30-Minutes of Listening to Calming Music on Attendees of a Workshop Session at a Local Conference

The Effect of Listening to 30-Minutes of Calming Music on Mental Health Professionals

The goal of this clinical trial is to explore possible benefits and mechanisms through which listening to music can improve health and wellness. The main goals of the study are:

• To investigate whether pre-survey measures of autonomic reactivity relate to the overall functioning of participants.
• To examine the immediate effects of listening to the music.
• To identify individual characteristics that influence the immediate effects of listening to the music.

Participants will:

• complete the online pre-assessment measures assessing their adversity history, psychiatric symptomatology, autonomic reactivity, embodiment, and perceived social connection.
• Listen to the brief music demo
• Listen to the full 30-minute music session.
• Complete the online post-assessment measures assessing psychiatric symptomatology, autonomic reactivity, embodiment, and perceived social connection.

It is the specific intent of this proposal to experimentally explore the possible benefits and mechanisms through which listening to the music can influence emotional health, embodiment, and autonomic functioning. This will be accomplished by our team by using well-validated self-report measures of mental health and autonomic reactivity.

Specific Aims:

Specific Aim 1: To investigate whether pre-intervention measures of ANS reactivity relate to the overall functioning of the participants.

•We will examine measures of autonomic reactivity to prior mental health and medical adversity, embodiment, and emotional and physical health.

Specific Aim 2: To identify the immediate effects of listening to the music •We will explore whether listening to the music leads to improvements in the functioning. First, we will compare the participants who opted to leave after the brief music demonstration to the participants who stayed for the additional 30-minutes of music. Next, we will focus on improvements following listening to the music.

Specific Aim 3: To identify individual characteristics that influence the effectiveness of listening to the music immediately

•We will explore the impact of specific vulnerability and resiliency factors (e.g., prior mental and medical adversity) on how well mental health providers benefit from listening to the music immediately.

Experimental design

• Participation is limited to those attending the Global Exchange Conference
• The participants will complete pre- and post-assessments that involve online measures.
• Music will be provided first in a brief music demo and then again in a 30-minute session.
• Between-subject analyses will compare those who listened only to the brief demo and withdrew participation against those who remained and listened to the 30-minutes of music to determine if those who listened to the 30-minutes of music exhibit greater improvements than those who did not. Within-subject analyses will determine the potential benefits of listening to the music for all participants.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Between the ages of 18 and 89
• Proficient in English
• Attendees of an online workshop session at the Global Exchange Conference

Exclusion Criteria:

• Over the age of 89