Dec 2, 2024
The Sound of Relief: Music’s Role in Easing Pain
The Sound of Relief: Music’s Role in Easing Pain
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In 2021, a fascinating study shadowed nearly 50 people during a notoriously painful experience: surgery. For five days after arthroplasty (joint) surgery, half of the group was instructed to listen to the music of their own choice in 30-minute increments. Lo and behold, the participants who listened to music reported significantly lower pain intensity and distress than those who didn’t—both in the hospital and after they returned home.
This is just one of many studies to conclude music can be a valuable pain intervention—and one that we need now more than ever. According to the latest NIH data, approximately 21% of adults in the U.S. suffer from chronic pain, making the condition even more common than diabetes, depression, and high blood pressure.
All pain responses are unique, multifaceted, and highly personal. This complexity makes it difficult to pinpoint how, exactly, music fits into the pain puzzle, but researchers are learning more with each passing tune.
Why does music help ease pain?
Here are five reasons why music may help ease pain quickly, cheaply, and without side effects:
Music takes advantage of the “gate control theory”
One of the earliest theories on the pain response is known as the “gate control theory.” Introduced in the 1960s, it states that pain happens when peripheral triggers (say, a burn on your leg) send signals up the spinal cord and into the brain. The pain pathways of the nervous system act as gates that can be opened or closed, the theory says.
Listening to music may be a way to close the gates, so to speak, and prevent pain signals from reaching the brain and triggering a response.
“If someone is listening to music [during a painful event], that would engage the auditory nerve pathway in the brain,” explains Concetta Tomaino, DA, the Executive Director of The Institute for Music & Neurologic Function and the Music Therapy Advisor at Spiritune. “Their brain networks would be engaged by music listening [and] that activation would actually close some of the upward-bound signals from the periphery into the brain.”
Listening to music provides a distraction from pain
As anyone who finds it hard to stay on-task when certain songs are playing knows, music can be distracting. But in the context of pain, a little distraction is a helpful thing.
In his book, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord, neuroscientist and musician Daniel J. Levitin writes: “The brain is bombarded with millions of inputs every hour, and we pay attention to only a small proportion of them. People who are in enriched environments—with lots of things to see, listen to, and do—experience less pain than those in simpler environments.” By this logic, he writes, music can provide a welcome distraction from pain.
This in-the-moment distraction is helpful temporarily, but it doesn’t explain why music can lead to longer-term decreases in pain (like those the joint surgery patients experienced after they returned home). To answer this question, researchers have started to dig deeper into the inner workings of the brain.
When we listen to enjoyable music, it releases dopamine and serotonin
Advancements in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology have made it possible to look more closely at the regions of the brain that get activated when we listen to music.
These tests have demonstrated that music affects the brain’s pleasure pathways in a similar way to a tasty meal. When we prepare to listen to a favorite song, our brains go through a phase of expectation and anticipation. Then, when we press play, a reward is delivered in the form of positive neurochemicals.
“When you’re listening to pleasurable music, there’s a release of dopamine and serotonin which gives you a pleasurable feeling. That ends up diminishing the pain experience,” says Tomaino.
Music can soothe stress and anxiety
Pain and anxiety go hand-in-hand. Think about what happens when you know pain is coming, like in the case of a shot: Your anticipatory stress can make it feel even more extreme and intense. On the flip side, reducing your anxiety might also tone down your pain response.
Listening to music—particularly slow, calming music—is a well-established way to practice stress management: It can bring down cortisol levels (a stress hormone), reduce heart rate, and lower blood pressure, preventing anxiety from turning up the volume on pain.
Music provides the opportunity to socialize
Finally, listening to (and playing!) music in a group is a wonderful way to build connections and interact with other people. The resulting social bonds can further reduce anxiety and provide a distraction from pain (as well as expand empathy, change perspectives, and incite awe).
The ins and outs of using music for pain management
With decades of experience administering music therapy in different medical settings, Tomaino has a wealth of knowledge on using music to address chronic and acute pain. Here are her top tips:
What types of music should I play?
Tomaino notes that a song that is calming and comforting to one person may not be to another. So in moments of pain, it’s best to listen to music you, personally, enjoy.
That said, certain frequencies and tempos do seem to incite a more widespread positive response, she says. Music medicine platforms like Spiritune harness these universal sounds to help listeners of all ages, preferences, and backgrounds move from one mental state to another. Think of Spiritune’s expert-crafted playlist as “audio elixirs” you can take any time, anywhere.
How should I listen to it?
To address intense pain in the moment, Tomaino typically asks patients to give a song their full attention. “They need to slow their breath down and become mindful of the sounds of the music so they can induce a state of well-being and calm, and also distract from the pain signal,” she says.
For those with lingering dull pain, this level of attention may not be necessary. Instead, she says, “If they have something in the background that keeps them comfortable and soothed, their experience of pain should be diminished.”
In the case of chronic pain, Tomaino recommends creating a personal affirmation or mantra to call on when things get intense. You can then craft a playlist of songs that remind you of your mantra’s theme—be it power, strength, or inner peace. That way, the playlist is there for you to listen to as needed to help you break the pain cycle in the brain. Spiritune's prompts in app can be a hybrid version of the mantra approach (i.e. "I feel tense and I'm moving to peaceful").
Appreciating and accepting music's therapeutic powers is a great starting point, then taking it seriously and being intentional about your approach will help you reap the biggest rewards.
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May 28, 2026
How Music Promotes Mental Health Around the World
Music goes hand in hand with culture. It’s long served as a tool to share stories, celebrate victories, and call for change. One of the few types of expressions that transcends language, it remains an invisible string that connects people around the world.
Music’s power is universal, but each place has its own way to share it. Today, we’re traveling the globe to explore a few moving examples of expression through sound. Read through to learn about the history, significance, and meaning behind each one, or just press play and let the tunes do the talking.
The sweeping stories of ‘pansori’ in South Korea
Pansori is a traditional Korean practice that pairs singing with the spoken word. In a typical performance, one drummer and one vocalist work together to express an emotional, rhythmic story on stage.
To reach a passionate, emotional timbre, pansori vocalists look to nature as a teacher. Some are said to spend weeks studying in the mountains, singing next to waterfalls to emulate the waters’ sonic intensity in their storytelling.
“Pansori vocalization amplifies the dramatic effect of every single object and character surrounding the story," said Ahn Sook Sun, one of South Korea’s most renowned pansori performers. Storylines often touch on themes of love, sacrifice, and honor, exploring the human conditions in ways that are moving and cathartic for audiences.
Learn more and watch a performance here.
The science-backed soundscapes of ‘forest bathing’ in Japan
Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, originated in Japan as a way to help overworked city dwellers unwind in the natural world. Doctors began to study the impacts of slow, mindful forest walking on people’s physical and mental health in the 1980s, and have since concluded that it can reduce stress while measurably improving sleep quality and immunity. These days, there are over 50 forest therapy bases throughout Japan where people can go to benefit from Shinrin-yoku alongside a certified guide.
Shinrin-yoku differs from a typical walk or hike because of its emphasis on the five senses, with sound playing a major role in the experience. Guides will often prompt people to close their eyes and give the forest’s soundscape their full attention, honing in on how different songs of the outdoors make them feel. There’s a range of research to suggest that nature soundscapes are uniquely restorative, and just listening to an audio recording of forest environments seems to be enough to have a calming effect on the body and mind.
Immerse yourself in the sounds of the forest here.
The meditative tones of ‘ragas’ in India
The English translation of raga is “color,” and this Indian classical music is thought to paint the mind with different emotional hues. Each note is intentional, with certain tones corresponding to particular times of the day or year. Raga Yaman is a serene evening melody, for example, while Raga Desh is romantic and associated with the rainy season. Raga music can be played with a variety of instruments, including the sitar, tabla (hand drums), and bansuri (flute).
“Many raags [ragas] are designed to work like a prescription, enhancing a particular mood, time of day, season, emotion or ambience,” writer Jameela Siddiqi noted in Darbar, an Indian classical music platform.
Modern science continues to validate the ancient music’s power, with EEG recordings showing that just a few minutes of listening to ragas evokes feelings of joy and calmness, or sadness and tension, in listeners.
Listen to a moving morning raga here.
The enduring spiritual power of ‘Gnawa’ music in Morocco
Gnawa is a spirited and expressive type of Moroccan music with roots in the 16th century. Named for the Gnawa people, who arrived in Morocco by way of West Africa, it was traditionally played during healing ceremonies to evoke and communicate with spirits and ancestors. Today, it retains a deep cultural significance in the country, where master practitioners share Gnawa—a United Nations Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity practice—with the next generation.
It combines chanting and traditional instruments, such as the guembri (a three-stringed lute) and the qraqeb (a metal castanet). Songs use repetitive rhythms to evoke a trance-like state. As one listener described to CBS, attending a performance is "like being on the edge of time.”
Watch a NYC-based Gnawa group, Innov Gnawa, perform here.
The grounding quality of the ‘six healing sounds’ in China
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the six healing sounds are vocalizations meant to energize different organs in the body. The practice of Qigong combines these sounds with breathwork and gentle movement in order to calm the nervous system and clear energetic blocks. Dating back to roughly the 5th century AD, it’s one of the oldest sonic practices in the world.
Watch a demonstration of the practice here.
While musical traditions may sound vastly different around the world, many of the elements that make music emotionally powerful are surprisingly universal. Across cultures, humans respond to core acoustic features like rhythm, tempo, tonal simplicity, repetition, and dynamic shifts in remarkably similar ways.
At Spiritune, our compositions are designed around these universal principles.
Drawing from neuroscience and music therapy research, we intentionally use tonal, rhythmic, and energetic elements shown to support relaxation, focus, emotional regulation, and more across diverse populations. Rather than relying on genre or personal taste, our approach focuses on the underlying acoustic qualities of music that the human brain and body naturally respond to.
“Music may differ across cultures, but the emotional and physiological mechanisms behind how humans respond to sound are deeply shared,” says Jamie Pabst, founder and CEO of Spiritune. “At Spiritune, we’re inspired by musical traditions around the world and use universal acoustic principles to create therapeutic music experiences that can help people feel better no matter where they’re from.”
In many ways, music has always been one of humanity’s oldest forms of medicine — a universal language capable of connecting us not only to our cultures, but also to ourselves.
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!
Apr 24, 2026
How Music Helped Fuel the Record-Breaking Artemis II Space Mission
Houston, we have a playlist. Learn about the role that sound played on the Artemis II mission, and how you can use it to supercharge your workdays down on Earth.
Earlier this month, the Artemis II team extended the limits of humanity, traveling further from our home planet than anyone has ever been. So far away from home, almost nothing feels familiar: Living quarters are tight, cramped, and noisy; food is dehydrated; showering is impossible; and every movement must be maneuvered to a zero-g environment. Yet, even hundreds of thousands of miles away, the coos of Chappell Roan’s “I know you wanted me to stay…” kept the crew tethered to Earth.
Like many who came before them, the Artemis II astronauts listened to music daily in order to stay motivated, comfortable, and connected to friends and family. Their space playlist is a powerful reminder of music’s ability to bring people together and help them excel individually. Here are a few lessons we’re taking away from a record-breaking mission—and the music that helped tune it.
A Song to Start the Day
This isn’t the first time that music has been sent to space. NASA has a long tradition of broadcasting songs to astronauts, often in the mornings to start their days on a high note. The first recorded instance of this was a special recording of “Hello Dolly,” made for the 1965 Gemini 6 mission. The lyrics, “While the earth's turning, the midnight oil was burning,” welcomed the two-person crew back after their 26-hour mission.
The Artemis II team started every “morning” (as much as mornings can exist without sunrise) in space with a song chosen by their crew, friends, and families. Their wake-up playlist featured a mix of newer pop tracks and familiar classics, with Tokyo Drifting and Under Pressure said to be among the team’s favorites. Their last day of the expedition fittingly started with “Run to the Water” by Live, a departure from the classic return song, “Going Back to Houston.”
Previous space missions have also included live musical performances. “In December, 1965, Guptain Schirra and Major Stafford, using a harmonica and small bells, performed in space for the earthlings, radioing their version of ‘Jingle Bells,’” notes an article from the 1968 archives of The New York Times.
According to NASA, space psychologists have long recognized music as a tool for maintaining morale on long-haul journeys. Now, the International Space Station is rumored to have two guitars, a keyboard, and a saxophone, and crewmembers are welcome to bring their own instruments aboard as well.
How to Bring Music into Your Daily Missions
We’re not all astronauts jetting through space at 60,000 miles an hour (thank goodness!). But music can still set us up for success each day, much like it did for the Artemis II team. It can be a particularly helpful tool during the workday, especially if you work in a job that toggles between periods of focus and creativity.
Here are a few research-backed ways music can enhance your work—whether you’re testing deep space systems or just an Excel spreadsheet.
It improves mood, which can prime us for productivity.
As Spiritune’s Founder and CEO Jamie Pabst writes in an article for Fortune, “Studies have shown that listening to music can improve negative moods and reduce stress. When we’re in a relaxed, positive state, our brains are primed for productivity: We’re better at attending to and focusing on the work at hand and we get more done.”
A growing body of research reinforces that listening to music helps regulate people’s emotional responses and feel less burdened by stress, even during challenging times. In turn, this shift in mood reduces one’s risk of burnout and disengagement.
“Music stands out in this context because it is one of the easiest and most accessible ways to boost mood and decrease stress, particularly while on the job,” Pabst adds. Take a page from NASA’s book and curate a morning tunes playlist that puts you in a good mood to set yourself up for a more positive workday.
It sparks creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
The next time you’re stuck on a problem, try taking a break to listen to a song or musical track. Research suggests it could help your brain make new and unexpected connections.
One study found that those who listened to upbeat music while performing a task tended to approach it more creatively than those who worked in silence. The study authors suspect this was due to music’s ability to shift participants’ perspectives and adopt more flexible thinking. “When getting stuck in a rut, it can be helpful to, instead of digging deeper, dig elsewhere,” they write.
It enhances focus and flow.
In a workplace context, music can be a practical tool for masking distracting noise, allowing us to reach a focused “flow state” more easily.
“There is also good evidence to support that music can improve executive function, particularly when it comes to performance on cognitive tasks that involve sustained attention, response inhibition, repetition, and flow, which is critical when we want to execute tasks efficiently and operate at our best in the workplace,” Pabst notes on Fortune.
It zooms out our perspective.
Many astronauts note that their time in space gives them a new outlook on life on Earth—a phenomenon known as the “overview effect.” Looking at the planet from afar reminds them just how precious and fragile life is, and how connected we are to everyone and everything else on our Pale Blue Dot.
While music can’t entirely recreate this feeling, it is known to evoke its own sense of awe, gratitude, and connection. If you’ve ever gotten the chills listening to a song or felt moved to tears by certain lyrics, you know how sounds prompt us to reflect on our lives and put our problems into perspective—a skill that’s valuable at work and beyond.
Getting on the Right Track
Playing certain music as you work can help you focus on the task at hand, make creative connections, and enjoy a better mood—but not all tracks are created equal.
As one randomized controlled study that Spiritune was involved in showed, instrumental music tends to be better for enhancing mood and cognition than music with distracting lyrics. A song’s tempo, groove, and complexity can also impact how it helps or harms our workdays.
Spiritune’s music therapist-designed tracks are created to be enjoyable and not distracting, making them the perfect desk companion. Research shows that they increase positive mood and decrease negativity during mentally demanding tasks, and help sharpen cognitive ability without sacrificing accuracy—all after just 10 minutes or less.
Companies from The World Bank and Crunch Fitness to McLaren IndyCar and Galileo Health are now using our science-backed tracks to help their employees combat stress, taking a dent out of the $225 billion in lost productivity and absenteeism each year.
"Spiritune is my own personal go-to for stress relief and focus. I also refer it to all my anxiety/depression patients. I'm so glad this is a resource we can officially share with our team and patients," says Sophie Piso, a Behavioral Health Coach with Galileo.
Back Down to Earth
Since the Apollo II crew returned to our orbit on April 10, they’ve reunited with their families, readjusted to gravity, and started recovering from a grueling mission in an unfamiliar place. But music is undoubtedly one element of their time in space that they’re continuing to enjoy.
Take a note out of their book and consider how you can more intentionally work music into your toughest workdays, using sound as a way to bring yourself back down to Earth.
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!
Mar 25, 2026
I’ve Been Studying Music Therapy for 50 Years: How I’ve Seen the Field Evolve
A conversation with Concetta Tomaino—Spiritune Music Therapy Advisor—for International Women in Music Day.
Concetta Tomaino has worked at the intersection of music and health for nearly fifty years. Along the way, she’s co-authored numerous studies, co-founded the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function alongside leading neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, and, perhaps most importantly, helped patients with severe illness find their voice through sound.
Spiritune is honored to call Tomaino our Music Therapy Advisor. As Founder and CEO Jamie Pabst shares, “Connie’s decades of work in music therapy have laid the scientific and clinical foundation that makes what we’re building at Spiritune possible. Having her as an advisor helps us understand what’s been built in the past so we can more thoughtfully build toward the future—and I feel incredibly lucky to have her guiding us. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to carry her legacy forward by bringing music-based care to more people, more accessibly than ever before.”
This International Women in Music Day (March 28), we’re tracing Tomaino’s time in the field—from her childhood as a trumpet player to her early research in New York nursing homes to her modern goal to bring the power of music therapy to the masses.
How did you get started in the music therapy field?
I wanted to be a medical doctor since I was two years old. But I’ve also been involved in music my whole life. I sang in the choir at church, and in high school, I picked up the trumpet and played in the band.
I was really a science geek, and in college, I became a pre-med student in chemistry and biology. I wanted to keep up with trumpet lessons in college, but in order to do that, I had to become a music major. So I was double-majoring in music and sciences.
By my junior year, I had a dilemma: Do I pursue music or medicine?
It was just by accident that one day I saw an ad that said ‘Career in music therapy.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my God, what is music therapy?’
It just so happened—again, by luck—that the band director at my college at the time was also the band director at NYU. And two years before, NYU had just started a master's program in music therapy. And so I graduated in June of 1976 and started attending my first music therapy course that July. My first internship was at a nursing home in Brooklyn, New York.
What was it like to work as a music therapist in nursing homes at that time?
Not much was known about Alzheimer's and dementia back then. Patients were overmedicated, tube-fed, and tied to wheelchairs so they wouldn't scream and pull out their nasogastric feeding tubes. They were written off as being non-responsive and not aware of themselves.
But when I sang a familiar song to them, they came back to life.
They not only participated, but they also seemed less agitated. They obviously knew the words to the songs. I’m wondering: ‘How can they process sound if they supposedly have no cognition left?’ That really started my search to understand how music affects the brain, and why music is preserved in people who have severe brain injuries and damage.
What was the public perception of music therapy back then?
It was a fairly new field, and nobody really knew about it. When Dr. Sacks and I went to see neuroscientists, they would say, “‘You can't study music. There's no way, it's too complex, and there’s no scientific way to study it.’”
But he and I were seeing that music was really helping people change and improve. People who’d had strokes and couldn't speak were able to speak again. People with movement disorders were able to walk better.
One of the reasons we started the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function was to raise funding for basic neuroscience research. We got some early grants that allowed us to look at the cause and effect of what was working and why.
How were you able to study music’s impact on patients before modern brain imaging devices?
That was the interesting thing. In my first study with Dr. Oliver Sacks, he was still using his 8-channel paper EEG [editor’s note: This type of ‘analog EEG’ recorded spontaneous electrical activity onto paper]. PET scans and other types of functional imaging were just starting—they were so limited in what they could do.
So, we had to look more at clinical applications in real time. We studied the effects that music had on people using other types of tools, such as psychological measurements and neuropsychological assessments. We had to learn as we went and try to find applications that made sense within the context of caring for these individuals with a variety of neurologic impairments.
Do any patient success stories stick out to you?
I worked with one woman who was being treated with medication for a pituitary tumor, I believe. Because of the medication, she had something called Tardive dyskinesia (TD)—her tongue was constantly moving in and out of her mouth. Because she couldn't speak well, the staff treated her as if she had severe cognitive impairment.
But I noticed that if I got her to sing, her TD shut off. It was an example of auditory-triggered motor activity actually canceling out involuntary movements. When she was in this state, she was able to talk and have full conversations. And she was 100% cognitively intact.
We were able to show the staff that somebody who seemed to be incapacitated was fully aware and alive and functioning. It was just because of her medication that she’d had this side effect.
What has been the most memorable or meaningful moment of your career so far?
We've been working all this time to build up an argument for supporting music-based interventions in clinical music therapy.
I think a big win for the field of music therapy happened about ten years ago when Renee Fleming got involved with the NIH [to fund and standardize music and health clinical research for brain disorders].
Having the NIH recognize that there's real promise in music and brain research and that money and research efforts should be put behind this… that was amazing.
How have your past experiences shaped the work you do at Spiritune?
Throughout my career and with the Institute, I've been really involved in engaging with scientists and trying to understand the specific elements of music that can affect our function.
I'm very interested in auditory entrainment and how the frequency of sound or the rhythm patterns of sound affect motor function and physiological states.
I think it was my scientific background and my experience working directly with patients that led Jamie to ask me to be part of the Spiritune team. My contribution has really been, with Dr. Daniel Bowling at Stanford, looking at the sounds that seem to affect emotional responses in very specific ways.
What do you hope is next for the field of music and medicine?
We’ve come a long way since I started in the field: Medication and surgery aren’t always the end-all healthcare treatments anymore. Physicians are more open to alternative practices and other methods of healing. This has allowed the discussion of music therapy and its benefits to expand throughout the healthcare system. You no longer have to prove that music therapy is important.
But I still see room for improvement in two areas. One: Participation in music and creative arts should be an essential right for all children. Opportunities to access music should be available from birth until death.
Two: There has been some great research to show that personalized music can help people with Alzheimer's disease and dementia overcome behavioral issues. Music therapy reduces the need for psychotropic drugs. Yet still, many nursing homes use a schizophrenia diagnosis in order to give inappropriate psychotropic medications to people with dementia.
One of my goals is to make a case that music therapy should be the first ‘prescription’ given to somebody with dementia, before psychotropic medication. I would love to see that happen.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
May 28, 2026
How Music Promotes Mental Health Around the World
Music goes hand in hand with culture. It’s long served as a tool to share stories, celebrate victories, and call for change. One of the few types of expressions that transcends language, it remains an invisible string that connects people around the world.
Music’s power is universal, but each place has its own way to share it. Today, we’re traveling the globe to explore a few moving examples of expression through sound. Read through to learn about the history, significance, and meaning behind each one, or just press play and let the tunes do the talking.
The sweeping stories of ‘pansori’ in South Korea
Pansori is a traditional Korean practice that pairs singing with the spoken word. In a typical performance, one drummer and one vocalist work together to express an emotional, rhythmic story on stage.
To reach a passionate, emotional timbre, pansori vocalists look to nature as a teacher. Some are said to spend weeks studying in the mountains, singing next to waterfalls to emulate the waters’ sonic intensity in their storytelling.
“Pansori vocalization amplifies the dramatic effect of every single object and character surrounding the story," said Ahn Sook Sun, one of South Korea’s most renowned pansori performers. Storylines often touch on themes of love, sacrifice, and honor, exploring the human conditions in ways that are moving and cathartic for audiences.
Learn more and watch a performance here.
The science-backed soundscapes of ‘forest bathing’ in Japan
Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, originated in Japan as a way to help overworked city dwellers unwind in the natural world. Doctors began to study the impacts of slow, mindful forest walking on people’s physical and mental health in the 1980s, and have since concluded that it can reduce stress while measurably improving sleep quality and immunity. These days, there are over 50 forest therapy bases throughout Japan where people can go to benefit from Shinrin-yoku alongside a certified guide.
Shinrin-yoku differs from a typical walk or hike because of its emphasis on the five senses, with sound playing a major role in the experience. Guides will often prompt people to close their eyes and give the forest’s soundscape their full attention, honing in on how different songs of the outdoors make them feel. There’s a range of research to suggest that nature soundscapes are uniquely restorative, and just listening to an audio recording of forest environments seems to be enough to have a calming effect on the body and mind.
Immerse yourself in the sounds of the forest here.
The meditative tones of ‘ragas’ in India
The English translation of raga is “color,” and this Indian classical music is thought to paint the mind with different emotional hues. Each note is intentional, with certain tones corresponding to particular times of the day or year. Raga Yaman is a serene evening melody, for example, while Raga Desh is romantic and associated with the rainy season. Raga music can be played with a variety of instruments, including the sitar, tabla (hand drums), and bansuri (flute).
“Many raags [ragas] are designed to work like a prescription, enhancing a particular mood, time of day, season, emotion or ambience,” writer Jameela Siddiqi noted in Darbar, an Indian classical music platform.
Modern science continues to validate the ancient music’s power, with EEG recordings showing that just a few minutes of listening to ragas evokes feelings of joy and calmness, or sadness and tension, in listeners.
Listen to a moving morning raga here.
The enduring spiritual power of ‘Gnawa’ music in Morocco
Gnawa is a spirited and expressive type of Moroccan music with roots in the 16th century. Named for the Gnawa people, who arrived in Morocco by way of West Africa, it was traditionally played during healing ceremonies to evoke and communicate with spirits and ancestors. Today, it retains a deep cultural significance in the country, where master practitioners share Gnawa—a United Nations Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity practice—with the next generation.
It combines chanting and traditional instruments, such as the guembri (a three-stringed lute) and the qraqeb (a metal castanet). Songs use repetitive rhythms to evoke a trance-like state. As one listener described to CBS, attending a performance is "like being on the edge of time.”
Watch a NYC-based Gnawa group, Innov Gnawa, perform here.
The grounding quality of the ‘six healing sounds’ in China
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the six healing sounds are vocalizations meant to energize different organs in the body. The practice of Qigong combines these sounds with breathwork and gentle movement in order to calm the nervous system and clear energetic blocks. Dating back to roughly the 5th century AD, it’s one of the oldest sonic practices in the world.
Watch a demonstration of the practice here.
While musical traditions may sound vastly different around the world, many of the elements that make music emotionally powerful are surprisingly universal. Across cultures, humans respond to core acoustic features like rhythm, tempo, tonal simplicity, repetition, and dynamic shifts in remarkably similar ways.
At Spiritune, our compositions are designed around these universal principles.
Drawing from neuroscience and music therapy research, we intentionally use tonal, rhythmic, and energetic elements shown to support relaxation, focus, emotional regulation, and more across diverse populations. Rather than relying on genre or personal taste, our approach focuses on the underlying acoustic qualities of music that the human brain and body naturally respond to.
“Music may differ across cultures, but the emotional and physiological mechanisms behind how humans respond to sound are deeply shared,” says Jamie Pabst, founder and CEO of Spiritune. “At Spiritune, we’re inspired by musical traditions around the world and use universal acoustic principles to create therapeutic music experiences that can help people feel better no matter where they’re from.”
In many ways, music has always been one of humanity’s oldest forms of medicine — a universal language capable of connecting us not only to our cultures, but also to ourselves.
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!
Apr 24, 2026
How Music Helped Fuel the Record-Breaking Artemis II Space Mission
Houston, we have a playlist. Learn about the role that sound played on the Artemis II mission, and how you can use it to supercharge your workdays down on Earth.
Earlier this month, the Artemis II team extended the limits of humanity, traveling further from our home planet than anyone has ever been. So far away from home, almost nothing feels familiar: Living quarters are tight, cramped, and noisy; food is dehydrated; showering is impossible; and every movement must be maneuvered to a zero-g environment. Yet, even hundreds of thousands of miles away, the coos of Chappell Roan’s “I know you wanted me to stay…” kept the crew tethered to Earth.
Like many who came before them, the Artemis II astronauts listened to music daily in order to stay motivated, comfortable, and connected to friends and family. Their space playlist is a powerful reminder of music’s ability to bring people together and help them excel individually. Here are a few lessons we’re taking away from a record-breaking mission—and the music that helped tune it.
A Song to Start the Day
This isn’t the first time that music has been sent to space. NASA has a long tradition of broadcasting songs to astronauts, often in the mornings to start their days on a high note. The first recorded instance of this was a special recording of “Hello Dolly,” made for the 1965 Gemini 6 mission. The lyrics, “While the earth's turning, the midnight oil was burning,” welcomed the two-person crew back after their 26-hour mission.
The Artemis II team started every “morning” (as much as mornings can exist without sunrise) in space with a song chosen by their crew, friends, and families. Their wake-up playlist featured a mix of newer pop tracks and familiar classics, with Tokyo Drifting and Under Pressure said to be among the team’s favorites. Their last day of the expedition fittingly started with “Run to the Water” by Live, a departure from the classic return song, “Going Back to Houston.”
Previous space missions have also included live musical performances. “In December, 1965, Guptain Schirra and Major Stafford, using a harmonica and small bells, performed in space for the earthlings, radioing their version of ‘Jingle Bells,’” notes an article from the 1968 archives of The New York Times.
According to NASA, space psychologists have long recognized music as a tool for maintaining morale on long-haul journeys. Now, the International Space Station is rumored to have two guitars, a keyboard, and a saxophone, and crewmembers are welcome to bring their own instruments aboard as well.
How to Bring Music into Your Daily Missions
We’re not all astronauts jetting through space at 60,000 miles an hour (thank goodness!). But music can still set us up for success each day, much like it did for the Artemis II team. It can be a particularly helpful tool during the workday, especially if you work in a job that toggles between periods of focus and creativity.
Here are a few research-backed ways music can enhance your work—whether you’re testing deep space systems or just an Excel spreadsheet.
It improves mood, which can prime us for productivity.
As Spiritune’s Founder and CEO Jamie Pabst writes in an article for Fortune, “Studies have shown that listening to music can improve negative moods and reduce stress. When we’re in a relaxed, positive state, our brains are primed for productivity: We’re better at attending to and focusing on the work at hand and we get more done.”
A growing body of research reinforces that listening to music helps regulate people’s emotional responses and feel less burdened by stress, even during challenging times. In turn, this shift in mood reduces one’s risk of burnout and disengagement.
“Music stands out in this context because it is one of the easiest and most accessible ways to boost mood and decrease stress, particularly while on the job,” Pabst adds. Take a page from NASA’s book and curate a morning tunes playlist that puts you in a good mood to set yourself up for a more positive workday.
It sparks creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.
The next time you’re stuck on a problem, try taking a break to listen to a song or musical track. Research suggests it could help your brain make new and unexpected connections.
One study found that those who listened to upbeat music while performing a task tended to approach it more creatively than those who worked in silence. The study authors suspect this was due to music’s ability to shift participants’ perspectives and adopt more flexible thinking. “When getting stuck in a rut, it can be helpful to, instead of digging deeper, dig elsewhere,” they write.
It enhances focus and flow.
In a workplace context, music can be a practical tool for masking distracting noise, allowing us to reach a focused “flow state” more easily.
“There is also good evidence to support that music can improve executive function, particularly when it comes to performance on cognitive tasks that involve sustained attention, response inhibition, repetition, and flow, which is critical when we want to execute tasks efficiently and operate at our best in the workplace,” Pabst notes on Fortune.
It zooms out our perspective.
Many astronauts note that their time in space gives them a new outlook on life on Earth—a phenomenon known as the “overview effect.” Looking at the planet from afar reminds them just how precious and fragile life is, and how connected we are to everyone and everything else on our Pale Blue Dot.
While music can’t entirely recreate this feeling, it is known to evoke its own sense of awe, gratitude, and connection. If you’ve ever gotten the chills listening to a song or felt moved to tears by certain lyrics, you know how sounds prompt us to reflect on our lives and put our problems into perspective—a skill that’s valuable at work and beyond.
Getting on the Right Track
Playing certain music as you work can help you focus on the task at hand, make creative connections, and enjoy a better mood—but not all tracks are created equal.
As one randomized controlled study that Spiritune was involved in showed, instrumental music tends to be better for enhancing mood and cognition than music with distracting lyrics. A song’s tempo, groove, and complexity can also impact how it helps or harms our workdays.
Spiritune’s music therapist-designed tracks are created to be enjoyable and not distracting, making them the perfect desk companion. Research shows that they increase positive mood and decrease negativity during mentally demanding tasks, and help sharpen cognitive ability without sacrificing accuracy—all after just 10 minutes or less.
Companies from The World Bank and Crunch Fitness to McLaren IndyCar and Galileo Health are now using our science-backed tracks to help their employees combat stress, taking a dent out of the $225 billion in lost productivity and absenteeism each year.
"Spiritune is my own personal go-to for stress relief and focus. I also refer it to all my anxiety/depression patients. I'm so glad this is a resource we can officially share with our team and patients," says Sophie Piso, a Behavioral Health Coach with Galileo.
Back Down to Earth
Since the Apollo II crew returned to our orbit on April 10, they’ve reunited with their families, readjusted to gravity, and started recovering from a grueling mission in an unfamiliar place. But music is undoubtedly one element of their time in space that they’re continuing to enjoy.
Take a note out of their book and consider how you can more intentionally work music into your toughest workdays, using sound as a way to bring yourself back down to Earth.
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Mar 25, 2026
I’ve Been Studying Music Therapy for 50 Years: How I’ve Seen the Field Evolve
A conversation with Concetta Tomaino—Spiritune Music Therapy Advisor—for International Women in Music Day.
Concetta Tomaino has worked at the intersection of music and health for nearly fifty years. Along the way, she’s co-authored numerous studies, co-founded the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function alongside leading neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks, and, perhaps most importantly, helped patients with severe illness find their voice through sound.
Spiritune is honored to call Tomaino our Music Therapy Advisor. As Founder and CEO Jamie Pabst shares, “Connie’s decades of work in music therapy have laid the scientific and clinical foundation that makes what we’re building at Spiritune possible. Having her as an advisor helps us understand what’s been built in the past so we can more thoughtfully build toward the future—and I feel incredibly lucky to have her guiding us. I feel a deep sense of responsibility to carry her legacy forward by bringing music-based care to more people, more accessibly than ever before.”
This International Women in Music Day (March 28), we’re tracing Tomaino’s time in the field—from her childhood as a trumpet player to her early research in New York nursing homes to her modern goal to bring the power of music therapy to the masses.
How did you get started in the music therapy field?
I wanted to be a medical doctor since I was two years old. But I’ve also been involved in music my whole life. I sang in the choir at church, and in high school, I picked up the trumpet and played in the band.
I was really a science geek, and in college, I became a pre-med student in chemistry and biology. I wanted to keep up with trumpet lessons in college, but in order to do that, I had to become a music major. So I was double-majoring in music and sciences.
By my junior year, I had a dilemma: Do I pursue music or medicine?
It was just by accident that one day I saw an ad that said ‘Career in music therapy.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my God, what is music therapy?’
It just so happened—again, by luck—that the band director at my college at the time was also the band director at NYU. And two years before, NYU had just started a master's program in music therapy. And so I graduated in June of 1976 and started attending my first music therapy course that July. My first internship was at a nursing home in Brooklyn, New York.
What was it like to work as a music therapist in nursing homes at that time?
Not much was known about Alzheimer's and dementia back then. Patients were overmedicated, tube-fed, and tied to wheelchairs so they wouldn't scream and pull out their nasogastric feeding tubes. They were written off as being non-responsive and not aware of themselves.
But when I sang a familiar song to them, they came back to life.
They not only participated, but they also seemed less agitated. They obviously knew the words to the songs. I’m wondering: ‘How can they process sound if they supposedly have no cognition left?’ That really started my search to understand how music affects the brain, and why music is preserved in people who have severe brain injuries and damage.
What was the public perception of music therapy back then?
It was a fairly new field, and nobody really knew about it. When Dr. Sacks and I went to see neuroscientists, they would say, “‘You can't study music. There's no way, it's too complex, and there’s no scientific way to study it.’”
But he and I were seeing that music was really helping people change and improve. People who’d had strokes and couldn't speak were able to speak again. People with movement disorders were able to walk better.
One of the reasons we started the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function was to raise funding for basic neuroscience research. We got some early grants that allowed us to look at the cause and effect of what was working and why.
How were you able to study music’s impact on patients before modern brain imaging devices?
That was the interesting thing. In my first study with Dr. Oliver Sacks, he was still using his 8-channel paper EEG [editor’s note: This type of ‘analog EEG’ recorded spontaneous electrical activity onto paper]. PET scans and other types of functional imaging were just starting—they were so limited in what they could do.
So, we had to look more at clinical applications in real time. We studied the effects that music had on people using other types of tools, such as psychological measurements and neuropsychological assessments. We had to learn as we went and try to find applications that made sense within the context of caring for these individuals with a variety of neurologic impairments.
Do any patient success stories stick out to you?
I worked with one woman who was being treated with medication for a pituitary tumor, I believe. Because of the medication, she had something called Tardive dyskinesia (TD)—her tongue was constantly moving in and out of her mouth. Because she couldn't speak well, the staff treated her as if she had severe cognitive impairment.
But I noticed that if I got her to sing, her TD shut off. It was an example of auditory-triggered motor activity actually canceling out involuntary movements. When she was in this state, she was able to talk and have full conversations. And she was 100% cognitively intact.
We were able to show the staff that somebody who seemed to be incapacitated was fully aware and alive and functioning. It was just because of her medication that she’d had this side effect.
What has been the most memorable or meaningful moment of your career so far?
We've been working all this time to build up an argument for supporting music-based interventions in clinical music therapy.
I think a big win for the field of music therapy happened about ten years ago when Renee Fleming got involved with the NIH [to fund and standardize music and health clinical research for brain disorders].
Having the NIH recognize that there's real promise in music and brain research and that money and research efforts should be put behind this… that was amazing.
How have your past experiences shaped the work you do at Spiritune?
Throughout my career and with the Institute, I've been really involved in engaging with scientists and trying to understand the specific elements of music that can affect our function.
I'm very interested in auditory entrainment and how the frequency of sound or the rhythm patterns of sound affect motor function and physiological states.
I think it was my scientific background and my experience working directly with patients that led Jamie to ask me to be part of the Spiritune team. My contribution has really been, with Dr. Daniel Bowling at Stanford, looking at the sounds that seem to affect emotional responses in very specific ways.
What do you hope is next for the field of music and medicine?
We’ve come a long way since I started in the field: Medication and surgery aren’t always the end-all healthcare treatments anymore. Physicians are more open to alternative practices and other methods of healing. This has allowed the discussion of music therapy and its benefits to expand throughout the healthcare system. You no longer have to prove that music therapy is important.
But I still see room for improvement in two areas. One: Participation in music and creative arts should be an essential right for all children. Opportunities to access music should be available from birth until death.
Two: There has been some great research to show that personalized music can help people with Alzheimer's disease and dementia overcome behavioral issues. Music therapy reduces the need for psychotropic drugs. Yet still, many nursing homes use a schizophrenia diagnosis in order to give inappropriate psychotropic medications to people with dementia.
One of my goals is to make a case that music therapy should be the first ‘prescription’ given to somebody with dementia, before psychotropic medication. I would love to see that happen.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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