Control Panic Attacks With The Power of Music

January 21, 2009 by Alex
Filed under: Anxiety Disorders, Panic Attack Help, Personal

Have you ever heard the first few notes of a song and become suddenly sad or depressed? Or maybe you’ve heard the first few notes of a song and suddenly felt happy or even joyous?

This is one of those things that happens to us all from time to time. Somewhere deep in our subconscious we’ll have linked a certain song to a certain memory, and hearing just a few notes from that song is enough to bring the memory flooding back to us.

There are probably a hundred songs that have this affect on me.

There are songs that I can hear and immediately I’m back in my childhood, or I’m a teenager again. There are songs that remind me of times when someone close to me was sick or going through something horrible. There are songs that remind me times in my life when I’ve achieved something great. And there are songs that remind me of times when I’ve failed at something.

Actually, now that I think about it, these songs don’t remind me of those times. What they actually do is spark an emotion from those times, often strongly enough that I feel that same exact emotion as strongly as I’d felt it years before.

Like I said, we all experience this from time to time. But it’s been happening to me a lot lately, and that got me thinking that maybe this was something we could use to control how we feel.

So, based on the fact that songs can change your mood and emotions, and they can achieve this almost instantly, whatever your mood is at the time, I decided to start “training” myself to be able to do this on purpose, rather than just waiting for it to happen.

The reason that a song can affect us like this is that we hear it (maybe once, or maybe repeatedly) during a specific period in our life, and then years later when that time has passed, the song reminds our subconscious of the way we felt all that time ago. And without even having to actually think of anything, our mood and emotions change in a fraction of a second.

So, back to my training.

I decided to pick a song I liked, and one that already had an uplifting effect on me, and only listen to it when I was happy, optimistic, or hopeful. If you can “accidently” develop these links between songs and emotions, I thought, then why shouldn’t I be able to do it on purpose too?

I’ll even tell you the song I chose (but no making fun if you don’t share the same taste!). It was “Don’t Leave Home,” by Dido. That song’s always had an uplifting effect on me, so it seemed like a perfect choice.

So starting a few weeks ago I made a rule that I’d never listen to that song when I was depressed, or feeling anxious, or even if my general mood was not so great. I also made a rule that if I was having a “good” moment that I would listen to that song if I was in a position to do so.

I have the song on my computer and I have it on my MP3 player, so I’m pretty much covered wherever I am.

And when I’m having a good moment, or I’m feeling upbeat, optimistic, or hopeful, I listen to that song. And I did this for about a month, which meant I’d listen to the song maybe 2 or 3 times a day, always at good moments.

Now, for the last week or so, I’ve been doing something slightly different. I still listen to the song at those good moments to keep up the “conditioning,” but now I’m also letting myself listen to the song at low points too.

But only when I really need a boost.

Because I guess if I use it too often as a boost I’d be listening to it all the time when I was down, which would condition me to associate negative emotions and moods with it (the opposite of what I want!).

And I’ve been amazed at how well this idea is working.

No matter how bad a day or moment I may be having, listening to my chosen song for a couple of minutes has the power to completely reverse my mood from negative to positive.

And it really does have the same effect on me now as those other songs - those ones that instantly make me feel the way I did years before because of some subconscious link I never knew was there.

So you can create these links between mood and music. I’ve got proof of that after just a month. And now I’m even thinking of doing it with multiple songs, and for specific emotions. Do you see the potential this has? We can actually train and condition our minds to feel however we want them to feel by simply linking them to music.

This is an idea I’m definitely going to take a lot farther, but in the meantime, why don’t you give this a try yourself? Pick a song you like (that’s already uplifting to you), and start listening to it when your mood and emotions are positive. Do this for long enough to condition your mind and allow it to “link” the song with the positive emotions and mood, and then you can start using this song to give you a boost anytime you need one.

There’s no excuse for not trying this, because how hard is listening to a song you like? And look at the results it can produce!

Give it a shot, and then report back and let me know how it’s working for you.

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