Music and Your Mental Health

Music has been a way of story telling, community, and embodied emotion in most cultures throughout human history. There is so much power behind our relationship to music. There is so much research about the power of music and its impact on us (here’s an article that sums up some of the various impacts), but my reason for writing this today is to focus more on your personal relationship to music.

What kinds of music are you most drawn to? Is it mood dependent?

Do you seek out new music or do you find yourself listening to the same artists again and again?

What music do you find yourself seeking when you’re - sad? happy? angry? focused? relaxed? with community? alone?

We create associations with music - it can bring us back to certain memories or emotional states. When you’re listening to music based on your mood, there can be two really interesting strategies to experiment with. These strategies are to choose music that matches/enhances the mood or music that is the opposite of the mood you’re in. Instead of listening to a really sad album again, what would it be like to turn on something to amp you up? How would your mood shift? Or do you need the space to really get in touch with that emotion by leaning into it and listening to an album/playlist that matches your mood?

I want to encourage you to think through what music you consume and the affect it has on you. From there, how can you play around with it?

As always, take what is helpful and leave the rest. I hope you have the week you need.