Let music soothe your mind
In a month that is notoriously depressing, Dr Sian Williams finds comfort in her headphones
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- Sian Williams
Classical Unwind is on BBC Radio 3 Unwind every day between 9am and noon.
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A few years ago, I lost a dear friend. The news was bewildering, and talking about it seemed redundant because words weren’t enough. I was in Scotland so I laced up my boots , plugged in my earphones, put on some sad music and howled as I marched up a mountain. When I came down, I was spent. Somehow the music had mirrored all the complex emotions that come with grief and soothed them, for a while.
Music does that. It can echo how we’re feeling, stimulate us or calm us. It’s the thing we develop before language. When we hear a baby babbling with a beautiful timbre, rhythm and melody, that’s music. When we’re joyous and laugh, that’s a musical sequence, too.
Nature is full of music, whether it’s the tide pulling back the shingle, or the rain pattering on forest leaves, or the dawn chorus outside our window. We breathe with it, move with it, sing to it. Research suggests when choirs harmonise, their heart rates synchronise; it is a wondrous, bodily form of communicating and connecting.
Music can soothe us, too. As a practising NHS psychologist working in anxiety, stress and trauma, I know how valuable certain music can be in reducing the activity in the sympathetic nervous system and activating the parasympathetic, or resting system, if the brain is on high alert.
Dr Sian Williams. BBC
There has been a growth in interest in the physical and mental health benefits of music. One study suggests listening to calming classical music 45 minutes before bed can help with depression. Others report it can lessen anxiety, ease pain, help with sleep and quieten an over-stimulated mind by lowering blood pressure, heart rate and the stress hormone, cortisol.
Immersing ourselves in tracks that slow everything down, which we can sink into, which help us pause and reflect, can bring us great comfort, especially when things around us are so uncertain.
Pause and reflection are what Classical Unwind is all about. It’s on the BBC’s new stream, Radio 3 Unwind, and includes music from Beethoven to Björk, from Glazunov to Philip Glass, from Vivaldi to Voces8. Each track is specially selected to help us take a breath, find our focus and prepare for the day ahead. We go outside to explore the link between green spaces and our mental wellbeing, too.
Calming music before bed can help with depression
Music also plays an important part in stimulating memory, taking us back to people and places instantly, as fans of Desert Island Discs will know. My grandfather’s gentle patience, as he sat alongside me and tried to teach me the piano, comes to mind every time I hear Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, together with the smell of pipe smoke and the feel of warm, scratchy tweed. Improbable, I know, but if I hear a song by the Stranglers, up pops an image of me and my BBC Breakfast pal Carol Kirkwood at one of their gigs in 2014. But even when we listen to music on our own, it can make us feel more socially connected to others.
Every day on our programme, neuropsychologist Professor Catherine Loveday looks at that link between music and the mind. In the lab, we see its impact on the body and the brain; our pupils widen, our heart rate and skin temperature changes. Scientists also see a surge of dopamine and stimulation in the brain’s pleasure centre, when we experience a chill response, or goosebumps, listening to certain tracks. That seems to happen more with sad music than happy music and is particularly intense with music that’s bittersweet.
The music I listened to on the mountain when I needed peace? Max Richter’s On the Nature of Daylight. Yes, sad music, or music in a minor key, helps when we’re feeling down. Sad music can be pleasurable. It can reflect our emotions, be comforting and connecting and help us process something difficult.
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Music might not be able to solve everything, but when it comes to unwinding our mind, it’s not a bad place to start.
Authors
Sian Williams
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