The sound of music: How music can help calm the anxious mind

The sound of music: How music can help calm the anxious mind

An evidence-based guide to music as a complementary aid for anxiety relief

Music, with its melody, harmony and rhythm, has the ability to influence our emotions, thoughts and feelings. Over the past two decades, a growing body of research has confirmed what we have long understood intuitively: listening to music can help us feel calmer and reduce anxiety. We explore the science behind using music to manage anxiety and how it can be applied as a self-management tool. To support this, we have curated an anti-anxiety playlist — inspired by research — to help you begin incorporating music into your wellness routine.

How music affects your brain

Listening to music is a multisensory experience. It has various physiological effects on our body, affecting our heart rate, breathing, blood pressure and muscle tension. It also modulates brain activity in the regions of the brain associated with emotion and mood regulation.

When we hear music we enjoy, the brain begins a cascade of neurochemical activity, triggering the release of neurotransmitters, including endorphins, oxytocin, and dopamine, which all contribute to well-being and anxiety reduction. The research paper titled ‘The transformative power of music: Insights into neuroplasticity, health, and disease’¹ also indicates that music can increase serotonin, a neurotransmitter widely associated with mood stability and emotional wellbeing. It also causes changes in the body, like slowing your heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and cortisol levels, which further supports that music can help calm anxiety and support positive emotional and cognitive states.

The opposite is also true: because of the effect on serotonin levels, listening to ‘unpleasant’ (for the individual) music may worsen symptoms.

Music also serves as a distraction from anxiety-inducing thoughts or other surrounding stimuli, which increases its therapeutic value.

Music therapy and anxiety

A comprehensive 2025 systematic review in eClinicalMedicine (The Lancet), which included 51 studies encompassing over 3 000 participants, demonstrated evidence that music therapy offers “significant medium effect” interventions for anxiety across mental health care, medical, and everyday settings.

The review noted that engaging in music through singing or playing instruments, in addition to listening, yields a significantly greater effect than passive listening alone. There was no clear evidence that doing more sessions or listening longer improves results, which highlights the flexibility of music therapy to suit your personal preference. However, more research is needed to understand exactly which approaches are best for treating anxiety.

Binaural Beats: Tuning your brain

Beyond traditional music, a growing area of neuroscience research focuses on binaural beats — an auditory technology that involves playing two tones of slightly different frequencies into each ear simultaneously. The brain perceives the difference between the two tones as a third, pulsing frequency, and research suggests this can guide brainwave activity toward more relaxed, less anxious states.

For anxiety relief specifically, research supports the use of lower-frequency binaural beats. A 2024 systematic review in Applied Sciences² concluded that binaural beats, particularly in the alpha and delta ranges, showed positive effects on anxiety symptoms across multiple controlled studies.

How you can use music as part of your wellness routine

Incorporating music or binaural beats into your daily life does not require a formal programme; there’s also no evidence to suggest that binaural beats is any better than music you enjoy. If you are considering using music as part of your wellness routine, here are some practical starting points:

• Understand your reasons for listening to music — do you want to:
  • change your mood?
  • reinforce how you’re feeling right now?
  • or simply distract yourself?
• Music choice is entirely subjective, so compile a playlist of music that works for you. For some people, even heavy metal can provide psychological and emotional benefits, while others may prefer energising music to cheer them up.
• Avoid music that brings up painful memories or music with lyrics associated with a trigger.
• Avoid music that knowingly makes you feel worse.
• When listening to a piece of music, take note of your initial emotions and be aware of how your feelings evolve after engaging with the music.
• For binaural beats:
  • Binaural beats only work with headphones or earphones.
  • Listen at a comfortable, conversational volume.
  • Listen before a stressful situation, rather than continuously.
  • Use the alpha or theta range for 15–20 minutes before a known anxiety trigger.
  • It can be used as part of a wind-down routine before sleep.
• Levelling up — to increase the benefits of music therapy:
  • Sing, hum or chant. Using your vocal cords stimulates the vagal nerve, one of the main nerves of your parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for “rest and digest”.
  • Play an instrument. Learning how to play, or playing, an instrument is a good way to keep your mind focused on the activity and away from negative thoughts.
  • Sing or play an instrument with a group. The social bonding within a group has shown to increase positivity, engagement and connection.

Anti-anxiety playlist

Our curated playlist — accessible directly from this page — brings these recommendations together in one place. It includes classical, ambient, and contemporary tracks selected for their anxiety-reducing musical properties, as well as a dedicated binaural beats section informed by the frequency research outlined above.

As always, music and sound are best viewed as complementary supports — not replacements for professional medical treatment. If you are managing an anxiety condition, please speak with your healthcare provider about a treatment plan appropriate for your needs.