How To Use Calming Music for Stress Relief
Achieve more mindfulness with music made for unwinding and reflecting.
During stressful times (looking at you, 24-hour news cycle), calming music can help soothe your spirits. Instead of pulling out your hair, pull out your streaming device and listen to the Relax collection on the SiriusXM app now.
Whether you’re keeping warm in your living room or on your way to work, this exclusive collection provides a serene musical backdrop to your everyday life so you can tune out the noise and step into a stress-free oasis. Explore mellow hits across genres and decades, zen instrumentals for meditation, laid-back electronic beats, island getaway grooves, and more calming sounds to ease your mind.
How Calming Music Can Help Ease Stress
Reduce Anxiety & Pain
Stress creates cortisol, a hormone that tells your body when you’re in danger or need to be on high alert. But being under constant stress (and therefore creating consistent high cortisol levels) can lead to health problems like increased anxiety and depression.
A 2021 study published in Brain Sciences found that adults who listened to music at home and in a laboratory setting had lower cortisol levels. Similarly, music has been shown to reduce chronic pain, likely through “distraction, relaxation, [and] positive emotion,” according to Scientific Reports.
Consider incorporating calming music during these parts of your day to encourage similar feelings.
Get a Good Night’s Sleep
After a stressful or taxing day, it can be hard to unwind enough to fall asleep at night. But researchers at Stanford University confirmed that music with slow beats or nature soundscapes “encourages the slow brainwaves that are associated with hypnotic or meditative states,” which may help you get some much-needed shuteye.
Try breaking away from TV, computer, and phone screens and listening to calming music before bed to promote restfulness.
Decompress While Cooking & Eating
The fulfillment we get from food isn’t all that different from the fulfillment we get from music. A study in Nature Neuroscience showed an increase in dopamine in the brain with music listeners that’s similar to the way we feel after satisfying a food craving.
It makes sense to listen to relaxing music while cooking and eating, so you can relieve stress and double up on that feeling of satisfaction.
De-Stress At Work
If you can listen to music throughout your workday, ambient tones and meditative melodies might help keep work-related stress at bay. But even catching a few minutes of calming music could provide some relief.
A study published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing looked at how first-line nurses relax while on break. They found that “compared with chair rest, participants had a lower perceived stress level, cortisol, heart rate, mean arterial pressure, and higher finger temperature while listening to music.”
Take It Easy In Transit
Before you even get to work, set the tone for the day with your music choice. You can make those minutes sitting in traffic or on the train really count by streaming calming music and taking your mind off your stressors.
Then, at the end of the day, a choice of calming music will help take you away from the loud noises of public transportation and unwind after the workday so you can go home and make the most of your time off.
