Toscano 1

Ana Toscano

Professor Nelson

English 1302-104

6 November 2021

Music's Mood-Inducing Effects

Listening to music can be a powerful source that can affect a person's emotions. Listening

to music can change a person's mood depending on the type of music being played. A person's

mood can affect not just the individual but the others around them when it comes to music.

Furthermore, it is quite common for a person to find comfort in certain types of songs when they

start to feel in a certain way. Listening to a certain song can help the person feel better and or

worse than what they were before. Listening to music in a way is a mood booster rather than a

Debbie downer to anyone no matter what their age may be. It can show that listening to music is

a mood booster when either the person begins to dance or when they get down when they listen

to music since they look sad. While some songs do also help a person focus on what they may be

doing while some may help a person to be relaxed. There have been different studies that show

that a certain genre of songs helps relieve a person of their pent-up emotions that they may be

holding in. In the end it really depends on the certain individual. In one of the following articles,

it states that the type of song choice just depends on the person and emotions that they are

currently feeling (Cohreds, 22). Told by Campbell she stated that listening to music can be

helpful for a person that is holding on to too many emotions that can affect their moods in other

many different ways (1133). Music is a good outlet for a person so that they can relieve their

types of emotions so that they feel relaxed. This paper makes a case for a music listening

protocol as a kind of behavioral theory that reduces stressful emotions.

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Tragically, emotions are something that a person has to feel throughout their whole life.

Nonetheless, listening to music no matter where you hear it, can lead to some different types of

emotion. A person that has lots of stress and it can cause serious health issues and or death of an

individual. An example of this could be from Van den Tol he states,” stress is single handedly

the leading cause and factor for many people deaths in all parts of the world,” it shows us that an

individual having lots of stress can lead a person to get any type of diseases and or mood swings;

but however, this type of emotions can be helped with music it being a person’s therapy (491). In

addition, writers Suvi Saarikallio and Sirke Nieminen and Elvira Brattico experimented on 44

men and women to show readers of the article to prove her claim that listening to music does

help a person's health in many beneficial ways, which can be something that can be stress

reducing for a person (31). Furthermore, these adults listening to music so that it can help them

relax is an important part of their life. Suvi Saarikillio showed us that listening to music to help

someone relax has a great significance in reducing a person's stress levels (32). An example of

this could be, when talking about how music helps her get rid of her stress, Kariana Mendoza

talks about doing homework that involves hard questions that gives her stress. She tends to listen

to classical music since it helps her focus more on the work and not stop again and again. On the

flip side when she is working at work she tends to play happy and cheerful music to help her

relax from the bad things around their workspace (Personal Interview. 3 November 2021). This

comes to show that music has a major impact in reducing stress in a person's daily life.

Furthermore, since listening to music helps reduce blood pressure and decreases the heart

rhythm, it has a favorable effect on reducing anxiety. Anxiety manifests itself in a variety of

ways, including excessive shaking or sobbing, as well as oversimplifying. When listening to

music it helps to control since it helps the person to listen or just give their undivided attention to
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the things around them. An example can be, in Sandra Garrido and Emery Schubert claims that

listening to music helps to soothe someone with anxiety and it helps the person due to the fact it

helps with breathing, heart rate, as well as blood pressure (256). Furthermore, Caroline Cohrdes

states that in her experiment she played a series of random songs and sounds to see how certain

songs or sounds either had an increase or decrease of anxiety or mood improvement in different

individuals in the experiment (26). An example is this could be, Alexa Martinez says that when

she gets a feeling of anxiety she listens to different types of calming music (Piano) it helps slow

her breathing and heart rate so that she can relax (Personal Interview 2 November 2021). In

addition, Cohrdes states that students when at school tend to listen to calming music in class

while doing work so that they are not stressed out and they can relax, and it helps with their

anxiety (27). Sandra Garrido’s and Emery Schubert's article shows that calming music tends to

decrease all the bad anxiety that a person may be having in any type of setting (245). In the end

these articles show us how music can be beneficial, and it has a significant impact on changing a

person's anxiety.

Because of the words and the feelings associated with the song, music does help people

process their trauma more effectively. Moreover, individuals having witnessed the healing power

and impact of music over emotional suffering. For example, Elizabeth Campbell shows us the

emotions that a person would be feeling after experiencing a really traumatic or an emotional

type of event and their state of mind and to use music as a tool to help the person with therapy

(1134). Additionally, Van de Tol and J.M. Annemiek and Jane Edwards state the music is a good

therapy for many people that do suffer from PTSD (475). Going through trauma is not easy to

get over. No matter what the event may be a death of a loved one, abuse, assault, war trauma,

and kidnapping it can be hard to be stress free after these types of events. After these said events
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people in the end have a hard time trusting anyone since they feel that they may not have anyone

to talk to. But listening to music helps the person with the trauma cope with their thoughts and

feelings so that they can move on and not be stuck in the past. Music is used to give an

individual that is feeling some type of negative emotions some happy emotions that can help

them with trauma that they are holding within themselves (Saarikallio, 34). Moreover, having

PTSD is such a health damager in so many ways that's why when someone is listening to music

it does help increase a person's positive feelings about lots of things (Va de Tol, (475). Having

trauma fundamentally alters a person's life in many different ways. When a person either goes

through something like assault, kidnapping, and or other events they are always going to be

paranoid, and they may not want to leave or go to a place alone and are always looking around to

see if they are being followed around. But with the help of listening to music it lets them to

become distracted and not think about dark things like their thoughts. These articles show us that

music is a good tool for a person that holds lots of stress and anxiety, this helps them move past

their trauma.

Furthermore, one of the most difficult times an individual may experience is depression,

however music can help to alleviate some of this agony by improving one’s mood to allow them

to have a connection with their emotions. An example, Van den tol , J.M.Annemieke and Jane

Edwards state that there are many ways to treat depression, but music does have a positive effect

in helping disorders such as depression (474). While, Sandra Garrido and Emery Schubert state

that around 90.45% of people tend to have depression waves throughout their life, but with the

help of music to help release emotions (247). For example, several individuals turn towards

music while they are feeling upset and or through a tough period since listening to music and

also be able express what they are feeling and try to find a method of dealing and releasing all of
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one's feelings. Andrea Gomez talked about what happens when she is feeling down, she tends to

put on music so that she can feel better. Moreover, when she is sad, she tends to listen to dreadful

music so she can let her self-cry to get all emotions that she has had bottled up inside her

(Personal Interview, 6 November 2021). In the end, musical therapy is useful in order to treat

depression because it reduces stress levels and promotes mental wellbeing.

To summarize, listening to music does have a significant positive beneficial impact on

helping and coping with stress skills, anxiety, and behavioral health improvement. What is

written in this paper shows us that there are many different experiments and or practices that are

able to back up this information on this topic. On the other hand, we can still research the topic

of music to expand information for this claim. Many individuals throughout the globe are

unaware of the impact music has on a human's life. Hopefully, this essay can help inspire

someone to look more into this topic about how music is very helpful on a person's health so that

we can have more ways of practicing using music. In the end, listening to music can be used in

all types of settings in order to prompt self-mental health care for everyone around the world.
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Work Cited

Campbell, Elizabeth Ann, Elizaveta Berezina and C M Hew D Gill “The Effects of Music

Induction on Mood and Affect in an Asian Context.”Psychology of Music, vol. 49, no. 5,

Sept. 2021, pp. 1132–1144, doi:10.1177/0305735620928578.

Cohrdes, Caroline,Wrzus,Wald-Fuhrmann, Riediger “‘The Sound of Affect’: Age Differences

in Perceiving Valence and Arousal in Music and Their Relation to Music Characteristics

and Momentary Mood.” Musicae Scientiae, vol. 24, no. 1, Mar. 2020, pp. 21–43,

doi:10.1177/1029864918765613

Garrido, Sandra, and Emery Schubert. “Moody Melodies: Do They Cheer Us up? A Study of the

Effect of Sad Music on Mood.” Psychology of Music, vol. 43, no. 2, Mar. 2015, pp. 244–

261, doi:10.1177/0305735613501938.

.Saarikallio, Suvi, Sirke Nieminen and Elvira Brattico. “Affective Reactions to Musical Stimuli

Reflect Emotional Use of Music in Everyday Life.” Musicae Scientiae, vol. 17, no. 1,

Mar. 2013, pp. 27–39, doi:10.1177/1029864912462381.

Last name, first name. Personal Interview. 12 April 2021

Last name, first name. Personal Interview 2 November 2021

Last name, first name. Personal Interview 6 November 2021

Van den Tol, Annemieke J. M., and Jane Edwards. “Listening to Sad Music in Adverse

Situations: How Music Selection Strategies Relate to Self-Regulatory Goals, Listening

Effects, and Mood Enhancement.” Psychology of Music, vol. 43, no. 4, July 2015, pp.

473–494, doi:10.1177/0305735613517410.