Melodies, harmonies, rock, country, easy listening – different music appeals to different people. We explore why it’s good for us to share.

Dr Rebecca Scheibmair is a practicing clinical psychologist here in Central Otago. She answers your questions as we explore topics and issues affecting us and our communities.

Music can be a great way to communicate and express how we’re feeling. One of the nationwide challenges for this year’s Mental Health Awareness week is to build a shared Spotify playlist.

We are being encouraged to listen to the music that makes others feel good – it might do the same for us. We can also add our own waiata. Songs we love to work out to, that give our spirits a lift, soothe our mind, or simply to add the whānau favourite.

Music is incredibly powerful, Rebecca says. We know it can do lots of things – advertisers use it, supermarkets use it to influence our buying behaviour.

“There have been studies showing how music influences how much we eat.

“People tend to eat less food in restaurants with soft music and low lighting.”

What all the different studies do show is that music can influence our behaviour – something we know intuitively.

“We intuitively use music as a pick me up, it can remind us of happy memories or a special person.

“The thing I like is that music can open up our emotions.”

“Music can transport us into the past, or it can help us focus and bring us back to the present moment.

“When we’re feeling a certain way, happy, sad, missing someone, we often listen to that style of music.”

Rebecca says the question asked this week is interesting, because music can in fact connect us.

It connects us to other people – think of how often you might hear ‘That’s our song’ or ‘That’s the song we played at our wedding’.

“Inviting people to share their favourite waiata during Mental Health Awareness Week is a way of carrying through a shared history, as songs get passed down and passed on.

“It is also about the sharing of cultures - think of how mothers sing to their babies, how music and singing occurs at celebrations across cultures.

“If you think about it, the whole challenge of Mental Health Awareness Week is how we can connect with each other, how we kōrero in different ways.

It may even be that it stimulates a discussion between work mates about what music you like, or you start to listen to new music because someone else talked about it: ‘Have you listened to this?’, ‘Have you heard this?’

“Listening to a new song can have no appeal, or it can stop us in our tracks.”

Listening to new music, it seems, is also good for our brains.

“The science shows it takes a lot of your brain to process music, and if we listen to new music it challenges your brain and starts to build new neural connections.

“You can really get to know someone through talking about and listening to the music they enjoy.”

And it might just open up a new world of music for you.

Email Mary at [email protected] with any questions or topics you would like Rebecca to answer in future articles. We promise not to print your name; all questions will be anonymous – just like this one.

Image credit: Mary Hinsen