Does listening to music benefit mental health?
Does frequent listening to music actually lead to better mental health? A study by the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) shows that this correlation is not clear.
The MPIEA team analyzed data from around 10,500 people from 2012 and a further 9500 people from 2022. All the data came from the Swedish Twin Register. The study focused on listening habits, in particular how much music was listened to and used to regulate mood.
It was found that people with depression, anxiety, feelings of loneliness or a stronger tendency towards neuroticism in particular were more likely to listen to music to regulate their mood. However, the team found no evidence that listening to more music in everyday life improves or worsens mental health.
In order to better understand the causal relationships, the research team used genetically based twin analyses and so-called polygenic indices, which map the genetic susceptibility to mental illness.
