Listening to sad songs

Why it can make us feel so good, according to mental health experts

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | What is it about listening to those moody, melancholy ballads when we’re feeling down? Sad songs evoke strong emotions and help us feel better when we’re going through hard times. And whether you prefer pop, rock, country, or hip-hop, sad songs are accessible in virtually any genre.

“Listening to music that evokes an emotional response is cathartic,” says Arianna Galligher, a licensed independent social worker who is the director of the Gabbe Health and Well-Being Program and associate director of the Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Program at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus. “It helps us access and move through emotions that can otherwise be difficult or painful, in a low-risk, intentional, and time-limited way.”

In some cases, this can involve an entire album. Adele’s 30 and Taylor Swift’s Red albums, for example, more recently joined a long line of popular breakup records, from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours to the Cure’s Disintegration to Joni Mitchell’s Blue.

For Galligher, replaying “Dead Man’s Will” by Iron and Wine and Calexico helped her process the unexpected loss of her mother in 2019.

“It’s a song about passing ownership of trivial but intensely sentimental items steeped in memory, to the people that would cherish them the most,” Galligher says.

Sad music may give people a socially acceptable way to explore difficult emotions that they’ve been socialised to avoid or keep to themselves, she says.

What the science says

Research found that people were more apt to select angry songs after a frustrating social interaction and more likely to choose mournful tunes after a bad breakup.

“Often, sad songs have slower tempos and lower pitches than other types of music,” says Carolina Estevez, PsyD, a licensed psychologist at Infinite Recovery based in Austin, Texas. “This type of sound can help lower blood pressure and heart rate, relieve muscle tension, and lower cortisol levels.”

For a study published in June 2020 in the journal Emotion, researchers had people who had been previously diagnosed with depression listen to different types of classical music and found the participants overwhelmingly preferred sad music to more upbeat sounds because they found it relaxing. The researchers concluded that the less upbeat tunes were calming for people with depression because they better matched their energy levels.

“Listening to sad songs allows people to express their feelings in a healthy way,” says Dr. Estevez. “When emotions are built up inside with no avenue for expression, it can create a great deal of inner turmoil.”

Estevez also notes that listening to sad music — whether solitary or not — can also remind us that we are not alone in our emotions. “Listening to these songs helps us realise that others share our thoughts and feelings,” she says. “Additionally, hearing lyrics that we resonate with can be comforting because they articulate the emotions we might previously not have had words for.”

So why do we still like sad music when we’re not in the dumps?

Matthew E. Sachs, PhD, a neuroscience and psychology researcher at Columbia University in New York City, says sometimes sadness summoned by music can help people get in touch with clearer, more rational thinking because it makes them feel reflective in the absence of any real-life tragic events.

Research (including some from Dr. Sachs’s group) suggests people with a strong sense of empathy are drawn to sad songs.

Sachs’s work has asked people to rate the intensity of any sadness or enjoyment felt while hearing sad songs in order to map those feelings to regions of the brain activated while they listened. Subjects who expressed the most enjoyment had more activation in the regions of the brain that control memory, executive function, and empathy, according to results published in September 2020 in the journal NeuroImage. Other research has found that melancholy tunes can fire up the parts of our brain that control our imagination and regulate our emotions (again, including empathy).

“One strong indicator of whether a person enjoys sad music is the degree to which they understand and relate to the emotions of others,” Sachs says.

Aside from empathy, research has also explored other mental health benefits of music more generally. One study published in 2022 in Aging and Mental Health, found that study group participants experienced decreased worry and irritation, as well as increased mood, self-esteem, and overall energy.

And, while listening to sad songs can be emotionally beneficial, Estevez cautions against over-listening to songs that might bring down your mood. “It is best to have a healthy mix of music that helps us express our emotions and ones that elevate our mood,” she says.

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Source:Everydayhealth.com