Had a bad day? If you tried to escape through a sad or dark song, this may be causing you to become depressed later on.

Music has been for years, the leading tool to express emotions and words, it is the heart of a person’s individuality when created, and becomes something more than personal for the listener.

Sometimes music will mold us as a person, it can boost our ego, dictate our values and beliefs, and bring us into communities we never knew existed. We will listen to songs generally to feel a relation to our current situation, for example, after a break-up someone may listen to a song such as Adele’s “Someone Like You”, they gather their thoughts and feel it’s wiser to move on with life, and are left feeling somewhat happier after listening. Or perhaps you’ve just performed well on a test and you may listen to Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good”, it brings a sense of perfection to your life and reassure that everything is good in life.

When depression comes into the mix however - the case is different, you may have a day with the smallest inconvenience, and then when you listen to a song it relates to your situation but can inflate your emotions. For example, Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” is my personal favorite as it just intensifies the feelings that nothing has gone your way today - the trick is to believe that tomorrow is another day full of opportunity.

Depression will come along when there is a cycle of the same feelings each day - you could listen to the same sad song and always end up feeling worse afterwards.

Studies show that listening to music over reading books can result in teenagers being 8.3 times more likely to feel depressed.

The main arguments are that music is either going to be an escape, or an emotional tool. What is most common in research projects however, is that those who were already depressed would listen to a higher ratio of songs that were “sad and upsetting”. More importantly, it is the younger generations of men that showed the most links to depression with/without music.

Looks like it is wiser to dive into some stories instead of music, reading is a universal tool it appears, for stabilizing mental well-being…

Written by Harrison Jones

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