Does listening to music reduce stress? Modestly, but reliably
Two meta-analyses of 104 trials found music lowered both felt stress and physical markers like heart rate. The effect is consistent and moderate — larger for how stressed people feel than for blood pressure.
| Group | Value (value) |
|---|---|
| Psychological stress (anxiety, restlessness) | 0.55 |
| Physiological stress (heart rate, BP, hormones) | 0.38 |
Listening to music does measurably reduce stress, though the effect is moderate rather than dramatic [s1]. Pooling 104 randomised trials in 9,617 people, music interventions lowered both psychological stress — anxiety, restlessness, nervousness — and physiological markers such as heart rate, blood pressure and stress hormones [s1].
This article describes published research. It is not medical advice, and music is not a substitute for treatment of an anxiety or mood disorder.
What the evidence actually shows
The strongest general synthesis is a 2020 paper in Health Psychology Review that ran two multilevel meta-analyses across 104 randomised controlled trials, drawing on 327 separate effect sizes and 9,617 participants [s1]. It asked a simple question: does adding music, compared with a control condition, reduce stress?
It did, on both fronts. Music produced a significant effect on psychological stress outcomes (d = 0.545) and a smaller but still significant effect on physiological ones (d = 0.380) [s1]. By convention those are moderate and small-to-moderate effects — real, consistent, and above what you would expect from chance, but not a sedative-strength intervention. Among the bodily measures, the effect was largest on heart rate (d = 0.456), compared with blood pressure (d = 0.343) and hormone levels such as cortisol (d = 0.349) [s1].
The gap between the two numbers is itself informative: music shifted how stressed people felt somewhat more than it shifted their physiology [s1]. That is a common signature of relaxation practices, and a reason to describe music as a genuine aid to calm rather than a treatment that resets the body's stress response.
A harder clinical test
General relaxation studies can flatter an intervention, so it helps to look at a setting where anxiety is acute and stakes are high. A Cochrane review examined music for people with coronary heart disease — patients facing diagnosis, hospitalisation and surgery — across 26 trials and 1,369 participants [s2]. Notably, in 23 of the 26 trials the music was simply listened to, without a trained music therapist [s2].
Music had a moderate effect on anxiety in these patients (standardised mean difference -0.70, 95% confidence interval -1.17 to -0.22), though results varied across studies [s2]. The signal was steadier in people recovering from a heart attack, where music produced an average anxiety reduction of 5.87 points on a 20-to-80 scale (95% CI -7.99 to -3.75) [s2]. Music also nudged physiology in the expected direction — heart rate down by about 3.4 beats per minute and systolic blood pressure down by roughly 5.5 mmHg [s2]. Tellingly, patient-selected music worked better and more consistently than music chosen for them [s2].
How to read it
Both syntheses agree on the shape of the answer: music reliably takes the edge off stress and anxiety, the effect is moderate, and it is larger for felt distress than for hard physiological endpoints [s1][s2]. Letting people choose their own music appears to matter [s2]. It is cheap, pleasant and essentially risk-free, which is a strong argument for using it and a weak one for overselling it.
That places music alongside the other accessible calming practices this site has weighed. The evidence for breathing exercises, for journaling and for mindfulness apps follows the same curve — real, modest, easy to oversell — and a network meta-analysis of wellbeing interventions makes the general point that many low-cost practices help a little. For stress that disrupts sleep, the separate evidence on sleep hygiene is worth reading alongside this.
What to take from it
The defensible read is that putting on music you like is a reasonable, low-stakes way to lower everyday stress, with a moderate and well-replicated benefit [s1][s2]. It is a tool, not a therapy — helpful for a tense afternoon, not a stand-in for care when anxiety is clinical.
Sources
- Effects of music interventions on stress-related outcomes: a systematic review and two meta-analyses — Health Psychology Review, 2019-07-15
- Music for stress and anxiety reduction in coronary heart disease patients — Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2013-12-28
Sources
- Effects of music interventions on stress-related outcomes: a systematic review and two meta-analyses — Health Psychology Review , July 15, 2019
- Music for stress and anxiety reduction in coronary heart disease patients — Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews , December 28, 2013
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