleasant background sound: its changing patterns appear to interact with the brain’s stress-regulation networks as mood, heart rate and autonomic activity return toward baseline.
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