Music is incredible. It can literally speak volumes. Depending on your mood, it can make you feel comforted, heard, happy, nostalgic, and so much more. Music helps give people power and believe it or not, music is essential in mental health. This “power” can help others “escape” in what they’re creating or listening to. It’s Magic (Andy Grammer).
What Music Can Do For You
For me, music can help me block out thoughts, feelings, and background noise. But, it can also help me feel understood, validated, and creative. Music especially helps me when I need to work and there are too many sounds in my environment, or when I’m doing a task around my apartment and I don’t want the quiet to envelope me. When I need to get in the “zone” I typically tend to repeat the same song over and over again. I mean, there are also songs I want to Replay (Iyaz) all the time, but that’s besides the fact. My current repeated songs are “Godspeed” by Quinn XCII and “Owe To You” by Khalid.
There have been many studies about music and how it benefits us. History has shown that music has the capability of reducing our inner feelings. By meaning, it can reduce our feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress- feelings that may be hard to share with others. When we feel alone, we have music to help make us feel less lonely. Music can bring us a sense of Clarity (Zedd, Foxes).
Listening to songs that have upbeat beats can help boost our moods. Isn't that crazy?! Listening to something can increase our serotonin levels. It can also increase our dopamine levels, too!
Music has the opportunity, if we use it right, to help us communicate how we feel with others. If you are creative enough (I’m not) to write songs that promote your feelings, that’s amazing. It’s such a great tool to have up your sleeve. This is just part of the empowerment brought in from music.
So, ultimately, if you’re feeling in the blue zone, Keep Your Head Up (Andy Grammer), and try to find something to increase your serotonin and dopamine levels (like music!). I mean, who doesn’t love the Sunroof (Nicky Youre, dazy) open while driving on a nice summer’s evening? This shows that you can find a way to use music for your benefit.
Using Music to Express Yourself
Musicians express themselves through music. Us non-musicians can express ourselves through music- but by sharing certain songs with others and talking about how it could relate to whatever we’re feeling. No matter what, it’s the Words (Alesso, Zara Larsson) that bring all the feelings to life.
Sometimes, musicians are able to bring hidden meanings into their songs to help others feel connected- to help people that listen to relate to the musician. It’s like therapy to the artist, but also the listener- depending on the vibe. Even with this blog being more about a feel-good playlist, sometimes listening to sad music about stories and situations that you can relate to can be surprisingly beneficial. I just did a quick search for artists that are great storytellers and the names Alessia Cara, Taylor Swift, Lukas Graham, Bob Dylan, and Zach Bryan came up. There were obviously more, but to be honest I mostly only know these names for this quick search. It could also be cool of you to search your favorite artist and look for meanings of their songs that you think you might relate to.
Similarly but maybe not, we can connect with Friends (Ella Henderson) by having listening parties to new albums. I know a lot of people have been doing that recently with new Taylor Swift albums… Anyway it’s good to have Good Company (Andy Grammer) while trying to decipher songs like hers.
Creating Things To Help You
So, I’ve created a “My feel-good playlist” playlist on Spotify. If you use Apple Music- sorry! Anyway… this will most likely be an ongoing project for me, but I hope that if you’re ever interested and you either are in the “feel-good” mindset or want to be, listen to it! And please, give me ideas in any way you can! Or if these songs are not your type of “feel-good” songs, then I encourage you to make your own :). Buttt even if you’re Ready or Not (Bridget Mendler) and if you do for some odd reason want to listen to mine, you can find it by searching emc6260.
I included these songs into this playlist because they make me bob my head while listening to it. That being said, I feel-good playlist should include the songs that do the same for you. This type of playlist should make you feel more upbeat.
Overall
We’re all Beautiful People (Ed Sheeran, Khalid), with amazing and powerful feelings. And even when we all are aware that Life is a Highway (Rascal Flatts), let some Sunshine (OneRepublic) shine on ya and listen to some songs you can connect to. I always would love to note that the bolded songs that fit right into some of these sentences, are songs that are in this feel-good playlist of mine.
Written By,
Eliana Cohn, LSW
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