How Rock Music Can Heal Your Soul
In general, Rock music has been proven to help us in ways we didn’t think possible. Whether you listen to music to enjoy some me-time or love going to music festivals, you have surely felt a certain way while listening to music.
Music has the ability to improve your mood, how you exercise and can even have a positive effect on your mental health. Here are the ways that music can enhance your life.
Working Out
Listening to music while exercising has been proven to not only motivate you but make you work out longer and harder. Some people have said that listening to music has almost made them forget they are tired, allowing some people to hit that extra set or run that extra mile.
Next time you are at the gym, try and work out in silence. Most people end up feeling bored and lethargic and will almost always end up finishing their workout early.
Stress Reliever
Music allows you to relax and relieve stress calmly and healthily. What is more unusual is that multiple studies have shown that rock and metal music calms people down instead of hyping them up.
This type of music allows our brain to process anger and then enables us to get over it. While listening to heavy metal and going for a drive to “clear your head” seems like a dramatic movie trope, it seems to actually help.
Music Relieves Pain
This may sound a bit out there and almost unbelievable, but some studies have shown that listening to music can help relieve the sensation of pain. Patients were surveyed, and it was shown that those who regularly listened to music felt less pain in a way.
While music can obviously not make the pain disappear, it releases dopamine and makes you feel calmer and happier, and therefore pain is easier to handle and almost ignored to a point.
Music Makes You Smarter
Listening to music engages your brain in a way that studying doesn’t. Therefore some studies have shown that listening to music while working or studying helps you both retain information better and use parts of your brain you wouldn’t use otherwise.
There is something to remember, though; listening to lyric-heavy music, especially songs that you know all the words to, can end up distracting you more than helping you. Sticking to music with no lyrics is the best choice.

Gigs Make You Happier
Music gigs combine a couple of the aspects on this list into one event. Listening to music that you love with other people who are into the same thing as you, puts you in a good mood, lets you dance away stress and anxiety and leaves you in a happy place.
The communal aspect combined with doing an activity you love simply makes you feel good. The same way doing any sport or hobby makes you feel good if you do something you love with people who also enjoy it.

Memory Improvements
Listening to music also improves your memory and your brain activity. Some studies have shown that people who listened to classical music while doing memory tasks outperformed those doing the same task but without music.
Listening to music has also been shown to slow down cognitive decline in some Alzheimer’s patients. While it doesn’t reverse the effects of the disease, it can slow down the sometimes aggressive nature of the disease.
Body Energizer
Many of us have probably felt a rush of energy when a good song or a song we like comes on the radio or starts to play at the club. You want to get up and sing and dance, and even if you’re tired and sick, you almost always end up tapping your foot or bobbing your head.
If you ever need to feel some motivation or you feel too tired to get work done or do chores you have been putting off, throwing on a playlist of your favourite songs will get you up and moving in no time.
Mental Health Helper
Music should certainly not be used as the sole solution to helping your mental health, but it is a good addition. It releases dopamine, relieves stress and anxiety, and makes you feel less angry; it is a great combination to help a possibly bad mental health day.
The type of music doesn’t usually matter, but sad music will make you feel sadder, while upbeat and “happier” music will immediately elevate your mood.
Header image by Marcela Laskoski on Unsplash