How Classical and Preferred Music Affect Mental Health: A Conversation with Dr. Miranda Yeoh

Music brings together seven fundamental components — melody, harmony, rhythm, form, texture, dynamics, and timbre — though not every element needs equal prominence. While music itself is not a language, it undeniably carries meaning, especially when lyrics join the instrumental fabric. Through this combination, music becomes a neurobiological tool that shapes our mental health, emotional state, and psychology by extending and replacing language. Humans have engaged with music since ancient times, and it remains among the top ten sources of pleasure, contributing to overall happiness and well-being.

Dr. Miranda Yeoh, a biology and biochemistry teacher, holds a Master's degree in Music Education. Her graduate research focused on how undergraduate students' music preferences relate to musical characteristics, their training, and their familiarity with different genres. She also earned a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, investigating how teenage students' music preferences connect to listener psychology and environmental influences. Among the variables she examined were listener personality traits — psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism — along with the mood of the music, its attributes, and how familiar listeners were with each piece. She held that musical training need not lead to a professional music career but believed it could deepen a person's sensitivity toward others, foster emotional empathy, and improve one's ability to collaborate positively within an organization. As a biology lecturer, she has drawn on insights from music education and psychology, finding those skills essential when working with students and colleagues. In this interview, Dr. Yeoh shared her understanding of how music affects human happiness and mental health.

What evidence shows that listening to music brings pleasure or happiness?

Salimpoor and colleagues explored the pleasure that music can create, noting that pleasurable responses range from subtle mood shifts to intense chills. Using both neutral instrumental excerpts and pieces known to induce chills in 26 participants, the researchers found a clear link between musical pleasure and emotional arousal. They measured arousal through temperature, galvanic skin response, heart rate, respiration rate, and blood volume pulse amplitude. Their findings suggested that preferred music activates the brain's dopamine pathway — the same reward system stimulated by drugs and tasty foods — in a similar way. Of the 26 chill-inducing excerpts, 18 came from Western classical or art music, one from jazz, one from folk, and a few from pop-rock. In a follow-up study with eight participants, the researchers observed a 6–9% relative increase in dopamine levels when people listened to their preferred music compared to a control condition; one subject recorded a 21% increase. A 6% dopamine boost is comparable to eating delicious food, while a 22% rise is equivalent to the effect of cocaine. The team concluded that these findings clarify why music holds such importance in daily life, rituals, marketing, and film. The piece that most frequently induced pleasurable chills was Barber's Adagio for Strings, a Western classical composition.

Beyond pleasure, what other benefits can music provide?

Relaxing music can reduce anxiety, thereby improving mental health. Knight and Rickard examined the effect of Pachelbel's Canon in D major on 87 undergraduates — 43 women and 44 men — who faced the stress of preparing for an oral presentation, either with the music playing or in silence. The stressor caused significant increases in anxiety, heart rate, and systolic blood pressure in both male and female control groups. But exposure to Pachelbel's Canon prevented these stress-induced increases, and this effect occurred regardless of gender. The work provided experimental evidence that relaxing music effectively lowers anxiety. Nilsson and colleagues reported that music therapy reduced surgical stress by significantly lowering serum cortisol levels. Seventy-five patients scheduled for open hernia repair were randomly assigned to an intra-operative music group, a post-operative music group, or a silent control group. Stress responses were measured during and after surgery through plasma cortisol and blood glucose levels. The post-operative music group showed a 45% decrease in cortisol after two hours, compared to only 16% in the control group, and these patients also experienced less anxiety and pain, requiring less morphine after one hour. The groups showed no significant differences in immunoglobulin A, blood glucose, blood pressure, heart rate, or oxygen saturation. The results indicated that post-operative music therapy reduces anxiety and pain, leading to a lower need for morphine, and that reduced stress contributes to better mental and physical health. Yeoh and colleagues defined "listener psychology" as the way a listener's mind functions to shape music preference behavior. Their study found a negative relationship between neuroticism and music preference among non-music students: the higher the degree of neuroticism, the less the non-musician liked the musical stimulus, which appeared as "arousing information." Neurotic individuals tend to be anxious, have poorer mental health, experience negative emotions and depression, and suffer more anxiety. With a lower activation threshold in their sympathetic nervous system, they tend to avoid arousing stimuli found in metal, heavy metal, or techno music. Dollinger also noted that anxious, neurotic people preferred less arousing music. Trappe warned that heavy metal and techno may pose risks for intensive-care patients.

How can music benefit younger people and students?

Harmat, Takács, and Bódizs investigated whether music could improve sleep quality among 94 students aged 19–28 who had poor sleep. One group listened to 45 minutes of relaxing classical music at bedtime for three weeks, a second group listened to an audio-book, and a control group received no intervention. Sleep quality was measured before the study and weekly during the intervention. The music group showed significantly improved sleep quality, and their depressive symptoms also decreased significantly. Neither the audio-book group nor the control group showed statistically significant improvements. The researchers concluded that soothing classical music effectively distracts from sleeping problems that often lead to fatigue and depression. Music can reduce sympathetic nervous system activity, lower anxiety, and positively influence sleep through muscle relaxation and distraction from troubling thoughts, all of which contribute to mental and physical well-being.

What research supports music's ability to enhance mental health?

Persistent negative thoughts, emotions, or mental preoccupation with negative experiences can harm human health. Poor mental health often leads to impaired physical health, including increased susceptibility to viral and yeast infections and several non-communicable diseases. Music helps regulate emotions, which is essential for good mental health. To protect our mental health, we should choose "healthful" music.

How can preferred music be used to improve mental health?

Some studies used the subjects' own preferred music. According to Trappe, however, Western classical and meditation music are the best choices. A brief review of research in this area shows that Western classical music is the most commonly used genre. The music of Bach, other Baroque-era composers, and Mozart — an early Classical figure — effectively improves mental health. Much of this music, played at 60 crotchets per minute, activates both hemispheres of the listener's brain at the same time, enabling maximum information processing and learning. Yet Trappe warned that heavy metal and techno music can be ineffective or even dangerous, potentially increasing stress or causing life-threatening arrhythmias.

What music from other cultures can positively affect mental health?

Beyond Western classical tradition, this author adds traditional ethnic and folk music, as well as commercial pop and soft rock, to the category of healthful music. These genres share similarities with Western classical or art music and the traditional music of Asian countries such as India, China, and Malaysia, and from Middle Eastern nations including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. Many of these traditions blend timbres from string, wind, and percussion instruments in instrumental ethnic or folk pieces, often enriching the human voice in traditional songs and opera. Such traditional ethnic music closely resembles Western classical music in quality and timbre, acting on both brain hemispheres to optimize information processing.

What contribution can popular music make to mental health?

Popular music was the most preferred genre among Malaysian undergraduates and teenagers. It is the music most frequently broadcast in Malaysia and many other countries, and it is the genre most familiar to non-musicians. Familiarity increases liking for popular music. Among 436 respondents, including 205 musicians and 231 non-musicians, the five most preferred excerpts were commercial tracks by Backstreet Boys, Phil Collins, Westlife, Christina Aguilera, and Siti Nurhaliza, with the sixth being a traditional Malaysian piece, Kompang. When preferences for all 24 excerpts were compared, pop music emerged as the top choice for the whole sample and both subsamples, with rock music in second place. These findings aligned with earlier studies on student music preferences. Bergland, who grew up with soft rock from The Carpenters, ABBA, John Denver, and Olivia Newton-John, stated that the music we enjoy is a powerful means to improve mood and mental health. Often, the music we like depends on our psychology. This set of music that enhances mental health can be extended to include ethnic and folk instrumental pieces, as well as commercial pop and soft rock. Young people, students, and undergraduates around the world love commercial pop and rock. Older individuals may prefer the music of their youth — for some, the 1970s. Based on the research discussed, regardless of our personality, we can effectively use our own preferred music to calm our fears, encourage ourselves in facing daily challenges, and improve our mental health.