How Music Aids Healing: Why the Right Song Can Shift Your Whole Energy
- strengthofaqueen
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
There are days when words fail. Days when you are tired but cannot explain why.
Days when your body feels heavy, your mind is loud, and your spirit just needs something to lift it.
And then a song comes on.
Suddenly your shoulders drop. Your breathing changes. Your mood shifts. You are not imagining it. Music has a measurable impact on the brain, the nervous system, and emotional processing.
As a lifelong music lover, and as someone who supports survivors while navigating my own healing journey, I have seen first-hand how powerful music can be. The right song can shift your mood, steady your emotions, and remind you of your strength. One track that always lifts me is “Feeling Good,” especially the version by Michael Bublé.
1. Music Regulates the Nervous System
When we experience trauma, stress, or prolonged emotional strain, the nervous system often stays in a state of hyperarousal or shutdown. This is explained in trauma research by experts such as Bessel van der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score (2014), which outlines how trauma affects the brain and body.
Music can influence the autonomic nervous system.
Studies have found that listening to relaxing music can reduce cortisol levels, the hormone associated with stress.
Lower cortisol means the body shifts away from fight or flight.
Here is what happens step by step:
Sound waves enter the ear.
The auditory cortex processes the sound.
The limbic system, which regulates emotion, responds.
The hypothalamus signals changes in hormone release.
Heart rate and breathing begin to synchronise with rhythm.
Slow tempo music can slow heart rate.
Upbeat music can increase alertness and motivation.
Your body literally responds to rhythm.
That is why certain songs calm you and others energise you.
2. Music Increases Dopamine and Improves Mood
A landmark study published in Nature Neuroscience (Salimpoor et al., 2011) used brain imaging to show that listening to music that gives you pleasure triggers dopamine release in the brain. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter associated with reward and motivation.
This is the same chemical involved in:
Feeling joy
Experiencing anticipation
Motivation to move forward
3. Music Helps Process Emotions Safely
Healing is not about suppressing emotions. It is about processing them safely.
Music gives language to feelings we cannot articulate.
People use music for emotional regulation in specific ways, including:
Venting
Comfort
Distraction
Revival
Reflection
If you have survived narcissistic abuse, emotional manipulation, or chronic stress, you know how confusing emotions can feel. Music can act as a container. It allows you to feel anger without acting on it. To cry without collapsing. To feel powerful without confrontation.
Sometimes it is not about feeling better immediately. It is about feeling honestly.
4. Music Supports Trauma Recovery
Music therapy is an established clinical intervention.
The British Association for Music Therapy confirms that music therapy is used in mental health settings, trauma recovery, and neurological rehabilitation.
Structured music therapy has been shown to reduce PTSD symptoms in some participants by:
Improving emotional expression
Enhancing sense of control
Reducing isolation
Supporting nervous system regulation
You do not need a formal session to benefit from music. But being intentional helps.
Ask yourself:
What music calms me?
What music makes me feel powerful?
What music makes me cry in a healthy way?
Build playlists for different emotional needs.
5. Lyrics Rewire Identity
This is where it gets personal.
When you have been in controlling or abusive dynamics, your identity can shrink.
You might internalise messages such as:
You are too much.
You are not enough.
You are difficult.
You are lucky to have them.
Music can interrupt that narrative.
The lyrics of “Feeling Good” include lines about freedom and renewal.
When repeated, lyrics act almost like affirmations set to rhythm.
Repetition strengthens neural pathways.
The brain changes based on repeated experience.
If you repeatedly expose yourself to messages of empowerment, your brain strengthens those networks.
It is not magic. It is repetition plus emotion.
Emotion strengthens memory encoding.
That means emotionally powerful music can anchor new beliefs more deeply.
6. Music Creates Community and Reduces Isolation
Healing in isolation is hard.
Music connects people across culture, age, and background.
Group singing has been shown to increase oxytocin levels, the hormone linked to bonding. Singing can reduce stress markers and increase positive mood.
This is why choirs, concerts, and even karaoke nights feel uplifting.
Shared rhythm synchronises people physiologically.
Heart rates can align.
Breathing can synchronise.
You feel less alone.
For survivors, especially those who were isolated in relationships, shared music experiences can restore a sense of belonging.
7. Music and Movement Heal Together
When music makes you move, you multiply the benefit.
Physical movement increases endorphins.
Regular physical activity improves mood and reduces symptoms of anxiety and depression.
When you combine music and movement:
Dopamine increases from music.
Endorphins increase from movement.
Cortisol decreases.
Heart rate variability improves.
It becomes a whole body intervention.
Even dancing alone in your living room counts.
8. Music as a Healing Ritual
Healing often requires ritual.
Something consistent.
Something intentional.
Instead of waiting for random songs to lift you, create a ritual:
Morning reset song
Midday grounding playlist
Evening reflection music
Some songs can become a declaration.
Not just background noise.
It is you choosing energy.
Choosing power.
Choosing renewal.
That matters.
9. Music Helps You Access Hope
Hope is not always logical. Sometimes it is sensory.
Hope Theory, shows that hope involves both agency and pathways thinking.
Music can support agency by shifting emotional state.
When your emotional state improves, your perception of possibility increases.
You think differently when you feel different.
If you have been in survival mode, your brain prioritises threat detection.
Uplifting music can help shift the brain toward broader thinking.
Research has shown that positive emotions expand cognitive flexibility.
Music can trigger those positive emotions.
And when your mind expands, your options expand.
10. Choosing Your Healing Soundtrack
Here is something practical.
Create three playlists:
Regulation Playlist: Slow tempo, calming songs. Use this when anxious.
Release Playlist: Songs that help you cry, feel anger, or process grief.
Power Playlist: Songs that make you stand taller. “Feeling Good” sits here for me.
Notice patterns.
Which keys lift you?
Which voices resonate?
Which lyrics trigger strength?
Be intentional.
Your Healing Has a Sound
Music will not replace therapy.
It will not solve legal battles.
It will not erase trauma.
But it can regulate your body. It can shift your mood.
It can reinforce new beliefs. It can connect you to others.
It can energise you when you feel depleted.
And sometimes, that shift is the difference between staying stuck and taking one small step forward.
So I will ask you this.
What song makes you feel alive?
What song reminds you who you are?
Build your soundtrack intentionally.
Healing does not always arrive in silence.
Sometimes it arrives with rhythm, breath, and a lyric that lands at exactly the right time.
Turn it up.
Healing has a sound.
I created this playlist for survivors rebuilding their identity, breaking cycles, and reconnecting with faith and self-worth.
Press play when you need reminding who you are.
Share this playlist with someone who needs it.
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