How music helps combat anxiety through rhythm | AD

Humans are rhythmic creatures: everything we do comes from the pulse. Your heartbeat is a rhythm you can’t live without and today we’re going to discuss how tempo and rhythm can help you control your body in ways you might not have under your control otherwise.

Specifically, we’re going to discuss how tempo – in song and life – can adjust your psychology. It sounds complicated, but these are techniques and methods you can use all on your own to improve your mental and physical health.

If those sound like worthwhile uses of your time, read on…

The tempo of music is the pulse, the rhythm, the beat of it. It’s the predominating beats and the time between them, and how many of them you’re going to get in a minute. This is an interesting measure because it tells you how much is going on, in some ways.

It’s often a measure of the pace, which is an important piece of music. You don’t need to know how to write a symphony to understand the basics: tempo is one of the key aspects on how a song or piece of music affects how you feel.

It’s not just that, however. The song and it’s tempo will affect your mood andyour body/brain. It carries some effects that you might never have noticed, but that science has begun to unravel.

For example, music and it’s tempo/mood can affect your mood subconsciously, as well as having direct physical effects. You might be familiar with usingsome of these techniques when you’re studying or working hard, but how much deliberate thought did you give to them?

If you’ve ever gotten fired up in the gym to a specific song, it’s totally plausible that you’re experiencing the tempo of the song. This is something we see all the time with runners, for example, where pace is important for better running cadence – equally in rowing and cycling.

In these cases, what happens is that the tempo of the music adjusts your mental and physical state.

When you run to music, you’re tactically using it to increase your mental arousal/anxiety. This is because doing challenging things is often about increasing mental arousal and using the response, which boosts short-term performance.

On the other hand, too much of this anxiety/mental arousal can cause you to get flustered or lose focus. It also contributes to stress if over-used and can rapidly damage things like your mood, sleep quality, or mental health.

You want to increase short-term mental arousal/anxiety, but ensure that your overall levels are well managed. Fortunately, music can go both ways: it can promote relaxation and combat anxiety as much as it can elevate them.

While up-tempo music is known to increase mental arousal, the opposite is true: lower tempo, relaxing music can improve relaxation. This has the opposite effects: better rest, the ability to lower heart rate and anxiety, and overall improvements to ‘winding down’. These are the benefits that are key to recovery.

The stress you expose your body to is not fundamentally different from the kind your mind experiences. They’re combined to determine how stressed you are at both a physiological and psychological level.

Sure, those long work hours might not wear down your muscles, but your physical and mental health take a hit. As a result, the changes you experience to your mental arousal are tied closely to your body and brain.

For example, excessive chronic stress is a risk factor for common problems like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and mood disorders like depression. These are all significant changes that you want to avoid.

Equally, excessive stress has real knock-on issues. One you’ll notice rapidly is poor quality sleep, as well as even being restless and waking up in the night. Similarly, you’ll experience way more fatigue if you’re constantly struggling to relax, as well as poor recovery from exercise, and low mental performance.

Basically, if you’re chronically stressed you’re going to be chronically sub-optimal. It’s a health risk, and it’s a risk factor for mood disorders, physical disorders, and mental decline. If you’re not certain yet, it’s really worth avoiding and fighting!

The role of music is to aid in active relaxation. It’s exactly what it sounds like: taking time to deliberately relax. This doesn’t mean laying on the sofa watching a tv series – it means actively taking some steps to change your habits to relax effectively.

Common examples of yoga and meditation aren’t for everyone, but they work. Equally, reading a good book while listening to low-tempo, ambient music is a good practice. You could also stretch to music, if you’re trying to improve your health, fitness, and performance.

The best place to look is for tempos that are at – or below – 80 beats per minute. BPM, the unit we use to measure song tempo, is a good indicator. If you also pay attention to the mood of the piece – ideally something relaxing and sedate – you can build a great playlist for relaxing.

This is one of the reasons why low-tempo, smooth jazz is really popular. Equally, it’s 21st-century successor LoFi music is really popular for promoting a relaxed, focused environment. You can go for this kind of vibe in most genres if you know the BPM and the overall vibe of the songs!

In this way, you can start taking control of these subconscious and physical processes yourself. Just like you might use them to amp yourself up, you can go the other way and wind down with calming sounds and environments.

You should especially consider the things you expose yourself to in the hour or two before sleep. Too many loud noises, high-tempo songs, or screens all contribute to high pre-sleep anxiety and thus poor sleep quality. Define this as relaxation time and you’ll notice better performance in everything the next day!

Equally, the combination of tempo and relaxation are great for the mind. Studies tell us that a steady tempo is great for memory, which is also bolstered by better relaxation/sleep quality.

This makes proper tempo and it’s effects on the body/mind. This kind of small change and mindful use of music, tempo, and relaxation all add up to better recovery and performance. You can improve almost every aspect of your life by controlling your anxiety and balancing it with relaxation.

Tempo is one tool to this end, and it’s one you can start being mindful of and implementing right now!

There are few things that have as much effect on your health as the balance between stress and relaxation. It’s one of the conditions of modern life that we’re stressed all the time and struggle to find balance.

This is harmful to your health at every level – physical and mental. Something as simple as knowing what tempos are for, and how you can use them to help you relax effectively, can be a significant bonus in the long term.

Take control of yourself, your body, and how you feel on a day to day basis. It’s a small step away and you can make significant changes to your entire existence. You can find song BPMs online and you can look up the ones you already know to get a better idea of what you’re looking for!