Krause, Amanda, Whitehead, Eloise M., Byrne, Ben, and O'Leary, Matt (2026) Exploring the Mental Health Benefits of Participating in a Communal, Recorded Music Listening Experience. In: [Presented at the 2026 Townsville Hospital and Health Service Research Symposium]. From: Townsville Hospital and Health Service Research Symposium 2026, 3 November 2026, Townsville, QLD, Australia.

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Abstract

Background: Community-based, focused music listening experiences can help people process difficult emotions, experience mindfulness and self-compassion. People have also reported feeling a sense of safety in focused listening events not found in their experience of talk-based therapies, making it important to understand how these experiences might promote individual well-being. Thus, the present case study used a repeated measures design to explicitly explore potential short- and longer-term mental health outcomes (i.e., improvements in stress, mood, and anxiety) associated with participation in a focused music listening event hosted by Sonaur, an acoustics, sound, and music research translation practice.

Method: Individuals were invited to participate in an in-person Sonaur listening experience (45min of immersive spatially atmospheric soundscapes) and were asked to complete a set of five short, self-report surveys (just prior to the event, at the conclusion of the event, 1 day later, 1 week later, and 1 month later) consisting of established measures of stress, anxiety, mood, and mindfulness.

Results: Data collection is underway. Discussion of the results will centre on the temporal trends present in the mental health data.

Conclusions: By examining the mechanisms of how focused listening experiences can support mental health, the findings assist in developing a novel, enhanced model of care to empower individuals with a curated experience for stress and anxiety management. Importantly, in the context of local and global trends in musicbased well-being interventions, the study’s findings have implications for scaling focused listening events into interventions to enhance individual and community well-being.

Item ID:	94542
Item Type:	Conference Item (Poster)
Keywords:	psychology of music, music psychology, music listening, focused music listening, health and well-being, communal music listening, stress, anxiety, repeated measures, mixed methods
Date Deposited:	05 Nov 2026 00:25
FoR Codes:	36 CREATIVE ARTS AND WRITING > 3603 Music > 360301 Music cognition @ 60% 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5203 Clinical and health psychology > 520304 Health psychology @ 40%
SEO Codes:	13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1301 Arts > 130102 Music @ 40% 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280121 Expanding knowledge in psychology @ 30% 20 HEALTH > 2004 Public health (excl. specific population health) > 200409 Mental health @ 30%
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