Feeling Anxious or Worried?Listen to These 9 Podcasts
- The Calmer You Podcast.
- The Anxiety Guy.
- The Overwhelmed Brain.
- Selfie.
- Oprah's SuperSoul Conversations.
- The One You Feed.
- Not Another Anxiety Show.
- 10% Happier.
Relaxing the mind
- Take slow, deep breaths. Or try other breathing exercises for relaxation.
- Soak in a warm bath.
- Listen to soothing music.
- Practice mindful meditation. The goal of mindful meditation is to focus your attention on things that are happening right now in the present moment.
- Write.
- Use guided imagery.
The top 10 list of most relaxing songs is:
- Weightless (Marconi Union)
- Electra (Airstream)
- Mellomaniac (DJ Shah – Chill Out Mix)
- Watermark (Enya)
- Strawberry Swing (Coldplay)
- Please Don't Go (Barcelona)
- Pure Shores (All Saints.
- Someone Like You (Adele)
Try these when you're feeling anxious or stressed:
- Take a time-out.
- Eat well-balanced meals.
- Limit alcohol and caffeine, which can aggravate anxiety and trigger panic attacks.
- Get enough sleep.
- Exercise daily to help you feel good and maintain your health.
- Take deep breaths.
- Count to 10 slowly.
- Do your best.
Music Genres and DepressionAccording to our survey participants, the vast majority—around 89 percent—turn to music in order to feel better. The top genre for depressed listeners is rock, followed closely by alternative, pop, and hip-hop/rap.
10 Ways to Naturally Reduce Anxiety
- Stay active. Regular exercise is good for your physical and emotional health.
- Don't drink alcohol. Alcohol is a natural sedative.
- Stop smoking. Share on Pinterest.
- Ditch caffeine.
- Get some sleep.
- Meditate.
- Eat a healthy diet.
- Practice deep breathing.
Music has the power to slow your heart rate and breathing, lower your blood pressure, and it may even trigger your muscles to relax. These biological changes mirror some of the same changes that your body undergoes when you're falling asleep, making music the perfect preparation for restorative slumber.
Music is a language of emotion in that it can represent different feelings and barge into the soul with no boundaries or limitations. People are always challenged by the fact that “no one understands them” or know how they “really feel”, so they turn to music. Music also has the capacity to imitate emotions.
Research shows the benefits of music therapy for various mental health conditions, including depression, trauma, and schizophrenia (to name a few). Music acts as a medium for processing emotions, trauma, and grief—but music can also be utilized as a regulating or calming agent for anxiety or for dysregulation.
Research suggests music can influence us a lot. It can impact illness, depression, spending, productivity and our perception of the world. Some research has suggested it can increase aggressive thoughts, or encourage crime.
Music affects our emotions. When we listen to sad songs, we tend to feel a decline in mood. When we listen to happy songs, we feel happier. Upbeat songs with energetic riffs and fast-paced rhythms (such as those we hear at sporting events) tend to make us excited and pumped up.
Music has the ability to evoke powerful emotional responses such as chills and thrills in listeners. Positive emotions dominate musical experiences. Pleasurable music may lead to the release of neurotransmitters associated with reward, such as dopamine. Listening to music is an easy way to alter mood or relieve stress.
Music can restore some of the cognitive functions, sensory and motor functions of the brain after a traumatic injury. Music does more than just put us in a good mood. It's a wonder drug that sets a lot of things right: It energises your mind, eases stress, evokes emotions and soothes your soul.
It stimulates a desire to behave differently, and to experience yourself in a new light, an important aspect of treating clinical depression. Learning to play a musical instrument also aids therapeutic treatments by requiring controlled physical effort and interaction.
And of course, it can be therapeutic. “Music therapy is an established form of therapy to help individuals address physical, emotional, cognitive and social needs,” says Mirgain. “Music helps reduce heart rate, lower blood pressure and cortisol in the body. It eases anxiety and can help improve mood.”
Listening to music can have a tremendously relaxing effect on our minds and bodies, especially slow, quiet classical music. This type of music can have a beneficial effect on our physiological functions, slowing the pulse and heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and decreasing the levels of stress hormones.
In this study we examined self-generated thought as a function of sad and happy music. Our findings reveal that music evoking sad, low-arousal emotions, compared with music evoking happy, high-arousal emotions, increased the strength of mind-wandering.
