When school is in session, students have many activities in front of them. There are assignments and studying, and they also have to write essays. Essays can be incredibly draining for college students due to the frequency and the deadlines. The school routine can be brutal.
Apart from school, there are extracurricular activities and that niggling feeling about the future. Honestly, with the mental stress that comes with schooling, students need an out, and they need it fast. Having the necessary skills to manage stress is crucial; perhaps unintentionally, students and adults with stressful routines have discovered it.
The answer is music. If you think this is an exaggeration, try remembering the last time you forgot your earbuds or headphones. Panic, yes? Music has helped you get through bad days, and you have taken it for granted. Music is an important stress therapy; the best part is that it is free or cheaper than therapy. This is not to say that you don’t need therapy.
However, for the stress students face in school, music could help them release some of it. Research shows that music has relaxation qualities for the mind. There’s more that music does for students, and in these posts, you will find out how music helps music relax.
How Music Helps Students Relax
Cortisol is the hormone your body releases when it is overwhelmed, stressed, and tensed, either physically or emotionally. Known as the stress hormone, cortisol is quite helpful as it allows you to overcome challenging situations in the short term. These hormones allow you to focus and help you with the burst of energy that you need in a stressful situation.
When your body releases cortisol constantly due to frequent stress, the excess of this hormone could hurt your body drastically. Academic stress falls into the category of constant stress, as when school is in session, there are limited opportunities for resting. So, your body goes on a cortisol production overdrive.
An overdrive of cortisol puts you in a perpetual flight or fight mode, which means you are prone to anxiety, depression, and tension.
This is where music comes in. Music has always been a source of comfort over time. People going through heartbreaks or have a task ahead of them turn to their favorite songs. Those with heartbreak feel the warm embrace of music wrapping around their broken hearts. People who want to perform a task use music as a boost to pump themselves up for their work.
Now there’s you, the student. Let’s talk about how music will help you relax.
Music Helps to Tackle Cortisol.
Cortisol in your body means you are ready to battle a stressful situation. It’s your body’s biological defense against stressful situations. However, when it becomes excessive, it will hurt your body. Music is the bane of cortisol, and recent research also confirms this. Music is the complex combination of different sounds, and recognizing music is a complex activity for the brain.
What does this mean? It means that you become distracted from the events that are stressing you. This diversion helps cool the production of cortisol in your body. For instance, imagine finishing school for the day, and you get home with worries about some stuff you’ve done in the past or what the future holds. The spiral begins, and your control will begin to slip away.
If you want to get that control back, you need to distract yourself, and instead of a wandering mind, your mind will focus on the present and now.
It Brings Pleasure and creativity
Music keeps cortisol under control, and it replaces the hormone cortisol with feel-good chemicals. So instead of the side effects of cortisol, you would feel the rush of dopamine, and with this chemical comes motivation. Bye crippling anxiety, and hello to the urge to move and achieve something. You can take it up a notch by trying to make music for yourself. It doesn’t have to be something elaborate. Just sing along and let it all out.
As a student, you need to be creative, and music can help you tap into your creative side as it helps you feel good and pushes out cortisol. A relaxed mind is a fertile ground for creativity.
Helps you Sleep Well
One of the necessary things for your success as a student is your ability to rest well. A good night’s rest helps your body clear toxins and allows your brain to rest adequately. A rested brain can efficiently perform better than a tired one as it would be less distracted and affected by stress. Music helps relax your body for you to sleep.
Conclusion
Music is great as a stress management system. School can be stressful, but by playing your favorite songs, you can overcome that stress.
