Study: Listen to 78 Minutes of Music Per Day to Improve Your Mental Health
Adding to the growing body of evidence that listening to music can improve your mental health (including metal!) comes a recent report from the British Academy of Sound Therapy and music streaming service Deezer, which found that people should listen to a minimum of 78 minutes of music per day for optimal mental health.
The study polled 7,500 people and asked them a number of questions about how they use music to process emotions, then made recommendations based on those answers. Ninety percent of survey respondents said music helps them relax and 82% said they listen to music to feel happy. Almost 50% used music to overcome sadness, and 28% said they use music as a way to manage anger (heyo metalheads!), with tracks by AC/DC, Rammstein, Metallica, Linkin Park and Nirvana getting the most frequent nods for the latter.
The study concluded that music listeners should jam tunes at least 78 minutes a day across five different moods to increase their overall mental well-being, chunked out as follows (on average):
• 14 minutes of uplifting music to feel happy (18% of your musical RDA)
• 16 minutes of calming music to feel relaxed (20.5% of your music RDA)
• 16 minutes of music to overcome sadness (20.5% of your music RDA)
• 15 minutes of motivating music to aid concentration (19% of your music RDA)
• 17 minutes of music to help manage anger (22% of your music RDA)
If you haven’t got 78 minutes to spare, don’t fret: music’s mental health benefits can kick in starting at 11 minutes of listening, the study found, with those seeking happiness able to reap the rewards in as few as five minutes.
Deezer has created five playlists to correspond with the categories above.
