If you listen to sad and spiteful music, think twice: risks for your brain

It's very common to see people listening to music anywhere . Enjoying their daily lives with songs has been a common practice for many years, and with the widespread use of streaming platforms like Spotify, Amazon Prime Music, and YouTube Music, even more so.

It is well known that music allows us to experience a wide range of emotions, so much so that its impact on human life has led to numerous studies investigating its effects on physical and mental health.

(More: The Easiest Languages ​​for Native Spanish Speakers to Learn, According to AI .)

Although in everyday life we ​​tend to do everything possible to maintain a good mood, for many, music is a safe space to experience sadness. This, in fact, has caught the attention of researchers, who have conducted several studies on the subject .

On the subject, it is theorized that sad music deepens and amplifies feelings of pain, that it only produces melancholy or that it simply moves or generates pleasure.

(Also read: The artists who make up the official lineup of the Cordillera Festival 2025 ).

" Music, with the organization of its rhythmic and melodic elements and its interplay of tension and repose, transmits and generates emotions ," Jorgelina Benavídez (MN 269), a music therapist with the Music Therapy Team and director of the Department of Arts-Based Therapies at the Institute of Cognitive Neurology (Ineco) in Argentina, told the 'Infobae' website.

According to research by Joshua Knobe, a philosopher and experimental psychologist at Yale University , published in The Journal of Aesthetic Education, people don't listen to sad songs to fall into that feeling, but because this type of music allows them to create a special connection with the person.

However, research conducted by the Finnish Center for Interdisciplinary Music Research suggests that listening to music that deals with sad or melancholic themes can have negative effects.

(More: You Should Know: What Are the 5 Stages of Parkinson's? )

For the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, the neural activity of several people was examined using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while they listened to music that featured happy, sad, or aggressive themes. Each result was then compared with various aspects of mental health, including anxiety, neurosis, and depression.

“ These results show a link between the music listened to and activation of the medial prefrontal cortex, which may mean that listening to certain types of music has long-term effects on the brain ,” said Elvira Brattico, a professor and author of the study.

For her part, Emily Carlson, a music therapist and co-author of the study , commented: “ Constantly thinking about negative thoughts is linked to poor mental health. We sought to learn that there are similar negative effects from listening to certain styles of music. We hope our work will motivate everyone to consider how different uses of music can help or harm their own well-being .”

PORTFOLIO