EasyBreezyMind
1 peer-reviewed source, DOI-verifiedUpdated Oct 1, 2026How we verify
Putting on calming music after a hard day feels intuitive. This meta-analysis gathered controlled experiments to see whether it actually speeds stress recovery.
| Study type | Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, controlled experiments |
|---|---|
| Who took part | 706 healthy participants across 14 studies |
| What was tested | Listening to music vs. a control condition after a laboratory stressor |
| Published | PLOS ONE, 2022 |
| Free to read | Full text on PubMed Central |
| Licence | Open access, Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) |
What the researchers did
In each included study, participants were first exposed to an acute lab stressor and then either listened to music or were assigned to a control condition. The researchers pooled the results.
What they found
- The overall effect of music on stress recovery was not statistically significant (g = 0.15).
- Effects seemed to vary with genre, tempo, who chose the music, and which stress measure was used.
What this doesn’t prove
- There were only 14 studies, and they differed a lot from each other.
- The authors say no definite conclusions can be drawn yet.
- This is about short-term recovery from a lab stressor, not whether music improves your life or mood more broadly.
How to use this
Enjoy music for its own sake — but if you want something with stronger evidence for calming down, pair it with muscle relaxation or slow breathing.
Across 14 experiments, listening to music after a lab stressor did not produce a significant overall effect on stress recovery (g = 0.15); results varied by genre, tempo and who chose the music.
Summary written by EasyBreezyMind in our own words. Original article: Adiasto K, et al. (2022). Music listening and stress recovery in healthy individuals: A systematic review with meta-analysis of experimental studies. PLOS ONE. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0270031. © The authors. Published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This summary is educational and is not endorsed by the authors.