Elsevier

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Volume 60, October 2015, Pages 82-90
Psychoneuroendocrinology

Music listening as a means of stress reduction in daily life

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2015.06.008Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We examined the stress-reducing effect of music listening in daily life.

  • Only music that was listened to for the reason ‘relaxation’ reduced stress.

  • Music listening differentially affected the endocrine and autonomic stress system.

  • Music-based stress reduction interventions should be evaluated in everyday life.

Summary

The relation between music listening and stress is inconsistently reported across studies, with the major part of studies being set in experimental settings. Furthermore, the psychobiological mechanisms for a potential stress-reducing effect remain unclear. We examined the potential stress-reducing effect of music listening in everyday life using both subjective and objective indicators of stress. Fifty-five healthy university students were examined in an ambulatory assessment study, both during a regular term week (five days) and during an examination week (five days). Participants rated their current music-listening behavior and perceived stress levels four times per day, and a sub-sample (n = 25) additionally provided saliva samples for the later analysis of cortisol and alpha-amylase on two consecutive days during both weeks. Results revealed that mere music listening was effective in reducing subjective stress levels (p = 0.010). The most profound effects were found when ‘relaxation’ was stated as the reason for music listening, with subsequent decreases in subjective stress levels (p  0.001) and lower cortisol concentrations (p  0.001). Alpha-amylase varied as a function of the arousal of the selected music, with energizing music increasing and relaxing music decreasing alpha-amylase activity (p = 0.025). These findings suggest that music listening can be considered a means of stress reduction in daily life, especially if it is listened to for the reason of relaxation. Furthermore, these results shed light on the physiological mechanisms underlying the stress-reducing effect of music, with music listening differentially affecting the physiological stress systems.

Introduction

Stress has the potential to be a major health threat facilitating the development of disease and illness (McEwen, 1998). As stress is a ubiquitous phenomenon in everyday life, it is necessary to develop interventions that can target stress in daily life and thus prevent its detrimental effects on health. It is assumed that music listening has health-beneficial effects, which might be mediated by its potential stress-reducing effect (Thoma and Nater, 2011). However, the empirical evidence on the stress-reducing effect of listening to music is far from being consistent, and the underlying psychobiological mechanisms of this potential stress-reducing effect – especially in daily life – remain unknown.

While the effects of music therapy (for an overview see Hanser, 2010) and music making (e.g., Bittman et al., 2013) on health-related outcomes have been studied in a plethora of (experimental) studies, the effects of mere music listening remain understudied. Particularly due to the fact that music is present in everyday life (Hargreaves and North, 1999, Juslin and Laukka, 2004, Krause et al., 2015), it is an important endeavor to study the effects of music listening in ecologically valid settings (Skanland, 2013). Results from research in experimental settings and in clinical contexts suggest that music listening has the potential to reduce stress, both subjectively and physiologically. For example, Sandstrom and Russo (2010) found that music high in valence and low in arousal positively affected recovery of heart rate and skin conductance levels after a stressor. Although most studies support the notion that music low in arousal is stress-reducing, Chanda and Levitin (2013) suggest that context factors, such as control over music selection (experimenter- vs. participant-selected), need to be considered as well. In contrast to experimental studies in which the context of listening to music is highly artificial, recent research efforts suggest that it might be more ecologically valid to study music in people's natural habitat (North et al., 2004, van Goethem and Sloboda, 2011).

Only a small number of studies have investigated music listening in daily life (Greasley and Lamont, 2011, Juslin et al., 2008, Krause et al., 2015, Randall et al., 2014, Skanland, 2013, van Goethem and Sloboda, 2011). These studies predominantly describe music-listening behavior, and to date, no study has directly investigated the effects of music listening on both subjective and physiological stress. Some studies do hint at the idea of a stress-reducing effect of music listening in daily life (Juslin et al., 2008, van Goethem and Sloboda, 2011). Juslin et al. (2008), for example showed that listening to music increased feelings of calmness. Still, research investigating this potential stress-reducing effect from a multi-dimensional perspective, exploring both subjective and physiological measures of stress, and considering both musical and nonmusical context factors in this relationship, is lacking.

Music listening has been associated with a down-regulation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, as shown via reductions in the concentrations of cortisol in various experimental and clinical contexts (for an overview see: Kreutz et al., 2012), as well as with alterations of autonomic nervous system activity, with decreases in heart rate and blood pressure (for an overview see: Hodges, 2011). However, the pattern of results concerning biological effects of music is not consistent. Some studies failed to find an effect of music on stress-related physiological changes. Chlan et al. (2013), for example, found no effect of music listening on cortisol levels in mechanically ventilated patients. However, another study found a beneficial effect of music listening on parameters of the autonomic nervous systems in mechanically ventilated patients (Han et al., 2010). A plethora of studies (either investigating patients or healthy participants) report discrepant findings when comparing self-reports of stress to physiological markers of stress (DeMarco et al., 2011, Gerra et al., 1998, Thoma et al., 2013): for example, Thoma et al. (2013) found relaxing music to be less effective in reducing cortisol concentrations than the sound of rippling water, whereas there was no difference with regard to subjective stress levels. The same pattern emerged in the study by DeMarco et al. (2011) in which music reduced subjective stress levels but not heart rate and blood pressure in patients undergoing surgery. This heterogeneity of findings is probably due to methodological issues, such as different music selection and/or varying intensity of stressors, thus emphasizing the need to further study the effect of context variables on the stress-reducing effect of music listening.

To date, there is no empirically sound knowledge on which music (in terms of valence and arousal) is particularly effective for stress reduction purposes (Sandstrom and Russo, 2010). To the best of our knowledge, only one experimental study has systematically investigated the effect of the valence and arousal of music in the context of stress. In this aforementioned study, Sandstrom and Russo (2010) were able to show that recovery from a stressor worked best if participants listened to music which was low in arousal and positive in valence. However, in daily life, no study so far has related valence and arousal ratings to the stress-reducing effect of music listening

Juslin et al. (2008) suggest that the emotional effect of music varies as a function of reasons for music listening. Since ‘relaxation’ is one of the main reasons why individuals listen to music (Greasley and Lamont, 2011, Juslin et al., 2008, van Goethem and Sloboda, 2011), it seems plausible to examine reasons for music listening in the context of the stress-reducing effect of music listening. To date, no study has empirically examined whether reasons for music listening may affect the stress-reducing effect of music listening in daily life.

In her review on the stress-reducing effect of music listening, Pelletier (2004) summarized that music may only be effective in reducing stress in the context of a mild stressor as opposed to a strong stressor. This finding was corroborated by a recent experimental study from our group (Thoma et al., 2013), which found that listening to music prior to a (strong) socio-evaluative stressor was not effective in reducing stress, thus emphasizing the idea that the stress-reducing effect of music may vary as a function of stressor intensity. However, so far, no study has examined the effect of real-life stressors of varying intensity on the stress-reducing effect of music listening in daily life.

Current evidence on music listening and stress is inconclusive. Many studies are set in experimental settings, thus limiting the generalizability of the results to daily life. However, as stress is a ubiquitous phenomenon and music listening is an activity of daily life, it seems of utmost importance to study the relationship between music listening and stress in an ecologically valid setting. As it remains unanswered which psychobiological mechanisms underlie the stress-reducing effect of music listening, it is necessary to combine subjective stress levels with physiological markers of stress to better understand under which circumstances what kind of music is effective in reducing stress.

Based on the available research findings, we hypothesized that music listening in daily life is associated with a subsequent reduction in stress, both subjectively and physiologically (Model 1). Furthermore, we were interested in whether context factors such as perceived valence and arousal of the selected music (Model 2), reasons for music listening (Model 3) and stress intensity (Model 4) influence the stress-reducing effect of music listening in daily life.

Section snippets

Participants

A convenience sample with a total of 55 healthy students (35 female, 20 male) participated in the study. As females are over-represented in German Psychology classes, the proportion of females is higher as males in this study. Participants’ ages ranged from 18 to 31 years with a mean of M = 23.20 (SD = 3.11) years. Four participants dropped out of the study after having completed the first measurement condition (due to technical problems or non-compliance). Recruitment was carried out by means of

Results

Overall, music episodes accounted for 30% of the daily assessments. Music was listened to more often during the control condition (34%) than during the exam condition (25%), with condition explaining 1.09% of the variance in the frequency of music episodes (χ2 = 33.23, df = 3, p  0.001). The reasons for listening to music were (in descending order): ‘activation’ (57%), ‘relaxation’ (47%), ‘distraction’ (47%), and ‘reducing boredom’ (46%) with ‘relaxation’ as reason for music listening being reported

Discussion

We sought to investigate the stress-reducing effect of music listening in daily life. Results suggest that mere music listening was associated with lower subjective stress levels. Nonmusical context factors contributed to the stress-reducing effect of music listening: Whereas the perceived valence of the selected music did not show any associations with stress parameters, music which was perceived as low in arousal was associated with lower sAA activity. The stress-reducing effect (attenuated

Role of the funding source

The funding sources had no role in the design of the study, data collection and analysis, or drafting of the manuscript.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no financial interest related to the study.

Acknowledgements

JS, JMD, and UMN acknowledge funding by the Volkswagen Foundation (Az. 84905). We thank the University of Marburg for the funding of participant reimbursements and the Universitaetsstiftung of the University of Marburg for funding the bio-chemical analyses (Az. I B 2 – 5.45.26.04). Further, we thank Nadine Skoluda for conducting the bio-chemical analyses of saliva samples and Luisa Donath and Jannis Ziemek for assistance in data collection.

References (40)

  • B. Bittman et al.

    Recreational music-making alters gene expression pathways in patients with coronary heart disease

    Med. Sci. Monit.

    (2013)
  • J. DeMarco et al.

    The benefit of music for the reduction of stress and anxiety in patients undergoing elective cosmetic surgery

    Music Med.

    (2011)
  • A.L. Elo et al.

    Validity of a single-item measure of stress symptoms

    Scand. J. Work Environ. Health

    (2003)
  • A.E. Greasley et al.

    Exploring engagement with music in everyday life using experience sampling methodology

    Music. Sci.

    (2011)
  • L. Han et al.

    Effects of music intervention on physiological stress response and anxiety level of mechanically ventilated patients in China: a randomised controlled trial

    J. Clin. Nurs.

    (2010)
  • S. Hanser

    Music, health, and well-being

  • D.J. Hargreaves et al.

    The functions of music in everyday life: redefining the social in music psychology

    Psychol. Music

    (1999)
  • D.A. Hodges

    Psychophysiological measures

  • P.N. Juslin et al.

    Expression, perception, and induction of musical emotions: a review and a questionnaire study of everyday listening

    J. New Music Res.

    (2004)
  • P.N. Juslin et al.

    An experience sampling study of emotional reactions to music: listener, music, and situation

    Emotion

    (2008)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text