SAD MUSIC MONTH - Part 3:

Sad Music is Good for us, Right?

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Saturday 06/03/21

Photo by Jonathan Cosens Photography on Unsplash

The music you choose to listen to may have more impact on your mental health than you think (oh yeah we're in for a deep dive this week). If you’re anything like me, sad songs make up a sizable percentage of your music choices and you may even have specific playlists containing only sad music for those days where nothing is ok and you just need to embrace the void, wrapped in a blanket with the curtains drawn.

A 2013 study into the effects of sad music in people suffering from depression discovered that depressed individuals who seek out sad music to ‘self-medicate’ often reported feeling positive after listening, despite levels of depression remaining the same or increasing (Garrido and Schubert, 2015). This is a worrying fact as people may be doing more harm than good to their emotional well being without realising.

Personally, I feel that sad music does benefit me when I’m feeling low because it helps me to process any negativity I’m feeling by relating it to the experiences of the performers I listen to. For example, last week I mentioned my positive reaction to ‘Car Radio’ by Twenty One Pilots, but could I just be masking my sadness with an unhealthy coping mechanism?

The 2015 study mentioned above, reported people crying as a result of listening to sad music. If people cried and reported feeling happy afterwards, then there must be something deeper at play than simply relating to the music, right?

Did you know that there are different types of tears? According to Orloff (2010), reflex tears are pretty boring and are only responsible for washing away potentially irritable debris from the eyes. Emotional tears, on the other hand, are far more interesting. Despite being triggered by sadness (e.g. as a result of listening to sad music) they contain more than just water and salt. Orloff references Dr Frey (1985) and their discovery that emotional tears contained ‘stress hormones’ and that the act of emotionally induced crying removes these hormones from the body whilst producing dopamine. So crying is beneficial and makes us feel better which explains why the participants of Garrido and Schubert’s study reported feeling positive after crying to sad music.

Rumination (a fancy word for overthinking) is a big part of what brings people back to sad music and when experiencing negative thoughts, listening to music with morose themes may be exacerbating feelings of depression when individuals begin to dwell on negative aspects of their lives. The fact that many people appear to respond positively to morose themes in songs can be the basis for a self-destructive cycle of depression, rumination and a desire for more sad music (Miranda and Claes, 2009).

It’s not all bad though. If we are aware of the potentially negative impacts of sad music, we can begin to understand when it is helping and when it is hindering us. Support networks of friends and family are invaluable when we find ourselves in a dark patch so look out for one another and always talk to someone you trust if you’re in a dark place.

-Will.

References:

• Garriso, S. Schubert, E. (2013). ‘Music and people with Tendencies to Depression’. Music Perception. 32(4), 323-321.

• Miranda, D. Claes, M. (209). ‘Music Listening, coping peer affiliation and depression in adolescence.’ Psychology of Music. 37(2) 215-233.

• Orloff, J. (2010). ‘The Health Benefits of Tears’. Psychology Today. (online) 27th July. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/emotional-freedom/201007/the-health-benefits-tears Accessed: 13/02/21.

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