The Effects of Relaxing and Energizing Piano Music on Anxiety

Abstract

Music therapy has been studied for decades in order to investigate how and to what extent music can help people cope, or recover, from physical and mental issues. The most commonly reported mental health concern in the U.S. is anxiety (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – 5, 2013). Studies have shown that listening to classical styled music decreases people’s anxiety most when compared to other genres (Burns et al. 2002; Labbe, Schmidt, Babin, & Pharr, 2007), but no studies have investigated the effects of relaxing versus energizing music on human emotions or behavior. Similarly, I could find no research that explored the effect of a particular instrument, such as piano, on emotional outcomes. The aim of the present study is to determine which type of piano music, relaxing or energizing, decreases anxiety the most after the introduction of a cognitive stressor. [Introduction]