Music can cause aggression and stress response

[BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation]

neurosciencenews.com/aversive-music-aggression-20285/

Interesting 🤔

I have a really bad reaction to that electronic voice hyper auto tuned stuff they have now 😖 I had to walk out of Tesco one day because I felt like I wanted to clock someone due to the type of music that was playing. My whole body felt like it had electricity going through it and I felt angry and agitated.

Anybody else experienced this?

Yes, often. I have walked out of shops sometimes. My worst experience was once being stuck on a coach (travelling to a ghastly work conference which I was stressed about anyway) where the radio was playing some station with jangly dance music interspersed with two absolute idiots gabbling away about nonsense and I honestly felt like smashing something. I really wished I'd taken a Walkman with me (this was before the days of MP3 players).

Yes, mainly if it's repetitive sound. Makes me angry very quickly.

yes, mostly when DH plays certain music too loud - I go from 0 to kill, maim, death in an instant. My old epilepsy nurse (Sapphire nurse) said it was misophonia.

I thought when it started it was linked to epilepsy, but apparently it has links to neurodiversity too,

Oh yes. Modern jazz makes me angry and miserable

Repetitive sounds also

Opera. It’s not music to me

Really screamy heavy metal

Whiney, nasally female singing

Cutesy voice male singing

There is so much bad noise out there that gets classified as music.

But - there is good noise to and it has exact opposite effect. Music is the best.

People singing makes me stressed and annoyed. Perhaps because it’s out of time and out of tune, or because I can’t control it and turn it down or make it stop. Or because they don’t sing the whole song and don’t know all of the words, or they sing the wrong words, or repeat the same few lines over and over. I cope much better with recorded music which is in tune and predictable and controllable.

@Scautish

Oh yes. Modern jazz makes me angry and miserable

Repetitive sounds also

Opera. It’s not music to me

Really screamy heavy metal

Whiney, nasally female singing

Cutesy voice male singing

There is so much bad noise out there that gets classified as music.

But - there is good noise to and it has exact opposite effect. Music is the best.

The types of "music" you have described are the ones that trigger me too. My eldest who is also autistic loves heavy metal screaming type music. He "sings" it himself, and honestly I could cry. I end up rocking back and forth with my hands over my ears and my heart racing. He's doing a music degree and its his special interest so I can't tell him to stop all of the time.
I try to use headphones and replace the noise with more palatable music.

For me it is cartoons. Cartoon noise is horrendous. I find cartoons way too noisy and chaotic and I can't deal with them. The minute i see a cartoon on the telly I have to switch over - i feel immediately stressed. I'm not sure why, I can only say they feel aggressive and like too much of a sensory hit in the face. And I can't connect with them in any way. Similarly I have the same type of reaction to Star Wars and Sci Fi, Marvel type stuff - too loud, unrelateable, alien and threatening?

no shit. this is not news to a lot of us. is science beginning to catch up do you think? having ignored us for a while

and I am feeling stressed just reading not hearing...

I found the cross-linked paper interesting as well, especially as many of the interviewees are musicians themselves
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0305735620988596#

This started getting worse as I got older - I have very wide musical tastes and my family is fairly musical (pro and semi-pro musicians, singers, djs) . I often make up little songs, sing angry songs and I do listen to loud angry rock/indie music if I am very angry, as well as calming classical (mostly non-vocal)when I need it, and find music can be very emotional with some pieces bringing me to tears or being very exciting or joyful.

On consideration, The irrational anger seems to be linked to volume as well as music type.

I think it can be an unconscious reflex in some, so for example many years ago out of desperation, I worked in a supermarket with piped music which was on a loop changed between about four tapes, one played every day; at lunchtimes, one particular track came on -"There There" by Radiohead, which I love, but I digress. It has been described as "a rock song with layered percussion building to a loud climax". (reference on wikipedia)

Without them realising it - as no-one ever said anything about the music specifically, this track seemed to absolutely infuriate most shoppers, and they would suddenly become grumpy, even rude and angry in a couple of cases and so on. When it ended, the customers seemed to calm down again after a few minutes. Music moving the masses one supposes?

Apologies for the essay, have any of you observed how music affects others

Autotuned music in particular is audio hell for me. That urban bassy rubbish that invariably blasts out of cars dials up my hypervigilance from 0-100 in a split second. It's horrible. I've had misophonia all my life and it seems to be getting worse as I'm getting older.

I find anonymous new agey music with no vocals on in the background helps me. If it's music I actually like the inattentive side of my ADHD will take over and I'll be too distracted to work or study 😄

Without them realising it - as no-one ever said anything about the music specifically, this track seemed to absolutely infuriate most shoppers, and they would suddenly become grumpy, even rude and angry in a couple of cases and so on. When it ended, the customers seemed to calm down again after a few minutes. Music moving the masses one supposes?

Wow that's really interesting.

When I worked in the care homes the radio used to be on mainly for the benefit of the workers, so I'd change the channel to something more relaxing because people with dementia hearing problems and neurological problems don't want to listen to MagicFM playing at top volume 😖 I knew instinctively it was bad for them and I knew enough about music to know that certain types can increase stress hormones.

Did you know, for instance, that you can kill a pot plant by playing loud rock music to it every day?

Did you know, for instance, that you can kill a pot plant by playing loud rock music to it every day?

apparently my DP does, whilst MIL does it with super-loud telly!

On a more serious note, I do find calming music works for MIL when she starts getting agitated. I don't think she can hear it well at all now, but just enough to work - even if then she starts humming along - albeit the Chinese songs she learnt in her youth; earplugs work well for the ensuing cacophony.

I cannot listen to any classical music, to me it isn't going anywhere, no beat no moving along. No rock or voices screaming the words to a song.

A certain type of soft-rock Christmas song. Slightly niche and fortunately time-constrained but Cannot Deal With Them.