Study: Listening to music can help treat anxiety

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

Listening to music really does chill people out, according to a new study.

Treatments integrating music and auditory beat stimulation are particularly effective in reducing anxiety in some patients, say scientists.

Auditory beat stimulation (ABS) involves combinations of tones, played in one or both ears, designed to trigger changes to brain activity.

Anxiety has been steadily increasing - particularly among teenagers and young adults - over recent decades.

Previous studies have shown that listening to music can reduce anxiety, perhaps even more effectively than some anti-anxiety medications.

However, data on the effects of personalized music on anxiety had been lacking.

For the new study, Canadian researchers got 163 patients taking anti-anxiety medications to participate in an at-home treatment session involving music, ABS, both, or "pink noise" - background sounds similar to white noise.

The music was selected for each patient using artificial intelligence which curates music based on the patient’s emotional state and music preferences.

The participants were asked to download a customized application on their smartphone for the treatment, close their eyes, and listen to a 24-minute session.

Among people with moderate anxiety before the treatment session, greater reductions in somatic anxiety - the physical symptoms of anxiety - were seen in people who listened to both music and ABS, or those who listened to music alone, compared to those who listened to pink noise.

The greatest reductions in cognitive state anxiety - the aspect of anxiety related to thoughts and feelings - were also seen in moderate trait anxiety participants who listened to both music and ABS.

Among people with high trait anxiety before the session, the music-alone group had "significantly higher" reductions in anxiety compared to the ABS-alone group.

Dr. Frank Russo and Dr. Adiel Mallik, who conducted the study, concluded that sound-based treatments can be "effective" in reducing anxiety - and potentially offer a simple and easily distributable method of treating anxiety in a segment of the population.

Dr. Russo, of Ryerson University, said: “With the pandemic and remote work, there has been a remarkable uptick in the use of digital health tools to support mental health.

"The results of this clinical trial indicate great promise for the use of digital health tools, such as LUCID's digital music therapy, in the management of anxiety and other mental health conditions.”

Dr. Mallik, of Ryerson University, added: "The findings from this research are exciting as they indicate that personalized music shows great promise in effectively reducing anxiety in specific segments of the population that suffer from anxiety.

"Hopefully, with additional research, we can help build a solid evidence base which further supports the use of personalised music as an additional tool in the clinician’s toolbox that can be used to help reduce anxiety in the patient population."

The findings were published in the journal PLoS ONE.