With my topic being on music i wanted to see what types or genres of music can reduce stress/anxiety/depression. The article “Coping with Stress: The Effectiveness of Different Types of Music” by Elise Labbè, Nicholas Schmidt, Jonathan Babin, and Martha Pharr analyze some types of music such as heavy metal, classical, or self-select music and silence. With there being no research question, seems there was more of a hypothesis going on. They made the assumption that listening to classical or self-selected music  after being introduced to a stressor would reduce the anger, anxiety, and be more relaxed than the participants who listened to heavy metal or sat in silence. In this study there were 56 college students, 15 males, and  41 females. 11% were african american, 82% were caucasian, 2% were asian, and 2% were other ethnicity. For the study they needed to conduct some measurements, they used a demographic questionnaire, relaxation rating scale, music rating scale, state trait anger expression inventory-2, state trait Anxiety inventory form Y, and physiological assessment of heart rate. All these studies helped identify how these 56 college students helped reduce their stress. Students were picked at random to self select, classical, heavy metal, or sit in silence. They completed there demographic data questionnaire  and trait scales of the music, then having physiological sensors attached to them. After being attached with the sensors the students were given a mentally difficult test. Following that they filled out a relaxation rating scale, they were told to sit in silence or listen to music again for 20 mins, then filling out the relaxation rating scale again. Results showed that state anger decreased significantly over time for all participants. They showed that self-selecting music resulted in the lowest rating of state anger compared to the other conditions selected. Overall, people will listen to whatever music they want to hear because each genre of music can give off different feeling and emotions. For example some people listen to rock music to calm down as i like to listen to country to calm down, so i believe it depends on the situation we are placed in.

Labbé, E., Schmidt, N., Babin, J., & Pharr, M. (2007). Coping with stress: The effectiveness of different types of music. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 32(3-4), 163-8. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.redlands.edu/10.1007/s10484-007-9043-9