Anxiety and high levels of stress have become more and more common. These can wear on your mental health and quickly get out of control if you don’t find ways to soothe and cope. Music therapy is a great way to help soothe your mind and reduce anxiety levels to help you break through those moments when you just don’t know if you can make it any further.
Whether you have low-level anxiety or you feel crippling anxiety that impacts your life significantly, music therapy is certainly worth considering. In this guide, we share some of the top benefits and advantages of using music therapy.
Music therapy explained
What is music therapy? It’s not your average approach to therapy. This type of therapy uses parts of music to help achieve a goal. When it comes to anxiety or stress, the idea behind music therapy is to help reduce stress and reduce anxiety. Using an individual trained in music therapy is the best way to be successful.
Music therapy uses a wide variety of types of music. Some music therapists will find royalty free music that incorporates specific sounds and rhythms to work towards the right goal. Others may look for soothing, calm tones and notes designed to bring peace to your mind. In some cases, you may even work on creating music, singing, or playing an instrument. It simply depends on your needs.Â
Now, take a look at these advantages of music therapy.
Relaxation
When you’re worked up about something or feeling stressed, you need a trigger to pull you back from that stressed place. The idea behind music therapy is to calm your mind from those anxious feelings and help you relax instead. It will not take away the things that cause anxiety, but it relaxes and soothes your mind.
When you’re able to relax, it is much easier to figure out how to proceed and move on with less anxiety.
In tune with emotions
Many of us feel anxiety because we don’t know what to do with our emotions. When something gets stressful or starts to make us anxious, we panic. Many times that is an emotional response and our bodies just don’t know what else to do.
Music therapy can help you cope with these emotions and learn to better understand the emotions behind your anxiety. If this is emotional to you, you can discover the underlying emotions and start to work through them as well.
Coping with anxiety
Overcoming anxiety isn’t just about squashing the anxious feelings. It’s learning what triggers anxiety and how you can cope with it. While professional music therapy is incredibly beneficial, understanding the benefits of music and how it helps with your anxiety provides you with a coping mechanism.
A large part of the anxiety battle is understanding how to cope with those feelings. Music therapy provides you with those tools and gives you the means to make it through bouts of anxiety when they come. Use professional therapy but get to know how you can use music to cope when you are on your own as well.
Cortisol and music
One of the things that triggers anxiety is an increase in cortisol levels. These typically come from stress and may cause you to feel anxious. We all handle stress differently. The thing about anxiety is that anything can trigger those feelings and release cortisol that then makes you suffer.
However, numerous studies have shown the benefits of music to reduce cortisol production. When you start to feel stressed or anxious, simply listening to the right kind of music may be all you need to take the edge off from the anxiety that is attacking at that moment.
Connections through music
Finally, music provides you with a connection. Whether you choose to play an instrument or you just listen to music for music therapy, you can feel the connection through the music. Music will begin to speak to you and you will feel connected to the words, notes, melody, and more.
Music creates a calming presence and a distraction from your anxiety. In doing so, your brain recognizes a positive connection and you will learn to rely on music to get you through. It’s a connection and you can often build other connections because of it.Â
Overall, music therapy is a great way to combat stress and anxiety without solely relying on meds. Music has numerous benefits to help you handle the more challenging times of life and push through to overcome. These are just a few advantages, but the benefits are endless.
