Updated July 13, 2022.
With so much talk about looking after well-being, anxiety is a huge topic.
With more and more people taking costly pharmaceutical drugs to help with anxiety according to recent reports, would be worth knowing if a simple set of headphones could help!
So let’s discover more in our article today and find out “can headphones help with anxiety” Once and for all.
Let’s get the quick answer underway first, so you get hooked up and start straight away!
Headphones can help fight anxiety by blocking out white noise and traffic noise, enhancing anxiety relief during all types of exercise routines and meditation. Sleep headphones can promote a more relaxed and healthy sleep pattern. Immersing in sounds helps reduce the impact of hectic surroundings.
According to the above report in the Wall Street Journal, since March 2020, the anxiety medication Klonopin and Ativan rose from 9.7 million in March 2019 to 8.8 million by March 2020.
So it’s not surprising that many of us are looking to find ways to relax and reduce stress.
So we can understand a little more about whether headphones can help with anxiety, let’s take a brief look at exactly what anxiety is.
What is anxiety?
According to the U.K. mental health organization, Mind.org, anxiety is a complex issue and ranges from mild phobias and concerns through to powerful feelings which can cause diseases such as heart attack, angina, and even diabetes.
General anxiety disorder
One of the most common forms of anxiety is what’s referred to as GAD (general anxiety disorder).
If you suffer from General Anxiety Disorder, it’s likely that you struggle to relax under most normal circumstances.
GAD is a long-term condition that causes you to feel anxious about a wide range of situations and issues, rather than 1 specific event.
As soon as one anxious thought is resolved, another may appear about a different issue.
Anxiety can also be the cause of other conditions such as:
- Phobias like agoraphobia or claustrophobia
- Panic attacks and other types of disorders
- Post-traumatic stress disorder often referred to as PTSD
- Social anxiety disorder, or sometimes called social phobia
In order to control stress, it’s important to relax and lower these unhealthy stress levels. Here are the most common ways to reduce stress and those advised by most physicians and other health experts.
How to lower stress
So let’s find out some ways that have been proven to lower stress levels and find out if listening through the best headphones you can find will help you to relax more.
- Deep breathing exercises.
- Regular small bouts of exercise
- Mindfulness meditation.
- Progressive muscle relaxation.
- Mental imagery relaxation.
- Relaxation to music.
- Biofeedback (explained below).
- Counseling, to help you recognize and release stress.
We’ve previously talked about the overall benefits of sleep headphones, so let’s discover more about why headphones, in general, might help alleviate stress by looking at the ways in which headphones can help.
Regular small bouts of exercise
Virtually any form of exercise, from aerobics to yoga, can act as a stress reliever. Even if you don’t think of yourself as an athlete and might even be a little out of shape. Just a small amount of exercise such as regular walks around your local park can help to boost serotonin levels which help to control anxious feelings.
It’s not uncommon to see many exercisers using headphones either on a daily run or even just when walking steadily and enjoying the scenery. So for anyone wondering ‘can headphones help with anxiety the definitive answer is it most certainly does!
Whether it’s your favorite hi-energy beats or a motivational speaker, grab your headphones and go!
Deep breathing exercises
We really don’t have to tell you how breathing deeply can help to reduce anxiety. Shallow breathing is often a symptom of those under stress.
By learning to control and focus energy on your breathing you can help reduce brain chatter that can contribute to anxiety.
Deep breathing lowers blood pressure. As your muscles relax, this allows your blood vessels to dilate, which improves circulation and lowers blood pressure.
Deep breathing also slows and regulates the heart rate, which also helps with lowering your overall stress levels.
Maybe combine a walk in the park with your favorite breathing technique app and get a double hit of stress-busting!
Using headphones means you can listen while you walk and then find some relaxing, nature-inspired outdoor space to practice your new breathing techniques!
“Using headphones
means you can listen while you walk”
Progressive muscle relaxation
This type of relaxation is perfect to combine with the use of your favorite sleep headphones.
Muscle relaxation is exactly what it sounds like!
Progressive muscle relaxation is where you work on each set of muscle groups then tense as you breathe in, and relax them as you breathe out.
By practicing tia method of relaxation regularly it will help to significantly reduce anxious feelings.
The advice from experts is to use an audio recording to help you learn all the muscle groups for more effective therapy sessions. This is obviously where your favorite headphones come in!
Also during your muscle relaxation, a set of headphones with your relaxing nature sounds or music can help you to focus.
Relaxation to music
According to numerous scientific studies, it’s been found that listening to music can beneficially affect stress-related physiological as well as cognitive and emotional processes.
Most of us understand the power that music has to relax and help us unwind. So check out some hot new playlists, get comfy with your headphones, and let your anxiety melt away!
From Youtube to Spotify there are a wealth of playlists for all genres from classical, running streams, and stripped-back acoustic, through to chilled-out urban.
Ok, so that’s how the experts say you can reduce stress, and hope we’ve given you some ideas on how you can incorporate your headphones to help keep you relaxed and less anxious. However, with the new phenomena such as lockdowns and with highly fluctuating job markets in the workplace due to economic and global changes, finding your own personal space can be a little challenging.
Many of us have been stuck in our homes with significant others, children to homeschool, and pets while trying to stay on task with our day job!
So can headphones help with anxiety around concentration and trying to hold down a job while working at the kitchen table?
Let’s find out more.
Headphones and personal space
You only have to look on Amazon to find a plethora of white noise machines, search through apps that play the soothing rumble of waves, whale songs, meditation YouTube videos, and much much more!
So it’s hardly surprising that cozying up in a quiet corner with headphones listening to nature sounds and a relaxing cup of herbal tea has been proven to reduce blood pressure, a symptom of anxiety.
But by using your headphones to ‘get in out own head-space’ as it were, you can concentrate better on your workday without the distractions going on around you.
It probably also won’t surprise you to learn that Some studies have shown that pilots wearing noise-canceling headphones have lower fatigue and increased alertness when an estimated up to 70% of ambient noise is canceled out.
Ok so that’s one of the important ways using headphones can help to reduce anxiety by being able to more fully concentrate!
Good quality sleep is important in helping you to feel refreshed and less anxious so read on to discover about headphones can be incorporated into your stress-busting sleep routines.
How headphones can help you get a good night's sleep and reduce anxiety
We all know that restorative and restful sleep is one way experts tell us to reduce our stress levels. Listening to music as we’ve found out previously can really help to lower blood pressure and promote feelings of calm.
So whether you are listening to your favorite smoky jazz or sleep chill-out playlist, plugging in with sleep headphones can bring about a peaceful environment to not only get to sleep but reduce the anxiety that can wake us in the middle of the night.
If that’s does happen, simply plug in your sleep headphones to allow you to drift off restful and anxiety-free!
We’ve got a more in-depth article about the benefits of sleep headphones, so don’t forget to head on over and discover more!
And finally…
So we hope that’s helped you see that headphones of all kinds including sleep headphones can reduce anxiety and help you to relax.
Don’t forget to check out our store and connect to any Bluetooth-enabled device with the best sleep headphones to help with anxiety. All our headphones offer:
- Built-in-mic for handsfree calling
- Wireless Connectivity up to 45 (14m)
- Impressive 10-hour battery life
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