The Danger of Music

Music is everywhere in our lives, and many people listen to it. Many people love to listen to music and even play music sometimes if they are musicians. People use music all the time when doing everyday things like studying, working, relaxing, dancing, and many other things. It is something that is used all the time, and often times, it is viewed as a great thing. Many people see it as a great thing because they say that it can reduce a lot of anxiety and depression. They also say that music can also improve your overall mood. However, it has been proven that music actually does the exact opposite. Music can actually decrease and ruin people’s overall health, especially in the physical, mental, and emotional areas of your health.

The digression of people’s health when listening to music is very apparent when we look in the mental health area, specifically, when we look at people with depression. Most people will say that music is a perfect coping mechanism and treatment for people with anxiety and depression. They say that music tends to calm down stress hormones, which in cause helps people relax a lot. When people relax, anxiety is reduced down by a whole lot, and since anxiety is down, depression, as a result, will also be reduced. However, as counterintuitive as this will sound, music is actually a terrible coping mechanism and treatment for people with anxiety and depression because by having them listen to music, this will do the exact opposite for them. Depression will actually increase and anxiety will also increase for them, and by both of those things increasing, their overall mood will also deteriorate as a result. This sounds very counterintuitive, but you have to think about it. When people have depression and/or anxiety, they feel really sad and really stressed out. When those people are feeling those kinds of feelings and emotions, they don’t want anything else and it is difficult for them to feel anything else. When we have them listen to music, they will most likely pick music that sounds sad or depressing, and if the songs are not instrumentals, they will most likely have sad lyrics in the songs. In turn, their depression and/or anxiety is not really going away. Instead, the music is actually acting as an additional stressor and as a result, their overall health is not getting better, but it is actually getting worse. By giving these people the ability to listen to music as a treatment or a coping mechanism, they are not getting the proper help that they need. They need to find something else as a good treatment or coping mechanism for their depression and/or anxiety such as being active or socializing with other people for example.

Music can also affect you physically as well, especially to the ears. There are two ways that people love to listen to music. It is by either going to loud concerts or by listening to music using earbuds or headphones. Our ears can only but handle so much music at a loud volume, and sometimes, if we listen to music in these kind of ways for a long time, we can sometimes experience hearing loss. This is especially true today towards the younger generations as many young children these days require headphones for school work, and often times, they listen to lots of music while working. Young teenagers also go to lots of concerts put on by many famous musicians and singers, and with amplification and technology these days, concerts keep getting louder and louder, and that can be damaging to the ear sometimes. The problem is that younger children’s ears are still developing when they are young, even until their teenage years. They can’t handle so much loud music or music with headphones for a long period of time, and yet, due to certain circumstances, they go through with that.

Sometimes, music can be harmful and affect those in their emotional health, especially those who went through traumatic experiences. Music is a really powerful tool that can sometimes unlock memories or even remind you of memories in the past. It can sometimes be reflective and either bring back good memories or bad memories. According to an article from “Psychology Today”, there was a man who really loves music, and he listens to music all the time. However, he had recently lost his wife, and he said that he can no longer listen to and enjoy music anymore because all the music that he loves to listen to remind him of his wife. The memories reminded through the music really affect the man negatively and he can no longer enjoy music. Unfortunately, he is not the only one, and there are many people that have been emotionally haunted by music because of past experiences or former memories. Music can emotionally haunt people simply by being sad or slow and having a message or having some certain lyrics that remind people of past memories like a loved one or a traumatic experience like an illness or an accident. Sometimes, this can even increase stress, and as a result, increase anxiety as well.

When you consider the evidence and the facts, it is easy to see that even though many people see music as a wonderful tool to help improve people’s overall health, it is clear that instead of improving people’s overall health, music actually declines people’s overall health. Music declines people’s physical health, mental health, and emotional health. It can cause anxiety to skyrocket really high as well as hearing loss for younger folks. Depression can also be increased really high because of music’s overall ability to add stressors to people’s lives and cause them to feel really sad. Music can also bring unwanted memories to those who are feeling really sad or traumatized, especially to those who have went through major experiences or have lost loved ones. Music is definitely a terrible way to increase overall health, and people need to listen.

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/music-and-health-what-you-need-to-know#:~:text=Yes%2C%20according%20to%20a%20growing,sensation%2C%20movement%2C%20and%20emotion.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-musical-self/201408/5-problems-music-can-create