Stressed Out? Me Too!

I hate school sometimes. I just want to throw my homework out the window and blame it on my husky, Coffee. Ok, maybe I am too mean for that, but that's what stress does to you.

Whether it was a slam of a door, a cry of frustration, or a curse of anger sounded from the bedroom as a panicking student (aka me) stared at the blank essay paper while watching the clock tick closer and faster to the deadline, in an ever-increasingly demanding and fast-paced world, our teenage years have become synonymous with anxiety.

Despite the increasing rate of anxiety in teens, unfortunately, many people ignore the growing anxiety in teens because they just think teens are naturally too sensitive, immature, and emotionally unstable. According to BKK Kids, the prevalence of anxiety is rising in adolescents as they face academic pressure, social expectations, and an increase in addictions to social media and technology, which can cause stress in any teenager. With such anxiety left unaddressed, studies show that many teens have an increased risk of turning towards alcohol abuse, drug usage, and unhealthy engagement in sex to cope, which is detrimental to one’s physical and mental well-being. However, I found that you can cope with anxiety with another simple, healthy alternative readily available to everyone: music.

The scientific findings clearly show that music benefits people by lowering anxiety for everyone, not just people with mental illnesses. Many people have heard about music therapy, as it is growing in popularity. And according to the American Music Therapy Association, Music Therapy (MT) is a deep-rooted health profession where individuals’ emotional, physical, social, and cognitive needs are acknowledged through a therapeutic relationship with music. Many musicians spoke publicly about combatting their mental health issues through music.

Usually, active MT, which is also known as expressive music therapy, involves the personal creation of music in any form, such as singing, composing, and playing instruments. In retrospect, people use the above-mentioned receptive music therapy every day as they choose to listen to different genres of music depending on their mood and subsequently respond to the music through the decrease of stress and the elevation of mood. 

Although we can't perform active MT on this blog, it still shows that music can alleviate stress. So, I created a short playlist of music that is shown and studied to de-stress people and help create a healthy mindset. Feel free to check that out! Also, there is a new discussion on the forum so I hope to hear your thoughts there!