Opinion: Music Benefits Health

Roslyn Skinner, Staff Reporter

     With the amount of stress going on in today’s world, it can be difficult to find a peaceful way to make things easier. A good outlet for stress, anxiety, or other problems is music.

According to experts, listening to music can benefit mental and physical health, social skills and much more.

It is important to know the benefits of music to see if it could help someone get through challenging times. It is also important to note that in no way should music replace professional medical help.

One benefit of listening to music is the improvement of mental health.

Research has found that listening to music can relieve stress by triggering biochemical stress reducers,” states northshore.org.

Being stressed can make life much worse and could even cause physical health issues later down the line. Listening to music can also improve physical health.

“Music can meaningfully reduce the perceived intensity of pain, especially in geriatric care, intensive care or palliative medicine,” states northshore.org.

Having better physical health can support and help students accomplish tasks.  Another benefit of listening to music is the increased ability of social skills.

“Fifteen million, or seven percent, of American adults have Social Anxiety Disorder. More than 75 percent of people experience their first symptoms during their childhood or early teenage years,” states mhanational.org.

This shows that lack of social skills is a huge problem.

“Music therapy can be an impactful way to decrease social anxiety and improve upon a person’s social skills,” states incadence.org.

This supports that being around music can help improve students’ ability to communicate and be around others. 

While there are many benefits to listening to music, it is not for everyone.

“Party music and clubbing atmospheres can make people more likely to make bad decisions with regard to alcohol and other substances, this is particularity true for younger people,” states musicianwave.com.

Sometimes listening to a certain type of music for long periods can be unhealthy. It is important to regulate how much and which genres of music you listen to. For example, listening to a lot of sad or depressing music could lead to feeling upset more often. Making sure you are listening to music for the right reasons, however, has good benefits. 

One final benefit of music is the improvement of memory. Music can help people recall items, events, and other important things.

“In one study, researchers gave people tasks that required them to read and then recall short lists of words. Those who were listening to classical music outperformed those who worked in silence or with white noise,” Healtline.com states.This shows proof that being near music helps improve memory and memorization skills.

This could prove beneficial in many ways, for example, studying for a test. 

In all, listening to music is beneficial. It can help improve health, increase social skills and help develop better memorization skills.

It is important to listen to music during appropriate times and the correct genre to help support oneself. Having an outlet in music can help make life easier in terms of your work and social life.