It may seem fitting to use music as a coping tool when dealing with grief, but have you ever thought about why? We know music is rooted in emotion. When people go through hardship, we turn to music and find it comforting in many ways. We’ve done several podcast episodes about music and our emotions, including how to map out and work toward changing your emotions using music. So, in this post, let’s tackle what the connections are in our brain between grief and music.
You might remember reading our post about music and the brain titled “There’s Something About Music”. Music actually stimulates the reward center in our brain. This is important because it actually helps us feel the reward without having to take substances or eat a pint of ice cream for example. Besides helping improve our mood, there is also research that shows that music can help us with memory and concentration. If you’ve ever gone through any grief, you know these are both difficult things to do. Put all of those benefits together and you have a tool that can help you function more efficiently, boost your mood, reduce your stress and anxiety, and really, handle your grief just a little bit easier.
In one study, they found that people who listened to happy music and were shown a neutral face would interpret the face as happy. In the same way, those who listened to sad music would interpret the neutral face as sad. This is evidence that we can use music to influence our mood. Don’t give sad music a bad rap yet though. The same study actually outlined that regardless of the emotional content of the music; happy or sad, we can process that and appreciate the music itself which will still stimulate our reward centers. So, while sad music may make you feel more sad, it can still boost your mood by allowing you to appreciate it as a whole art form.
Another tip to note; we know that exercise and physical movement can boost mood as well during grief. Music is a great motivator to get yourself up and moving. We know from research that we actually exercise more efficiently when we exercise to the tempo of the music we’re listening to. It also increases our stamina during difficult exercise. Cue those gym jams!
If you are a musician or musically inclined, songwriting is another way to boost those feel-good brain chemicals. One small study showed that teens who used songwriting to work through grief-related issues improved their processing scores fairly significantly. Writing music expresses emotions that may be difficult for us to access verbally, especially during a significant loss or a loss that happened a long time ago.
So, get out your phones, cue up your Spotify and get to making those playlists!
References:
Bacon, C. et al. (2012). Journal of Sports & Exercise Psychology. Effect of music-movement synchrony on exercise oxygen consumption, 52(4), 359-365
Karageorghis, C. et al. (2009). Journal of Sports & Exercise Psychology. Psychophysical and ergogenic effects of synchronous music during treadmill walking, 3(1), 18-36
Kawakami, A. et al. (2013). Front. Psychol. Sad music induces pleasant emotion, 3(11) Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00311
Logeswaran, J. & Bhattacharya, N. (2009). Neuroscience Letters. Crossmodal transfer of emotion by music, 455(2), 129-133
Thomas, D & Krout, R. E. (2005). The Arts in Psychotherapy. Development of the grief process scale through therapy songwriting with bereaved adolescents. 32(2), 131-143
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