Music to lift your mood

Music is a great way to brighten your day; it makes work go quicker, makes dull chores fly by and encourages you to shake your thang, even first thing in the morning. By Veronica Kirby

Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a psychology lecturer at Goldsmiths College, London, agrees with us. He claims to have discovered the formula for the perfect pop song and it goes like this:

Pitch + % of positive lyrics + Tonality + Beats per Minute + Images/Memories associated with the music = serotonin level. The higher the level, the happier you are, apparently.

Now, we're not sure this is an exact science, especially as this results in ‘Wake up Boo' grabbing the top spot as the perfect life-affirming pop song. And, fun as it is, that can't be right, can it?

 

Music can lift your mood, make you feel excited, make you want to dance like a mad woman...Music can lift your mood, make you feel excited, make you want to dance like a mad woman but it can also help you wallow in self-pity and sadness and quite frankly, that feels good too. Just as Bridget Jones sang along to ‘All by Myself' while mourning the death of another relationship, there must be songs that got you through your own bit of heartbreak. I hate to admit it but I was a sucker for a bit of Michael Bolton when I broke up with one particular boyfriend. Laugh if you will but ‘How am I supposed to live without you' can still bring out those feelings of loss and sadness that actually make me feel good. I mean, I did move on. Eventually.

So, back to the feelgood list according to Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic:

1 Boo Radleys: Wake Up Boo!

2 Beach Boys: Good Vibrations

3 Jackson 5: I Want You Back

4 Beatles: Here Comes The Sun

5 Madonna: Holiday

6 Van Morrison: Brown Eyed Girl

7 The Foundations: Build Me Up Buttercup

8 Michael Jackson: Wanna Be Starting Something

9 John Paul Young: Love Is In The Air

10 The Darkness: I Believe In A Thing Called Love

Not what you expected? That's because music really is subjective and one list can't apply to everybody. But we can certainly see the joy in them. Who hasn't sung Madonna's Holiday whilst wearing a floppy hat and making their way through security at Gatwick? Or longed for the simple days of the Beach Boys and their good vibrations. And club nights always seem to end with The Foundations Build Me Up Buttercup, even though the kids in these places probably weren't even born when it was first released.

Music therapy is now an important part of the complementary therapy industry. This is the use of music, in a therapeutic setting to promote healing, relaxation and create a general sense of health and well-being. Studies have shown that music can affect not only your mood but also your heart rate, respiration and blood pressure levels this is because of the strong emotional response it provokes in most people.

Just think how film composers use music to intensify the mood of a scene to affect the audience's emotions. The actors and words can only do so much, but add some emotive music behind it and you've got your audience in floods of tears or whooping with elation; proving that music really can have an uplifting affect on your mood.

What’s your favourite mood-lifting or wallowing song? Tell us in the comment box below…