Your New Favorite Music Is Heavy on the Science

More and more people are experiencing mental health issues. At the same time, they’re becoming increasingly interested in what all their options for treatment are, from pharmaceuticals to more holistic modalities. 

Among the many alternatives, there are treatments involving music, or what the National Institutes of Health (NIH) calls “music-based interventions.” 

The NIH points out that these music-based interventions are affordable, safe, and easily accessible. (It’s why we’re making it available at your literal fingertips.)

But “music” means many different things to different people, and, as one might expect, there are many different approaches to musical treatments in health care. In considering what’s available in this space, it is important to make a basic distinction between music medicine and music therapy, as these are the two most prominent types of musical treatment available today.

These might both be new terms for you. Or maybe you didn't know that they're not interchangeable. A key difference is that music therapy is typically provided by a board-certified music therapist. Just as a board-certified psychologist would lead someone through talk therapy, a music therapist guides someone through a music therapy session. This is directly parallel to talk therapy—there’s a therapeutic relationship, and the music therapist’s involvement is key.

With music medicine, on the other hand, there is more freedom in how it’s administered and who’s administering it. Music medicine can be self-administered at home without supervision, just like you might take a daily pill at home (hence the name, music medicine). Also, although music medicine can be administered or “prescribed” by a music therapist, it doesn’t have to be.  Think of it like an over-the-counter medicine.  

Accordingly, music medicine is very flexible. It can be taken at home, on a walk, in the car, at the office. Wherever you happen to be. 

In contrast, music therapy requires participation in dedicated sessions that have to be coordinated with the schedule of a certified therapist. 

Technology has transformed music medicine

In the US, music therapy was first defined and used in 1945 to treat veterans in psychiatric wards following WWII. Since then, music therapy has been very successful, expanding in scope and also in application. The problem is that there are only about 10,000 certified music therapists working in the US, which severely restricts access. Music medicine avoids this bottleneck by minimizing direct interaction with a therapist. Although it is still early days for music medicine, it is now growing even more rapidly, thanks to advances in mobile devices, music streaming apps (that’s us!), and telehealth.

As music medicine grows, maximizing its effectiveness involves building on the success of music therapy, but also recognizing how music medicine is different. For example, as alluded to above, a major difference is that music therapy requires a therapist. In some cases, a therapist and a patient really connect, easing interaction and supporting the expectation that therapy is working, which can then affect how treatment actually turns out. 

While this kind of interpersonal boost can be important, it isn’t really about the music itself. In a music medicine approach, where interaction with a therapist is more limited, all that’s left is the music, which must therefore be crafted with special care. This is what we do at Spiritune, combining best practices from music therapy with the latest research on music’s effects from neuroscience compositions that are well-aligned with specific therapeutic goals to support your mental health and wellbeing. 

Does music medicine work, though? Yes! In fact, the evidence suggests that, in many cases, it works just as well if not better than more traditional forms of music therapy, even without the positive interactions that can come from good rapport between a patient and their therapist . Encouragingly for the future of music-based interventions, as research continues to grow, it looks like what’s most important is the music itself. At Spiritune, we are focused on “doing it right” and making music medicine in the best possible way and growing its potential to radically expand access and improve health.

I can’t get more than a few seconds into the song “Midnight City” without thinking of nights driving around Sydney, Australia, as a college kid. And Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” never fails to transport me to my first post-pandemic vacation, on the cobblestone streets of Charleston, South Carolina.

I’m not alone in my headphone time travels. Everyone gets a music-evoked memory at one point or another. When’s the last time music took you somewhere else, and where did you go?

Researchers are just beginning to dig into why music can evoke such vivid and specific memories. Here’s what they’ve discovered so far—and how to use the connection between music, memory, and emotion to your advantage this summer and beyond.

The transportive power of music

Music, more than other sensory cues, can transport us back to specific times in our lives. Listening to a nostalgic song tends to evoke more detailed, emotionally charged memories than looking at a photo, for example.

These are called music-evoked autobiographical memories, or MEAMs for short. Research shows that MEAMs tend to be strong, specific, and, in many cases, subconscious. Even those with dementia are still able to recall familiar songs and the life experiences associated with them in some cases.

It’s not clear what makes music so evocative, but the answer could lie in the brain regions that control emotion and memory. 

Yiren Ren, Ph.D., a cognitive neuroscientist studying music and memory, recently set up an experiment that had people listen to music and recall certain memories while hooked up to an fMRI scanner. After analyzing the results, Ren and collaborators noticed enhanced activity in the amygdala (the brain’s emotional center) and the hippocampus (essential for storing and retrieving memories) during the exercise.

“This is why a song associated with a significant life event can feel so powerful – it activates both emotion- and memory-processing regions simultaneously,” Ren writes about her research in The Conversation.

Separate research finds that songs we consider more pleasurable tend to be the best at setting off this response, giving us a clue about how to use this mental marvel to our advantage. 

Who gets MEAMs the most?

Though everyone has their own experience with music-evoked autobiographical memories, research suggests that most people have them fairly frequently, at least once a day on average.

One study published in 2019 investigated when, exactly, these memories seemed to be most likely to occur. After asking 31 adults to track their music and memories throughout the day, researchers found that most MEAMs happened while they were driving or taking public transport, or while doing routine tasks or activities that are less cognitively demanding, like housework, relaxing, getting ready, or walking.

People over the age of 60 seem to experience more MEAMs than younger adults (potentially because they have more life experience to pull upon), and women may be more likely to get them than men.

Making memories with music

Most of us intuitively know that music can spark memories, but understanding the science of why and how this happens can help us use sound more intentionally in our daily lives. We can all get into the habit of time traveling with music, starting this summer.

The next time you have an experience that you want to remember, try making a playlist for it. Think of this playlist as a portal you can use to keep returning to that moment again and again. Play it in the background while you’re doing routine tasks that don’t require much attention, and see where your mind takes you. It could be right back to that special place you want to revisit.

You can tailor this playlist technique to what, specifically, you’re looking to remember. If it’s a summer vacation to a new place, try adding a mix of local songs and music that you listened to on your trip. If it’s an experience with a friend or loved one, throw on some songs you associate with that person. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s music that you enjoy and find pleasure in to maximize your chances of experiencing a MEAM.

This is just one example of an actionable, science-backed way to use sound in your health and well-being routine. Along with music therapy apps like Spiritune, “memory playlists” can be valuable tools for reinvigorating your mood and mindset using music.

Here at Spiritune, we talk a lot about the power of music to alter mood. When you’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or anxious, listening to music can help take your mind off these emotions and encourage your body to relax.

One natural follow-up question we often get is: How quickly does this happen? How long do you need to listen to music before it can improve your mood? The answer isn’t so cut-and-dried; it largely depends on the person, music, and context. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re sharing the nuanced research on how much music to listen to at a time for maximum, lasting stress reduction benefits.

Clocking music’s impacts

Before we dig into the ideal “dose,” let’s review the pathways through which music relieves stress. 

First off, listening to pleasurable music engages brain regions associated with reward, motivation, and emotions. For the neurology-curious: The ventral striatum, midbrain, amygdala, orbitofrontal, and ventral medial prefrontal cortices have all been implicated in the listening experience. Once a song or musical track reaches its peak intensity, it can trigger the release of dopamine in the brain, contributing to feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and enjoyment.

Music-evoked positive emotions can help counter the negative emotions brought on by stress, and there are a few theories on why. For starters, music may act as an “anchor” that draws our attention away from ruminative, repetitive thoughts. Some studies have also found that listening to music can decrease elevated cortisol levels following a stressor compared to silence or non-musical controls (think: the sound of rippling water).

An analysis of 104 randomized controlled trials, published in 2019, concluded that music can not only ease the emotions associated with stress, but the physical sensations of stress as well.

Music listening is known to cause changes in heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension due in part to the process of entrainment. Entrainment happens when our bodies’ rhythms begin to synchronize with the rhythms of music.

Research on musical entrainment shows that it happens relatively quickly. In one study, classical music influenced people’s heart rate variability (HRV) within just three minutes of listening.

This suggests that some of the effects of music listening happen nearly instantly, but these may be too subtle to pick up on (after all, you can’t feel your HRV going up and down). 

As for how long it takes for music to contribute to noticeable changes in mood, estimates vary—but one fascinating study found that 20 minutes seems to be a threshold. 

Published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine in 2017, this study prompted 60 undergraduate students to report on their music listening habits in real time. Every day for a week, students consented to having their music activities tracked (via an iPod or smartphone). At random intervals throughout the day, they were prompted to answer questions about their stress, mood, and music listening behavior as they went about their usual routine. 

This was an “ambulatory assessment,” meaning it studied individuals in their natural environments instead of in a lab to get a sense of real-life behaviors. 

After crunching the numbers, researchers found that participants reported significantly higher stress levels when they had recently listened to music for less than 5 minutes. Listening to music for more than 20 minutes was associated with lower stress reports, suggesting this could be a sweet spot for maximum benefits. 

What type of music is best?

To recap, research suggests that our bodies tend to “sync” to the music we listen to within a few minutes, but listening to music for at least 20 minutes at a time has been associated with stress reduction benefits.

That said, everyone is different! The preferences, emotions, and memories you bring to the experience of listening no doubt impact the way that music impacts you on any given day.

Certain types of music also seem to be more effective at relieving stress than others. This was beautifully demonstrated in a qualitative study on seven young people (19–28 years old) suffering from depression. Researchers interviewed participants about the type of music they listened to when they were in a low mood. 

“When participants listened to music that mirrored their current circumstances, this appeared to have less desirable mood outcomes, possibly because listening to such music is akin to ruminating,” researchers concluded. On the other hand, listening to more upbeat or optimistic music was found to offer a distraction from depressive thoughts, albeit a brief one.

Some combination of the two—music that matches one’s negative mood and then gradually transitions to become more positive—seems to be most effective for lasting relief. 

Take this 2021 study, in which healthy adults watched a sad movie clip before listening to two pieces of music. The music fell into the buckets of: sad-sad, sad-happy, happy-happy, and happy-sad. “The group of participants who listened to the sad music first and the happy music afterwards ultimately reported a higher positive affect, a higher emotional valence, and a lower negative affect compared with the other groups,” researchers found.

Now, to put these findings into practice: The next time you’re feeling stressed or down, try playing music that matches your current mood before transitioning into a more positive rhythm and structure. Listen for at least 20 minutes and repeat as needed throughout the day. 

Spiritune is an ideal ally for this type of targeted musical intervention. Our tracks are designed using principles of neuroscience and music therapy to gradually guide listeners from their current mood to their desired mood state. Once you press play on a track, it will continue for as long as you need. Whether your journey to calm takes two minutes or twenty, we’re so happy to help guide the way.