Study Shows Which Type Of Music Can Have Negative Long Term Effects On Mental Health

Sometimes when you're feeling down, you just want to wallow in that moment but sticking on some sad music.

We love nothing more than wallowing in our own misery as it makes us feel better about our own situations – or at least that’s the idea. But according to a new study, listening to gloomy music can actually have a negative effect on your mental health.

Researchers at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Music Research at the University of Jyväskylä, Aalto University in Finland and Aarhus University in Denmark published their findings in August’s Frontiers in Human Neuroscience journal. They’ve found that people who constantly fill their ears with sad or aggressive music are likely to show higher levels of anxiety or neuroticism than people who prefer to have happy songs on repeat.

"This style of listening results in the feeling of expression of negative feelings, not necessarily improving the negative mood." 
- Dr. Suvi Saarikallio, co-author of the study and developer of the Music in Mood Regulation (MMR) test.

They tested the neural responses of participants when they listened to happy, sad or fearful music and measured them against markers of mental health. They were looking at something called medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) which is brain activity that occurs during emotion regulation. 

"These results show a link between music listening styles and mPFC activation, which could mean that certain listening styles have long-term effects on the brain." 
- Professor Elvira Brattico, senior author on the study.

Therapists are already big advocates of using music to influence their patients' moods and this study aimed to assist them with deciding what music to recommend to people suffering from emotional distress.  

Source.