Beating Stress
With finals week approaching, stress levels are at an ultimate high. Stress can manifest in physical and psychological symptoms such as headache, impaired concentration, and change in eating and sleeping habits, which are all factors that can negatively impact one’s performance. Methods to manage anxiety during this stressful time include getting enough sleep, having a stress outlet, finding an effective study strategy, exercising, and taking short breaks from studying. Besides these strategies, studies have shown that listening to music is also an effective way of reducing stress.
In response to stress, the adrenal gland releases a hormone called cortisol as part of the fight-or-flight mechanism. Cortisol regulates blood pressure and the immune system, allowing the body to spend more energy on other functions. In times of prolonged stress, high cortisol levels can cause sleep abnormalities and reduced immune response, as well as interfere with learning and memory.
Chanda and Levitin analyzed the results of up to 400 studies to determine the effects of music on stress. In one study, researchers simulated stressful situations associated with school and work and measured subjects’ levels of stress at different times, post-stressor. They found that the cortisol levels for subjects who listened to relaxing music lowered at a quicker rate than the silent control. Another study involved patients who were about to undergo invasive surgery. Patients were randomly assigned to either listen to music or to take anti-anxiety drugs. Participants were asked to rate their own anxiety and researchers measured levels of cortisol. Results showed that the group that listened to music had lower cortisol levels than the group that took anti-anxiety medication.
In addition to having positive effects on the psychological stress response, music has also been shown to improve the autonomic nervous system’s response to stress. A study by Thoma et al compared the effects of different sounds on the level of stress. The three different conditions included relaxing music, the sound of rippling water, and a control with no acoustic stimulation. The salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase, heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and subjective stress and anxiety perception were measured repeatedly. Researchers found that after the stressor, the salivary alpha-amylase baseline values were reached at a much faster rate for participants who listened to relaxing music compared to participants who did not have any acoustic stimulation.
In conclusion, simply listening to relaxing music can be a very effective way of reducing stress and avoiding the negative symptoms that can decrease productivity during this last week of the semester.
~ Sophia Hon
Sources:
Surviving Stress and Anxiety in College and Beyond
The Effect of Music on the Human Stress Response
Image by CDC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
