Music and Mental Health: Beethoven’s Music and How Our Brains React

Why Music is Good for Us

I have to admit my bias: I am a marching band mom. Yes, one of those. I am also the mother of a teen with ADHD and Anxiety. I used to play the flute in middle school. I have admitted all of my biases, let me explain why I love music and why it’s wonderful for our brains.

The Pacific Symphony’s website states “Studies have shown that engaging with music can lead to increased brain connectivity and improvements in brain function across various age groups.”

In toddlers, music can help enrich their sensory environment, which creates more pathways between brain cells, it can also help with fine and gross motor movements when they start dancing, even just bopping up and down. It has also been shown to help with language processing skills.

In midlife, music helps by improving mood, helping with social interactions, and in some studies it even helps lower high blood pressure and improve immune function. By using music in our social gatherings we can be more relaxed and feel less pressure to talk, which in turn can help with anxiety. And since making friends helps with stress, it’s a great way to make it easier to meet people.

Music helps later in life. “Three-quarters of people aged 50 to 80 say music helps them relieve stress or relax and 65% say it helps their mental health or mood, according to the new results from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging. Meanwhile, 60% say they get energized or motivated by music” according to the University of Michigan.

Joel Howell, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School stated “We know that music is associated with positive effects on measures from blood pressure to depression”.

So if music is good for us, how do we get involved?

Active participation This is where you actively play an instrument, dance, or even sing.

Receptivity This is where you mindfully listen to music and take time to enjoy it, in the car, at home, with friends, etc.

When you move and dance, you also build muscle and increase bone density, so music also has indirect effects on our health, plus exercise is good for us all, no matter what our age.

Music and Mental Health

Have you ever heard a good song come on and started singing or dancing? Of course you have! We all have, that’s because music can also affect our moods. As someone who was a teen in the eighties almost any eighties song gets me in a good mood (only the upbeat ones please!)

Music can bring joy to us as we remember our youth, in fact in the poll mentioned earlier, some older adults said they appreciate the music of their youth more now than they did during their younger years. When we feel joy our mood is uplifted, but our bodies also respond. When the brain feels joy, it releases dopamine, that wonderful feel-good chemical. It even releases serotonin, the mood-regulating hormone.

The reverse can also be true, when we are sad, if we listen to sad songs or songs in minor keys, it can lower our mood even more. If we are music-reactive, we have to be careful about what music we listen to, but we can also use music as medicine.

What other ways does music affect mental health?

ADHD

Neurodivergents have amazingly complex brains. I am convinced they are stars simply not meant to fit into the square hole of public school. This is a much more complex subject, however, for them, music can be calming. The repetitive pattern of the music can help with focus. It stimulates areas of the brain that usually have low activity in those with ADHD.

Pacific Symphony’s Website states “For instance, the dynamic range in Beethoven’s compositions, from pianissimo (soft) to fortissimo (loud), from adagio (slow) to presto (fast), can activate the brain’s reward centers while improving the plasticity of the brain’s auditory cortex. These musical variations require the brain to adapt and predict, which strengthens neural connections and can lead to improved auditory skills.”

Depression

Listening to your favorite composer, whether it be Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart, can help with depression. Neurosciencenews.com says “Western classical music can significantly affect brain activity, particularly in people with treatment-resistant depression. By measuring brainwaves and neural imaging, scientists discovered that music synchronizes neural oscillations between brain regions associated with sensory and emotional processing, enhancing mood.”

This is good news for those who have a difficult time treating their depression, as it can be another tool in the psychological toolbox to combat these low times. Treatment-resistant depression can feel hopeless, and finding new ways to cope and get through these episodes is vital.

The Beethoven Effect

“Beethoven’s music, known for its ability to convey a spectrum of human emotions, can foster empathy and emotional intelligence. As listeners become immersed in the emotional ebb and flow of the concerto, they engage brain regions responsible for empathy and social cognition. The emotional resonance can facilitate a sense of connectedness, providing mental well-being beyond cognitive stimulation.”

Beethoven’s complex music stirs complex emotions in the brain, utilizing the brain’s limbic system, which is responsible for processing emotion. This causes it to become active. Classical music is not only structured but also complex, so it requires a level of mental engagement that can lead to improved focus and memory retention.

Putting Beethoven’s music on in the background can also help people with ADHD focus more on a task and complete it. How does it do this? By inducing alpha brainwaves, which in turn help relax the brain and spur creative thinking.

As you can see, listening to classical music is beneficial for the brain. It opens up areas that are not normally used and helps us feel things we may not in our day-to-day life, so the next time you are feeling tired, anxious, depressed, or stressed, try putting on some classical music (specifically Beethoven) and see if you feel a difference.

Try doing this every day for about thirty minutes a day, especially during your car ride to work, on the way home after work, while in traffic, etc. Any time you feel you will be able to truly get the benefits of relaxation and creative thinking. Listening to complex music is good for the brain because the complexities in the music help our brain work out in a sense.

“Remarkably, the impact of Beethoven’s music on the brain can also be structural. Long-term exposure to complex music like Beethoven’s has been linked to increased neuroplasticity. This refers to the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections. Musicians who frequently engage with Beethoven’s compositions often exhibit enhanced brain plasticity, particularly in areas involved in auditory processing and motor control.”

Why does this music help so much? Because it releases dopamine into our brain, which creates the sensations of joy and elation, “Ode to Joy” is a notable example that showed this in measuring the brain’s reaction to his music.

“The complex structures and unexpected transitions in his music can encourage divergent thinking, a key component of creativity. This effect is particularly noticeable in individuals engaged in creative fields, where listening to Beethoven can lead to novel ideas and innovative problem-solving approaches.”

The next time you’re stressed or need some creative juices to flow, put on some Beethoven, sit back and relax and see what happens. You might be surprised how music that seems so complicated can be so relaxing and comforting to a busy, overactive, brain. We can all use some downtime when it comes to our busy fast-paced lives.