Listening to sad songs when dealing with grief makes you feel better, says study
Posted on: 02/Apr/2016 9:46:05 AM
A new study has said that listening to sad songs when feeling unhappy can make you feel better than happy tracks. The study was conducted by researchers at the De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) in the United Kingdom.
Researchers studied the listening habits of around 450 people. The participants were going though a range of emotions and circumstances. Results showed that they turned to sadder and more emotional songs when they were in a crisis.
Say the researchers, Sadness often involves emotional loss, which is not a problem which can be solved or reversed. The only real way to move on and feel better is by accepting the situation and we found that people were able to do this by listening to sad music, but not so much by listening to happy music. When we asked people about their sad music choices, participants were allowed to respond with regards to any sad songs or piece of music they believed to sound sad.
However, happy music was not linked to dealing with grief in any of these ways. Ultimately, this study shows that even though many people prefer listening to happy music in general, they find sad music helps them deal with sadness more often. By connection to the sad emotions in the music, they are able to turn negative emotions into something more peaceful, allowing them to move on and accept these.
