As shown in a recent research submitted in the journal PLOS ONE, therapies that include music and auditory rhythm stimulation are beneficial at lowering state anxiety in certain individuals.
Anxiety has been progressively growing in recent years, especially among adolescents and young adults. Several studies have demonstrated that listening to songs may significantly lower anxiety, possibly more so than certain anti-anxiety medicines. However, quantifiable research on the anxiety-reducing benefits of tailored music has been sparse.
Scientists randomly assigned 163 patients using anti-anxiety drugs to an at-home therapy session that included music, auditory beat stimulation, combined, or pink noise—background noises comparable to white noise. Auditory beat stimulation is a technique that uses a mixture of tones produced in one or both ears to induce changes in brain activation.
Among participants with mild anxiety prior to the therapy session, those who were exposed to both music and ABS or to music only saw higher decreases in somatic anxiety, the bodily manifestations of anxiety, than those who were exposed to pink noise. The biggest decreases in cognitive state anxiety—the dimension of anxiety concerned with thoughts and emotions also seen in subjects with medium trait anxiety who engaged in both music and ABS. Individuals with substantial trait anxiety before the session saw considerably greater decreases in anxiety in the music-alone group than in the ABS-alone one.
Scientists agree that sound-based therapies may be helpful in lowering state anxiety and may represent a simple and readily distributable approach to address anxiety in a subgroup of the population. With both the pandemic and telework, there’s been a noticeable increase in the usage of digital health solutions for mental health assistance.
The outcomes of this study are encouraging because they suggest that tailored music has significant potential for successfully lowering anxiety in particular sectors of the populace.
