Video Transcription

Session #1: Your Relationship with Music

Let’s talk about our relationship with music. Some people say it’s like a comforting friend; other people say it’s a vitamin pill, a distraction from pain, a personal reveal. The thing is that music can feel different to everyone. Sometimes it makes me feel better, but I’ve also noticed that it doesn’t always work like that. That song that used to chill me out, but has now become a sense in the background. I don’t even notice it’s playing. Or how about those songs that used to be love songs and now they’re just a painful reminder of how badly things have ended?

So, music that used to be helpful can become unhelpful. Fun fact from some research: lots of people keep listening to the same piece of music even after it stops making them feel good. Sometimes they keep listening to a song even if it has started triggering bad feelings. It’s just not fair that music could be making you feel bad when you’re already feeling bad, right? And so, kind of counterintuitive, right? But actually, it makes sense. When we’re stressed, we tend to rely on patterns of behaviour that have helped in the past. We fall back to our defaults when we just don’t have the mental capacity to think of new ways of coping.

Between work, study, friends, and general life, during difficult times, things can get pretty stressful. If you’re feeling this way and are tired of relying on old, unhelpful habits, maybe it’s time to find new ways of coping better. This place you’re in now, feeling stuck, is the perfect time to start making a change. Take a few minutes to think about how you engage with your music and when it happens. When you listen to your playlist, do you feel better after a song? Do you feel worse? Choose your favourite songs and see if they actually have any influence on how you feel.

Then, check out our video about whether music helps us to feel better or not to learn more.

Video by Uni Melbourne