Music Listening as a Strategy for Managing COVID-19 Stress in First-Year University Students

Musical activity in a subsample of the German National Cohort study

Musical activities (MA) such as singing, playing instruments, and listening to music may be associated with health benefits. However, evidence from epidemiological studies is still limited. This study aims at describing the relation between MA and both sociodemographic and health-related factors in a cross-sectional approach. A total of 6717 adults (50.3% women, 49.7% men, median age: 51 years (IQR 43-60) were recruited from the study center Berlin-Mitte of the German National Cohort (NAKO), a population-based prospective study. This study is based on a sample randomly selected from the population registry of Berlin, Germany, aged 20 to 69 years. 53% of the participants had been musically active at least once in their life (56.1% women, 43.9% men). Playing keyboard instruments (30%) and singing (21%) were the most frequent MA. Participants listened to music in median 90 min per day (IQR 30.0-150.0). Musically active individuals were more likely to have a higher education, higher alcohol consumption, were less likely to be physically active, and had a lower BMI compared to musically inactive individuals. This large population-based study offers a comprehensive description of demographic, health, and lifestyle characteristics associated with MA. Our findings may aid in assessing long-term health consequences of MA.

The effects of musical practice on the well-being, mental health and social support of student, amateur, and professional musicians in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic

This pan-Canadian study investigates the effects of musical practice on the well-being, mental health, and social support of Canadian musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a survey questionnaire, data was collected from 1,618 participants aged 14 and above during the first wave of the pandemic up to the first half of 2022. The survey included standardized questionnaires to self-assess well-being (WHO-5), mental health (MHC-SF), and social support (SPS-10 measures social support). Results show that increased musical practice frequency correlates with improved well-being and mental health, particularly among amateurs. Professional musicians and those at a post-secondary level exhibit lower well-being scores, likely due to pandemic-related challenges. Factors such as age, gender, sports engagement, and participation in social clubs or volunteer work significantly influenced outcomes. While sports engagement was associated with higher scores on well-being, mental health and social support, no significant differences were found among participants engaged in artistic hobbies. As for involvement in social clubs or volunteer work, benefits were reported on two of the three outcomes. Overall, the findings suggest that regular amateur musical practice, especially in group settings, alongside engagement in sports and social activities, may have promoted well-being, mental health, and social support among musicians during the challenging period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Functions of music, focused on the context of music listening, and psychological well-being in late adolescence regarding gender differences

Late adolescences, as a developmentally challenging transitional period between childhood and adulthood, provides a number of pressures that impact well-being of youth. Among approaches for facilitating well-being, music is reported to be one of the most effective ones, which was especially proven during Covid-19 pandemic. Given the significance of music and music listening in late adolescence, our study sought to examine the relationship between psychological well-being and music listening among university students (N = 603; Nfemale = 356, Nmale = 247) with a focus on the social, intrapersonal, and sociocultural context of music listening. The RESPECT music scale, the SPWB, and the PANAS were used to measure positive and negative affect as well as the six components of psychological well-being. The findings revealed that, while there were no gender differences in the sociocultural setting, females reported to listen to music more frequently than males in intrapersonal and social contexts. In two areas, female students rated their psychological well-being higher than male students: personal growth and positive relationships with others. They also reported experiencing positive and negative affect more frequently than men. Regression analyses revealed that the functions of music explained only a small amount of the variance in psychological well-being. Specifically, music listening in a social and sociocultural context significantly explained two aspects of psychological well-being: personal growth and positive relations with others. The intrapersonal context of music listening predicted a positive affect, while the social context predicted a negative affect. Our study highlights several implications of music listening in youth regarding gender either in everyday activities or in educational and clinical setting.

Emerging Adult Resilience to the Early Stages of the COVID-Pandemic: A Systematic Scoping Review

Human resilience to COVID-19 related stressors remains a pressing concern following the aftereffects of the pandemic and in the face of probable future pandemics. In response, we systematically scoped the available literature (n = 2030 records) to determine the nature and extent of research on emerging adults' adaptive responses to COVID-19 stressors in the early stages of the pandemic. Using a multisystem resilience framework, our narrative review of 48 eligible studies unpacks the personal, relational, institutional and/or physical ecological resources that enabled positive emerging adult outcomes to COVID-18 stressors. We found that there is a geographical bias in studies on this topic, with majority world contexts poorly represented. Resources leading to positive outcomes foregrounded psychological and social support, while institutional and ecological supports were seldom mentioned. Multisystemic combinations of resources were rarely considered. This knowledge has valuable implications for understanding resilience in the context of other large-scale adverse conditions.

Personal and contextual variables predict music consumption during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Canada

The global COVID-19 lockdowns shattered familiar routines, plunging individuals into a disorienting emotional landscape characterized by loss, uncertainty, and a deep yearning for social bonds. Many employed coping strategies such as cleaning, dancing, and mindfulness-based practices to ameliorate negative emotions. Music listening was one of the most widely used coping strategies, moderated by personal and contextual variables. We obtained data from a Canadian national survey conducted in April 2020 to examine the role of personal (sex, age, education level, pre-pandemic income, minority status, feelings about music, and Schwartz's "personal values") and contextual variables (level of worry, changes to income, COVID-19 status and risk, having children at home, and internet access) in predicting music listening for stress relief, changes to music listening, changes to music watching, and music discovery. Our results indicate that women, younger adults, individuals who like or love music, and those reporting high levels of worry were more likely to listen to music to relieve stress. Personal variables were more significantly associated with music listening for stress relief than contextual variables.

Ethical and methodological reflections: Digital storytelling of self-care with students during the COVID-19 pandemic at a South African University

The enforcement of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions disrupted the traditional face-to-face qualitative data collection in public health. The pandemic forced qualitative researchers to transition to remote methods of data collection such as digital storytelling. Currently, there is a limited understanding of ethical and methodological challenges in digital storytelling. We, therefore, reflect on the challenges and solutions for implementing a digital storytelling project on self-care at a South African university during the COVID-19 pandemic. Guided by Salmon's Qualitative e-Research Framework, reflective journals were used in a digital storytelling project between March and June 2022. We documented the challenges of online recruitment, obtaining informed consent virtually, and collecting data using digital storytelling as well as the efforts of overcoming the challenges. Our reflections identified major challenges, namely online recruitment and informed consent compromised by asynchronous communication; participants' limited research knowledge; participants' privacy and confidentiality concerns; poor internet connectivity; quality of digital stories; devices with a shortage of storage space; participants' limited technological skills; and time commitment required to create digital stories. Strategies adopted to address these challenges included an ongoing informed consent process; flexible timelines for the creation of digital stories; one-on-one guidance on creating digital stories; and multiple online platforms to share digital stories. Our critical reflection offers practical guidance for the ethical conduct of digital storytelling in public health research and makes a significant contribution to methodological considerations for use in future pandemics. These ethical and methodological challenges should be recognized as features of the context of the research setting including restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic than disadvantages of digital storytelling.

Revival of positive nostalgic music during the first Covid-19 lockdown in the UK: evidence from Spotify streaming data

This work shows that positive old music listening surged during the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, suggesting a rise in preference for nostalgia and positivity in music. Using the music streaming data of Spotify users in the UK and employing multivariate regression analysis, this work documents that users were more likely to listen to songs older than 5 years during the national lockdown that began in late March 2020 compared with the pre-lockdown period. Such a change in preference was not observed in the same period in 2019. Meanwhile, more frequent listening to old music is found in samples of positive songs and also negative songs. This suggests that the preference for nostalgic music is to a certain extent independent of the positivity bias during the pandemic found in the literature. Yet, this work also provides evidence that the nostalgia-seeking behaviour and the preference for positive songs reinforced each other during the lockdown as the surge in positive old music was more persistent than that in positive recent music.

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on sleep of undergraduate students: A systematic literature review

The 2019 coronavirus pandemic forced the shift to distance education aggravating mental and physical vulnerabilities of undergraduate students, including sleep. This review aims to describe sleep problem rates and prevalence, sleep pattern disruption, sleep duration, sleep quality, insomnia symptoms, psychological and socio-economic factors affecting sleep of undergraduates in 22 countries. A systematic search for articles published from 2020 to 2021 using 'COVID-19,' 'Coronavirus,' 'Pandemic,' 'Sleep,' 'Mental Health,' and 'Students' from PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane yielded 2550 articles, where 72 were included. Selection criteria were: English full-text available articles, undergraduates and not postgraduates, reported sleep outcomes, and participants not from allied health courses. Risk of bias was assessed using various Joanna Briggs Institute checklists and outcomes were descriptively synthesized. Prevalence of sleep problems was notable, while longitudinal studies showed increased rates. There was significantly increased sleep duration, and sleep pattern disruption during lockdowns. Several psychological, behavioural, environmental, demographic, and socio-economic factors were found to be associated with sleep changes. These highlight the pandemic's impact on sleep of undergraduate students and reveal opportunities for institutions to intervene with policies and programs to promote the well-being of undergraduates. Limitations include recall bias and underrepresentation of other countries. This study is self-funded with registration number RGAO-2021-0071.

Pandemic Nostalgia: Reduced Social Contact Predicts Consumption of Nostalgic Music During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Some scholars observed a “nostalgia bump” during the COVID-19 pandemic, where people compensated for social isolation by engaging with products and experiences evoking nostalgia. To further explore this effect and its underlying mechanism, the authors tested the hypothesis that reduced social contact during lockdown conditions would lead people to feel lonely and bored and, in turn, increase their consumption of nostalgic music. Study 1 ( Nsong = 213,464) established the temporal relationships between social contact and nostalgia by analyzing mobility data and daily listening patterns of top songs on the music platform Spotify from 2019 to 2021. Study 2 ( N = 525) was a retrospective survey of individual experiences during the lockdown period. Results showed that reduced social contact had an indirect positive effect on consumption of nostalgic songs through loneliness, but not boredom. These findings shed light on the use of nostalgia as a coping strategy during times of isolation.

Music engagement is negatively correlated with depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic via reward-related mechanisms

The COVID-19 pandemic has deeply affected the mental health of millions of people. We assessed which of many leisure activities correlated with positive mental health outputs, with particular attention to music, which has been reported to be important for coping with the psychological burden of the pandemic. Questionnaire data from about 1000 individuals primarily from Italy, Spain, and the United States during May-June 2020 show that people picked music activities (listening to, playing, singing, etc.) most often as the leisure experiences that helped them the most to cope with psychological distress related with the pandemic. During the pandemic, hours of engagement in music and food-related activities were associated with lower depressive symptoms. The negative correlation between music and depression was mediated by individual differences in sensitivity to reward, whereas the correlation between food-related activities and improved mental health outputs was explained by differences in emotion suppression strategies. Our results, while correlational, suggest that engaging in music activities could be related to improved well-being with the underlying mechanism being related to reward, consistent with neuroscience findings. Our data have practical significance in pointing to effective strategies to cope with mental health issues beyond those related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Creativity in lockdown: Understanding how music and the arts supported mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic by age group

Recent research has indicated that many people around the world turned to artistic creative activities (ACAs) to support their mental health during COVID-19 lockdowns. However, studies have also shown that the negative psychosocial impacts of the pandemic have disproportionately affected young people, suggesting that the use of ACAs to support mental health in lockdown may have varied across age groups. This study investigated how Australians in four different age groups (18–24, 25–34, 35–54, and 55+) engaged in ACAs to support their mental health during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. Participants (N = 653) recruited from the general public completed an online survey between May and October 2020, in which they reported which ACAs they had undertaken during the pandemic using an established list. Participants subsequently ranked undertaken ACAs in terms of effectiveness at making them “feel better,” and those who had engaged in musical ACAs also completed the Musical Engagement Questionnaire (MusEQ). Additionally, ratings of anxiety (GAD7) and depression (PHQ9) symptoms were obtained and examined for potential variations across four diverse variables: age, exercise, gender and state/territory of residence. ACA rankings showed that younger participants overwhelmingly rated musical activities as most effective, while, with the exception of singing, those aged 55+ rated non-musical activities as being most effective. These differences were further supported by ratings for all six MusEQ subscales, with responses strongly indicating that the youngest participants (aged 18–24) used music in significantly different ways during the pandemic than participants in all other age groups. Specifically, these youngest participants were more likely to integrate music into daily life, use music for emotion regulation, respond to music in embodied ways, and use music to perform a social identity. In line with prior research, further analyses indicated that symptoms of anxiety and depression were lessened for older participants, as well for those who reported exercising more during the lockdowns. These findings provide insight into how ACAs can support mental health during a pandemic crisis for specific age groups, which may inform future policy directions, and suggestions for how this can be done are provided.

Music we move to: Spotify audio features and reasons for listening

Previous literature has shown that music preferences (and thus preferred musical features) differ depending on the listening context and reasons for listening (RL). Yet, to our knowledge no research has investigated how features of music that people dance or move to relate to particular RL. Consequently, in two online surveys, participants (N = 173) were asked to name songs they move to (“dance music”). Additionally, participants (N = 105) from Survey 1 provided RL for their selected songs. To investigate relationships between the two, we first extracted audio features from dance music using the Spotify API and compared those features with a baseline dataset that is considered to represent music in general. Analyses revealed that, compared to the baseline, the dance music dataset had significantly higher levels of energy, danceability, valence, and loudness, and lower speechiness, instrumentalness and acousticness. Second, to identify potential subgroups of dance music, a cluster analysis was performed on its Spotify audio features. Results of this cluster analysis suggested five subgroups of dance music with varying combinations of Spotify audio features: “fast-lyrical”, “sad-instrumental”, “soft-acoustic”, “sad-energy”, and “happy-energy”. Third, a factor analysis revealed three main RL categories: “achieving self-awareness”, “regulation of arousal and mood”, and “expression of social relatedness”. Finally, we identified variations in people’s RL ratings for each subgroup of dance music. This suggests that certain characteristics of dance music are more suitable for listeners’ particular RL, which shape their music preferences. Importantly, the highest-rated RL items for dance music belonged to the “regulation of mood and arousal” category. This might be interpreted as the main function of dance music. We hope that future research will elaborate on connections between musical qualities of dance music and particular music listening functions.

Music to decrease anxiety in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the world in a multiplicity of ways. For college students, considered emerging adults in a time of transition between adolescence and adulthood, the stressors were multiplied by severe disruptions in education, social activities, family distress, and job losses. Significant impact on mental health in college students has been reported during this period. We investigated the effect of a previously researched music experience on the anxiety levels of 36 performing arts college students. Results showed a high level of anxiety pre-intervention, but a significant decrease and normative levels at posttest. Although a small sample size warrants caution in generalization, these results show the feasibility of theoretically sound, brief music experiences to address significant distress in vulnerable populations.

Magnitude and Factors Affecting Parental Stress and Effective Stress Management Strategies Among Family Members During COVID-19

The pandemic outbreak, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) threatens proper family patterns by disrupting normal day-to-day activities, such as working patterns of parents by working from home, online children’s education rather than regular school, a dilemma in children’s education and health constrained movement by complete or partial home lockdowns to prevent disease spread, anxiety of disease spread, failure of home quarantine due to insufficient home situation and reduced personal protective equipment usage due to the extra financial burden, reduced social communications, increased health burdens than usual along with enormous toil with dependent family members, demands of financial burdens by multiple factors, reduced monthly income during pandemics, lack of employment or job insecurity, deviations in mental health among family members such as fear, anxiety, insomnia, severe depression, hetero aggression, child verbal or physical abuses, increased alcohol consumption and substance abuse or drug addictions, aggressive behavior, self-blaming or injury, unintentional suicidal tendencies, mood disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder and failure to meet health demands due to a lack of health facilities. Many contributing factors are affecting the normal family status than usual circumstances such as reduced hospital equipment or resources which is due to pandemic effects, social isolation due to outside quarantine measures, insecurity of the future and ongoing pandemic situation, fear of vaccination side effects, and so on. Therefore, we hope to raise awareness about the magnitude of parental stress levels and contributing factors. Moreover, these findings would encourage effective stress management to overcome the factors that contribute to parenteral stress and to improve coping skills to face the coming darkness with ease. It supports the preservation of physical, mental, and social well-being in families as well as minimizing or overcoming stressors, maintaining strong familial ties, and improving life expectancy globally during this pandemic.

Music in Quarantine: Connections Between Changes in Lifestyle, Psychological States, and Musical Behaviors During COVID-19 Pandemic

Music is not only the art of organized sound but also a compound of social interaction among people, built upon social and environmental foundations. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, containment measures such as shelter-in-place, lockdown, social distancing, and self-quarantine have severely impacted the foundation of human society, resulting in a drastic change in our everyday experience. In this paper, the relationships between musical behavior, lifestyle, and psychological states during the shelter-in-place period of the COVID-19 pandemic are investigated. An online survey on musical experience, lifestyle changes, stress level, musical behaviors, media usage, and environmental sound perception was conducted. The survey was conducted in early June 2020. Responses from 620 people in 24 countries were collected, with the large proportion of the responses coming from the U.S. (55.5%) and India (21.4%). Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis revealed causal relationships between lifestyle, stress, and music behaviors. Elements such as stress-level change, work risk, and staying home contribute to changes in musical experiences, such as moderating emotion with music, feeling emotional with music, and being more attentive to music. Stress-level change was correlated with work risk and income change, and people who started living with others due to the outbreak, especially with their children, indicated less change in stress level. People with more stress-level change tended to use music more purposefully for their mental well-being, such as to moderate emotions, to influence mood, and to relax. In addition, people with more stress-level change tend to be more annoyed by neighbors' noise. Housing type was not directly associated with annoyance; however, attention to environmental sounds decreased when the housing type was smaller. Attention to environmental and musical sounds and the emotional responses to them are highly inter-correlated. Multi-group SEM based on musicians showed that the causal relationship structure for professional musicians differs from that of less-experienced musicians. For professional musicians, staying at home was the only component that caused all musical behavior changes; stress did not cause musical behavior changes. Regarding Internet use, listening to music via YouTube and streaming was preferred over TV and radio, especially among less-experienced musicians, while participation in the online music community was preferred by more advanced musicians. This work suggests that social, environmental, and personal factors and limitations influence the changes in our musical behavior, perception of sonic experience, and emotional recognition, and that people actively accommodated the unusual pandemic situations using music and Internet technologies.