I love music! I know that’s a broad statement but there’s actual science-backed research on how it can change your emotional state! Music can change your mood surprisingly quickly. Enjoyable music engages brain systems involved in reward and pleasure, including dopamine-related pathways. That’s part of why a favorite song can give you chills or create an almost immediate emotional lift. Choosing happy music intentionally can work.
Research by psychologist Yuna Ferguson and colleagues found that people who listened to upbeat music while deliberately trying to become happier showed greater improvements in mood than people who simply listened without that intention.
Music and movement are a powerful combination. Dancing, walking, exercising—or even just moving around the kitchen—to music combines several happiness-promoting ingredients: pleasurable music, physical movement and emotional expression.
Music creates connection. Singing and listening to music with other people can increase feelings of belonging and social closeness. A concert, church worship service, family karaoke session, or singing together in the car can become much more than entertainment.
Nostalgic music can be particularly meaningful. Songs associated with important people and periods of our lives can bring back feelings of identity, connection and meaning. Sometimes a song doesn’t just remind you of a memory—it seems to transport you there.
Sad music isn’t necessarily bad for happiness. Music can help us process difficult emotions rather than simply suppress them. A sad song that makes you cry may ultimately leave you feeling understood, comforted or emotionally released.
One idea from positive-psychology research that I especially like is that we don’t always have to wait until we’re happy to play happy music—we can use music as part of creating the emotional state we want.
So if you were turning this into one simple happiness practice, I’d make it:
Create a personal “Happiness Playlist” of 10–20 songs that reliably make you feel lighter, hopeful, energized or grateful. Then play it deliberately—especially on the days when you don’t feel like it.
And if faith is part of the equation, music can serve another purpose as well. Worship music can shift attention away from whatever is consuming your thoughts and toward gratitude, hope, and God!
Here’s my top 10 songs of all time. Notice how they are a mix of pop and worship? Billie Eilish’s Birds of a Feather makes me feel more love and appreciation for Sam, Whitney’s When You Believe feels like my heart is bursting with love for God (plus isn’t Whitney hands down the best singer of all time? We miss you, Whitney! I hope you’ll be putting on concerts in heaven!) Also, Jordon Feliz’s Somebody Loves You feels like God is talking directly to me. When I hear that God loves me more than I know, I feel filled with His love…..and overjoyed!
What are some of your favorite songs and what do they mean to you?
