How Quickly Can Music Improve Mood? Finding Your Ideal “Dose”

Here’s how Spiritune’s team of composers, scientists, and curators makes the therapeutic soundtracks you’ll find on our app.

Every Spiritune soundtrack takes listeners on a sonic journey from one emotion to the next. But before that can happen, each track goes through a journey of its own—one that travels through the realms of scientific research, smart technology, and artistic creativity. Here’s a look into the step-by-step process we use to create new music for our app.

Step 1: Set a strong foundation

To understand how our music is made, you need to travel back to the earliest days of Spiritune. In 2016, our founder and CEO Jamie Pabst assembled a team of neuroscience, music therapy, and composition experts to explore a central question: Is it possible to write a formula for music that delivers genuine therapeutic value?

In search of an answer, our team identified the main emotions that people tend to feel throughout the day. To keep ourselves organized and grounded, we created what’s known as a “two-dimensional affect plot”—a graphical representation of mental states with axes for emotions (moving from negative to positive) and energy (moving from low to high). This left us with four quadrants: high energy and negative emotion, high energy and positive emotion, low energy and negative emotion, and low energy and positive emotion.

From there, we plotted the most common emotions into their respective buckets: ‘Determined,’ ‘energized,’ and ‘joyful’ belonged in the high-energy and positive-emotion quadrant, for example, while ‘anxious,’ ‘frustrated,’ and ‘angry’ were more high-energy but negative-emotion. We also considered the times of day when emotional and cognitive support are most needed: When waking up, working, winding down, and getting to sleep.

Putting all of this information together, we came up with roughly 30 therapeutic journeys that people might want to take throughout their day—be it lethargic to energetic in the morning or anxious to relaxed at night. 

“And then it came to, well, what are the things that need to go into our music tracks to compose for these types of therapeutic goals?” says Pabst.

By leveraging musical elements like rhythm, pitch, melody, and harmony, our team was able to create briefs (or “sonic recipes,” as we call them) that serve as the foundation for creating music tracks that would successfully carry listeners along on these journeys. “That’s still the core of how we think about composing,” says Pabst. 

While the Spiritune team has tweaked and tightened these recipes a bit over time, the same fundamental process is still used to make every new track on our platform.

Step 2: Follow the recipe, with a twist

Utilizing the sonic recipes, we then turn to our network of 30 or so composers to turn it into a science-based soundtrack. 

A composer will use the sonic recipe we give them as a jumping-off point, but they’ll add their own artistic spin during the composition process. This means that the same brief can be executed many different ways, depending on the composer producing it. “I love the mix of one part standardization and science, and one part human creativity,” says Pabst. 

We decide which types of briefs to give composers next using listener feedback and app data. For example, if we see that many ‘Hearted’ tracks in the Spiritune app have a strong drum beat, we’ll request that composers use percussion or high-groove elements in their compositions. And if lots of listeners are seeking anxious-to-chill at work journeys, we’ll compose more tracks for that category. We also constantly reference new research in neuroscience and music therapy to ensure our parameters match up with the latest science. 

Step 3: Review the track 

Once a composer is done with a first draft of a new track, they’ll pass it to our team for review. We use a combination of human and machine learning to ensure the audio fulfills the sonic brief requirements.

When Spiritune first got started, back before AI was what it is today, we trained a computer model to analyze the energy and emotion of our audio tracks. Through this methodology, we are able to assign the music composition a score based on how well the music features match the intended emotional states (i.e., anxious to chill). The really cool thing is that it assigns a score for every three seconds of music as the track evolves, so we can monitor how tracks move through our emotional affect plot in real time. 

While this digital tool is impressive, it can’t replace the ear of a trained musician or an expert with scientific know-how. So we also put new tracks through a human editorial review. Members of our music editorial team—which includes neuroscientist Daniel Bowling, Ph.D., music therapist Concetta Tomaino, and a few other music curators—will listen to it and judge for themselves how it evokes the intended emotional response. Using these two layers of oversight, we’ll decide whether a track is ready to publish or if further drafts are needed.

In some cases, tracks go through several iterations before you can press play on them. But in general, the more composers work with us, the better they get at nailing the brief quickly and successfully. “We're always saying that Spiritune tracks just keep getting better and better,” says Pabst. “It's not necessarily that our science is changing. It’s that composers, over time, become more naturally attuned to what we're trying to accomplish and they develop, evolve and perfect their creative process accordingly.” 

Step 4: Share a finished product that moves you—and your mood

Every time you open the Spiritune app, you have access to our expansive music library, with new tracks typically added multiple times a week.

Once you choose your current mood state and your desired mood state, the app will serve up a playlist of tracks that have been conceptualized, composed, and refined to help you make that transition quickly. 

While each track offers a different listening experience, they all use standardized elements like groove and rhythm to serve a functional and science-backed purpose. And they’re all designed to be accessible to a wide variety of listeners. You won’t find any genre-specific music like hardcore rock or synth-heavy EDM on the platform; our tracks are genre-agnostic to please a broad range of musical tastes.

“The music is written to be broadly accessible. It’s simple, it's repetitive, it has a structure that's easy to learn and anticipate,” says Bowling, our neuroscience advisor. It also leverages groove in a way that is “directly associated with reward stimulation and the fun and enjoyment of music.” 

Carolyn Divone, Senior Director at Crunch Fitness, one of Spiritune’s clients, says “Spiritune is a game-changer for me personally, and it was a no-brainer to bring this to the Crunch Fitness community. It ties into our more recent focus on mental health, and I love the neuroscience focus of how the music is created, and it really works. This is a big value-add to Crunch employees and members nationwide, and more recently Spiritune has been a perfect fit for our new Relax and Recover spaces - allowing members to immediately relax after a hard workout.”

And there you have it! That’s the process we use to compose music that is clinically shown to move you—and your mood. 

Like what you're reading? Sign up for Spiritune’s newsletter to get a monthly music therapy download straight to your inbox. Haven’t tried Spiritune yet? Download it today with a free trial!

Our top five tips for the ultimate morning playlist: How to use music to unlock energy and focus:

While some lucky people seem to wake up with endless energy, most of us need to call in some liquid support in the mornings. Caffeine works by blocking certain brain receptors associated with drowsiness. But while it puts off yawns temporarily, caffeine doesn’t necessarily give us more energy—and it can compound fatigue in the long run (say, if we drink it too close to bedtime and disrupt our sleep).

Coffee or a caffeinated tea are great options for busy mornings, but it’s also worth trying other energizing strategies to help round out their effects. Enter: music! Music has its own stimulating impact on the brain and, when selected intentionally, can supply a mental boost and fight fatigue—without the jitters or crash. Here’s the science behind using music to unlock energy, and how to curate the perfect playlist to power your mornings.

Listening to music first thing in the morning can start the day on a high note.

Every time you press play on a song, you activate networks of your brain associated with memory, emotion, expectation, and reward. Depending on the type of music you’re listening to, your brain can respond by releasing certain chemicals that support energy and pleasure. 

Let’s start with oxytocin: Music is known to increase levels of oxytocin in the brain and body—the same “love hormone” that helps forge bonds between a mother and child. Daniel Bowling, Ph.D., Spiritune advisor and a leading expert in the neuroscience of music, notes that this helps explain why listening to music with other people can prompt feelings of connection. Oxytocin also helps buffer the body’s stress response, helping us start the day on the right foot.

When you listen to a song you enjoy, your brain also releases dopamine, the “pleasure hormone,” as the track reaches its musical peak. Dopamine interacts with some of the same brain infrastructure as caffeine, causing researchers to suspect that listening to music may reduce perceived exertion and restore motivation, making us feel like we have more energy and focus. (Though your personal relationship to the music makes a big difference here—more on why below.) 

Our bodies also tend to synchronize with the rhythm and tempo of music in a process known as entrainment. A landmark paper on musical neurodynamics notes that music’s temporal elements can subtly influence our heart rate, emotions, and body movements. In other words, we physically embody musical structure. From this perspective, it makes sense that “high-arousal” music (e.g., songs with faster tempos and more complex rhythms) may help us get over the hump of morning fatigue. 

While research directly investigating how music impacts energy levels first thing in the morning is limited, one study on 50 participants did find that waking up to melodic sounds seemed to ease perceived sleep inertia—the grogginess participants felt after waking—more than less melodic alarms. 

Though more research is needed, music does come with some energizing, mood-boosting (and side-effect-free!) benefits that may make for an easier wake-up. As the morning goes on, it can also go a long way in keeping the mind sharp. 

Later in the morning, music is a great companion for cognitively draining tasks.

As the morning progresses, many people need another pick-me-up to get through cognitively demanding tasks at work or at home. We all know the feeling of mental stupor that can cause us to reach for a second (or third… or fourth) cup of coffee. Though researchers aren’t exactly sure what causes mental fatigue symptoms, they suspect that after prolonged periods of focused thinking, certain molecules like glutamate might build up and negatively affect brain cell function. 

Music seems to offer an antidote by taking our mind off the task at hand, helping reduce the effort and mental exertion we think we need to put into it. In a science review called Does music counteract mental fatigue? authors note that a few different categories of music seem to help counteract brain strain: relaxing music, exciting music, and music that we personally really enjoy. When it comes to impacting cognition, not every type of tune will do the trick. 

Case in point: In research published last year, a group of healthy adults across the U.S. was asked to listen to one of four types of audio for 10 minutes: A Spiritune track, Spotify’s “Deep Focus” playlist, pop music from the Hot 100, or office noises. After the listening session, their mood was assessed and their cognitive speed was tested.

Spiritune’s Work Flow music was found to significantly improve participants’ positive affect (e.g., feelings of strength, enthusiasm, and determination) and decrease negative affect (e.g., feelings of stress, anxiety, and irritation) to a 4x greater degree than the other music conditions. People also scored higher on processing speed after listening to Spiritune—without losing accuracy. In fact, Spiritune music was the only music condition to improve this cognitive functionality.

In reflecting on what set Spiritune apart, study co-author Pablo Ripollés, Ph.D. says, "What we think is happening is this music is likable so it’s making people feel better and also it’s keeping people engaged because it has this groove.” It was likely the combination of strong groove, a slightly faster tempo, and minimal distracting elements (no lyrics) that helped promote energy and focus in this case. 

Tips for perfecting your morning playlist

To wrap things up, are the main ingredients for an energizing morning playlist based on research:

1. Choose energetic music for an energetic morning.  

Since your body tends to synchronize with certain rhythmic qualities of the music you listen to, tracks that are faster and more energetic may speed up your mornings. 

Conversely, Concetta Tomaino, Spiritune’s Music Therapy Advisor, notes that soothing, slow rhythms can reduce heart rate and lower anxiety, making them useful for times when you want to enter a calmer headspace (like right before bed).

2. … But be sure it’s something you like.

Your personal preferences play a major role in how music moves you. It doesn’t matter how upbeat and fast-tempo a track is: If you don’t like it, it won’t have as much of a positive effect on you. “Whether [a song is] therapeutic or not depends on the composer and on the listener,” Bowling says. 

Music that you are familiar with or that follows a recognizable, repeating pattern also tends to engage brain centers associated with expectation and reward. When you can anticipate where a song is headed next, and then it goes there, your brain responds by rewarding that successful prediction with a small surge of pleasure hormones. Learn more about the concept of musical reward here.

3. Find music that will wake up with you.

The iso principle is a core concept in music therapy that states that listening to music that matches your current mood or physiological state and then gradually transitions into your desired state seems to be most effective. Following this logic, you may want to ease into your morning by starting with softer, slower music that gets progressively faster, louder, or more upbeat.

4. Pair your music with coffee and other sensory treats.

Individually, music, coffee, and tea are a few of life’s great pleasures. And together, they may be even better! A study published in 2023 found that combining music with caffeine improved peak power during exercise compared with music alone. 

There’s also science to show that certain aromas can enhance energy and cognitive function. Consider building a morning routine that engages all the senses with strong coffee, zippy essential oils, and a great playlist.

5. Download Spiritune to let us do the curating for you.

Spiritune takes all the guesswork out of choosing music to move your mood. Our ‘Waking Up’ tracks leverage principles of neuroscience and music therapy to help listeners reach their goals quickly. 

Simply choose your starting mood and desired mindset (i.e., joyful, determined, excited, victorious) to set your personalized morning playlist into motion. Depending on your starting point, tracks will begin on the slower and more contemplative side, with an almost dreamy quality. As the beat comes in, your mind will get a little more tuned up and engaged. Then, you’ll be carried into a soundscape that is vibrant and energetic without being distracting. 

And as the morning progresses, Spiritune can become the ultimate sidekick for focused work, as demonstrated by the controlled trial on its cognitive benefits compared to other types of audio.

Give our ‘Waking Up’ tracks a try to see why Spiritune wins out over the snooze button.

Like what you're reading? Sign up for Spiritune’s newsletter to get a monthly music therapy download straight to your inbox. Haven’t tried Spiritune yet? Download it today with a free trial!

The World Cup is here to fill your summer with passion, heartbreak—and a mood-boosting playlist. Here’s how sport songs and anthems impact the brain, from a neuroscientist. —————

Olé, Olé, Olé!

Since the first World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930, rhythm, chanting, and song have been central to the games. 

Back in those early days, it took weeks for teams to travel to the competition by boat, and they supposedly passed the time by listening to onboard musical acts. Players were welcomed to those inaugural games at Centenario Stadium to the tune of "Uruguayos Campeones” (Uruguay Champions), widely considered the first official World Cup anthem.

Since then, many tracks written for the tournament—from “Waka Waka" by Shakira and “Wavin’ Flag” by K’Naan—have impacted pop culture and unified fans around the world. This year, music will play an even greater role in the games, and there will be a musical halftime show during the final match for the first time. 

Sound is a way to strengthen collective identity, build anticipation, and flood the body with feel-good hormones. Here’s the science behind music’s connection to sports—and what it teaches us about the brain’s reward system.

Why Music is Played at Every Major Sporting Event 

Head to any sporting match and you’ll likely hear music before players walk out, during timeouts, and at the game’s conclusion. Crowds will also chime in with coordinated chants, cheers, and team anthems—collective soundtracks that speak to music’s ability to bring people together. 

“[Sports music] is essentially a social bonding thing. It’s a way to connect and synchronize ourselves,” says Daniel Bowling, Ph.D., Spiritune Scientific Co-Founder and a leading expert in the neuroscience of music.

Bowling explains that when fans sing together, they become synchronized not just behaviorally, but physiologically and emotionally. 

When people engage in music together, their heart rates, breathing patterns, and movements tend to sync up. These subconscious reactions can lead to what’s known as self-other merging, which Bowling describes as “the dissolution of boundaries.” 

“It’s when you start to act and behave in the same way as everybody else around you. You're joining together, and you're losing your individualism, in a sense,” he adds. Research shows that this merging is a key ingredient of social bonding. 

In social settings, music can also simulate the production of oxytocin, the hormone of attachment that may further strengthen feelings of affiliation with those around us. 

It’s easy to see why sporting events, which are often stressful and emotionally taxing occasions, rely on music to build camaraderie. By connecting to rhythm, sports fans also connect to each other. 

Where Musical Reward Comes In

Beyond syncing us up with others, music can also connect us to ourselves and our emotions. The concept of “musical reward” describes how music stimulates our brain’s internal reward system in a similar way to other biological rewards, such as food. 

Bowling explains that researchers have studied this reward primarily by asking people to describe how certain songs make them feel and, more recently, by analyzing brain activity while music is playing.

Music that is pleasing, familiar, or follows a predictable rhythm seems to be most likely to evoke a positive response in the brain and body. If we anticipate what’s going to happen next in an anthem or chant, and then those expectations are met, the brain is more likely to reward us with feel-good hormones like dopamine. Some people may even tear up, get the chills, or feel almost euphoric as a result.

In this way, neuroscience helps explain why so many beloved sports anthems follow a predictable pattern: Their repetition is pleasing to the brain, and it may be more emotionally salient for a bigger group of fans.

Reaping Music’s Rewards Outside the Stadium

Rhythm is one of the most important musical elements for triggering positive responses in the brain, Bowling explains. “It doesn’t necessarily need to have a drum beat, but it needs to be systematically structured in time so people can follow it,” he says.

Similar to a moving song after a late-in-the-game goal, Spiritune’s music can activate the brain's pleasure and reward pathways. Each Spiritune track is composed using precise parameters for rhythm and groove. These sonic components are combined with tenets of music therapy to create music tailored to the listener’s goals—whether it’s to feel more energized, sleep better, or turn the mood around after a tough loss in the Knockout Stage.

We also pride ourselves on creating music that is broadly accessible and appealing to people with different backgrounds and preferences. Each track showcases the unifying elements of music to help listeners feel better quickly. 

Even after Shakira, Madonna, and BTS sing their last halftime note and this year’s World Cup festivities end, Spiritune will allow the camaraderie, emotional resonance, and reward of music to stay at your fingertips.

Like what you're reading? Sign up for Spiritune’s newsletter to get a monthly music therapy download straight to your inbox. Haven’t tried Spiritune yet? Download it today with a free trial!