Relieve stress by listening to music

Recently, my lecturer gave quite a lot of lecture assignments. it stresses me out sometimes. Not only me, even some of my friends who have multiple assignments also feel stressed. After finishing college, I went straight to my room and listened to some of the songs on my music playlist. by listening to music, as if, the stress is reduced and gone. Do you know why listening to music can relieve stress? Before continuing to discuss music, I will first tell you why we can be stressed.

Usually, a person will experience stress due to fatigue and also pressure from outside and within a person. When stress arises in a person, then the person's body will respond as an attack or threat. Automatically, the body will produce stress hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine. The impact of an increase in stress hormones will make the heart rate faster, blood pressure also increases, anxiety easily, to panic attacks.

To relieve the stress that arose earlier, we can listen to music regularly for two weeks, then the mood will be better. I found this effective method after reading the 'Journal of Positive Psychology'. Maybe some people will ask, how can music relieve stress in a person? OK, I'll explain this from the start.

So, the music we hear is the vibration of sound waves. When sound waves enter the ear, they are captured by cells in the cochlea to be converted into electrical signals, then the signal is sent to the brain via the ear nerve. At the same time, these electrical signals spread to the temporal part of the brain to process sensory input, regulate emotions, and understand language. Signals that flow to the hypothalamus of the brain will increase the happy mood, namely the hormone dopamine. That's the reason why stress can disappear slowly when we listen to music.

Broadly speaking, the hormone dopamine spreads because the temporal part of the brain understands language and infers good meanings from the music we hear. When you understand the lyrics and the message that the song sings, then you feel happy when you hear it. Someone who is listening to a song he likes, then unconsciously that person will sway to the rhythm of the song, or stomp his feet, this is also caused by electrical signals that enter the brain area of the cerebellum. The function of the cerebellum is to coordinate the body parts. Electrical signals that propagate in the brain's amygdala help regulate emotions and trigger happy memories.

That's the reason when listening to music (especially the music we like) can relieve stress slowly. It turns out that many parts of the brain work when we want to get back in a good mood when listening to songs we like. In a book I've read too, listening to music is not only a stress reliever, but can also be a therapy to cure schizophrenia symptoms. I forget the title of the book, but the book I read was written by Torres et al. That's all the brief information that I can convey, I hope this information is useful to read. thanks and regards.

The lead image by Unsplash