As an independent artist, you will know yourself how easy it is to feel down in the dumps. Like your music contributes nothing to the wider world.

You will often spend a lot of time wondering what you even bring to the table. It’s part of the life of being a musician: you spend a lot of time trying to gauge your self-worth.

Now, while you might find it easy to sit and self-slate your work, making it out that you are nothing more than a budget Akala, it’s often not the case.

You see, music is one of the most powerful forms of mental health engagement there is.

Listening to music has a huge impact on the brain, and the stats are there to show us why being in the music industry means you ae actively helping out those in need.

Not only can it help you see you are better than you claim, it can push you to greater heights.

How does it work though? Why does being within the music industry have such immense benefits to body and mind?

You are helping people find themselves

One of the main reason why music and mental health go hand-in-hand is the power of discovery. Many people take their first step into politics through music: they learn about major incidents that have taken place across history by doing so.

They can begin to find out more about themselves; what they stand for and what they want to stand up against. That’s very important, and it plays a key role in motivating many an artist.

If you know that your music plays a genuine role in helping someone to find out who they are, it soothes your own mental health.

Why? Because you feel like your music has a purpose. Most artists have two aims: to make a living from their music, and to make people open their eyes.

Whether you talk about local issues that need more attention or you want to try and start a social revolution, appreciating the power of music is so important.

Once you see just how music can take you, it’s easy to appreciate in a more simplistic manner.

However, if you still need convincing that you are on the right path to changing lives as a musician, here are some facts that show you why music is such a useful tool for improving mental health – both your own health and the health of your fans.

Music and the brain

First off, there is ample proof that the act of listening or performing music will release dopamine in the mind. Dopamine is quite literally the chemical that we associate with having a good time and or that reason it is seen as one of the best ways to help get the mind into the right mood for a party.

Dopamine levels were found to be much higher – almost 10% – in those who listened to music that they actually enjoyed. However, if you feel like you are making yourself unhappy by producing music you cannot like at the moment, think again: any music has a positive impact on the production of dopamine.

Mental health improvement is much easier simply due to the power of music. If you are able to put music on, you will soon help everyone who is listening feel a little better.

It makes a big improvement to our mental health, and will make it easy for you to see that there is a genuine, 100% correlation between listening to music and improving our mood.

So, want to feel better? Simply write or listen to some music that you enjoy.

Music improves our mental focus

Another big reason why we might feel down mentally is that we simply lack focus in the mind. Well, it has been shown that listening to music of around 60 beats per minute – maybe a touch slow for some hip hop artists – can help to improve focus of the mind.

You will find it easier to process information, and this can have a huge mental boost and also make you feel a whole lot more confident. The art of listening to slow, melodic music is one that allows us to simply find our focus again.

Music lets us open up

Another powerful part of being a musician or listening to music is that it allows us to open up. Either by writing your own music or simply talking with a friend or family member, having some background music on has been shown to help elevate our feelings of expression over a long period of time.

This is going to make it easier for you to actually put your message out there, and let others know how you feel. If you find it hard to open up about your mental health issues, music can aid there.

Music provides us with some motivation

Another powerful art of music is that it can give us the most powerful solution to angst in our mental health: motivation. When we feel motivated, we don’t allow the negative to hold us back.

Instead, we get music that provides us with high quality motivation – so whether you need to exercise more or you simply want to get out of a negative patch, music can give you that motivation to do just that.

Get some music blaring and you can soon find that the melody and beats reinvigorates your motivation which was lying dormant.

Music inspires our creative side

As a musician, you be lacking in belief today and thus find it hard to tap into your reserves of self-confidence. If you do, then listen to some other kind of music outside of the genre that you create.

Try and find something that is outside of your normal niche but maybe touches on the same kind of subjects.

This taps into your creative side, making you much more likely to maintain dominance of your mental health. Now, instead of feeling down in the dumps and lacking in inspiration, you’ll feel much more confident that you can build something similar.

Maintaining control of your mental health can be very hard indeed. However, as you can with the above, it’s very easy to maintain a clear grip on your motivation, self-belief and ability to be more expressive simply by writing or listening to music.

It’s among our most powerful, potent tools for self-expression and personal development: so use it!