As the new school year picks up speed, homework has been keeping students up late, with late-night study sessions on repeat. To aid them with their studying, many students have found music to help them. Music is a message, a letter from a composer to their audience, offering an opportunity to heal and find solace in this art form.
For many high schoolers today, every day presents new challenges filled with various overwhelming emotions from anxiety and stress to happiness, all bundled in one. Research by Cross River Therapy reveals that nearly 67% of U.S. high school students have admitted to daily stress because of school, showcasing the pressure students feel because of their academics.
Highschoolers are beginning to use music to find peace and solace in lyrics and shared emotions. Senior Selah Fronda directly refers to music as an “incredible ability to meet me in every season I find myself in” Whenever she is anxious, “music relieves that stress, taking [her] focus off of how isolated [she] feels in the sea of people around [her].” Like many other students she drowns in the waves of anxiety produced by life and all its challenges, however, as a way rehabilitate herself, she relies on music to help lift her emotional burden. Selah evokes a captivating thought about how music moves her mental health, and finding company in her emotions and experience them with “people who have felt the same (and conveniently decided to write about it!).”
Addressing these challenges, music therapy presents a beautiful alternative to conventional therapy. Music is a gift, one to be shared and sought after. It has the beautiful ability to push and pull emotions out of oneself and let those emotions bubble to the surface. Music is passion and a warm hug for listeners to seek. It is an alternative that can improve the quality of life.
Sources Cited:
Zauderer, Steven . “47 Student Stress Statistics (High School/College).” Www.crossrivertherapy.com, 11 Jan. 2023, www.crossrivertherapy.com/student-stress-statistics.
Magsamen, Susan. “How Music Affects Your Brain.” Time, 28 Apr. 2023, time.com/6275519/how-music-affects-your-brain/.
Kubicek, Lorrie . “Can Music Improve Our Health and Quality of Life?” Harvard Health, 25 July 2022, www.health.harvard.edu/blog/can-music-improve-our-health-and-quality-of-life-202207252786.
