Let’s Unpack Your Spotify Wrapped

By Amanda LaMela

Many years ago, I noticed something interesting during a particularly intense period of burnout. I was feeling overwhelmed and detached. I had been ignoring the growing number of unread messages on my phone, which led to subsequent bouts of guilt and avoidance. On top of all that, I felt irritable and anxious. While these signs of burnout are well-documented, I recognized another alarming change: I unknowingly stopped listening to music. Commutes that were once filled with the synth-rock sounds of Foxygen and MGMT had been replaced by true crime podcasts. At the gym, energizing Queens of the Stone Age tracks were replaced by political commentary videos on YouTube. 

It took me a few weeks before I even noticed I had stopped listening to music. But once I identified this unusual inclination, it became my canary in the coal mine for burnout. I began sharing this discovery with others. Friends who happened to be in seasons of burnout or depression themselves were shocked to realize they were also listening to music much less frequently. These conversations inspired me to explore the topic more deeply: Why might people suffering from burnout or depression listen to music less frequently? And could reintroducing music be a helpful tool for recovery?

“It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back.” – Florence + The Machine, 2012

Burnout and depression can temporarily flatten the emotional experience, creating feelings of apathy or indifference that spill into daily routines (including musical consumption). Research shows that during depressive episodes, the brain’s reward system becomes less responsive, making it harder to feel pleasure, even from once-beloved songs. This is called anhedonia, a common and reversible symptom of depression where the ability to enjoy rewarding experiences is blunted. Burnout adds another layer of emotional exhaustion. Reduced cognitive bandwidth, depleted motivation, and decision fatigue can make the simple act of choosing music feel overwhelming. And perhaps most unsettling, when previously loved music fails to bring the same pleasure it once did, it can reveal long-ignored feelings of emptiness and distress (Belfi & Loui, 2020). 

Music and Mental Health: The Research

Through multiple research methods, studies have found that music reliably shifts how we feel in the short term, even for people dealing with depression, chronic stress, or trauma. Decades of research now suggest that music can play a meaningful role in helping people cope in the moment, especially as they work through deeper issues in therapy. Here’s what the studies show:

“Let the music give you the power to move any mountain” – Bravo All-Stars (1996)

A 2021 study examined how listening to music affects one’s mood in real time and whether people who tend to ruminate react differently to music. Over two weeks, 157 participants used a smartphone app that pinged them whenever they played music. They answered questions about their mood before listening and again five minutes later. The app also gathered information about the song they chose and why they chose it (Kinghorn, 2021). 

Kinghorn found that music quickly changed people’s moods, and often in a positive direction. In fact, music shifted people’s disposition 63% of the time. Most listening moments affected participants’ mood valence and/or arousal within just five minutes. Another survey of college students found that 70.91% experienced at least one strong emotional response to music in the past week, often occurring quickly and unexpectedly (Tague, 2025).

Laboratory research supports these findings. One 2025 lab study sought to understand how music helps people manage sadness and whether people with depressive symptoms respond differently to music. Researchers brought 149 college students into a laboratory and measured both their emotional reactions and heart-rate variability (HRV). HRV is a physiological signal that reflects stress, emotional regulation, and nervous-system flexibility. Participants first watched a neutral video and then a sad movie clip. Then, the participants were asked to listen to upbeat music. At the end of each stage, they recorded their mood using validated assessments while researchers tracked their heart-rate variability. This study found that upbeat music increased positive feelings and shifted physiological responses almost immediately (Wang, 2025).

“The beat goes on, the beat goes on…” – Sonny and Cher (1967)

Rumination refers to a repetitive, involuntary, and self-focused pattern in which a person dwells on negative emotions, concerns, or memories without moving toward resolution. It is linked to the onset and maintenance of various mental health disorders, including depression and anxiety. Notably, Kinghorn’s study found that frequent rumination did not diminish music’s impact on mood. Music’s effects appear robust enough to (momentarily) break through cognitive habits that typically reinforce distress.

“I wanna get better, better, better…” – Bleachers (2014)

Depression is characterized by diminished reward responsiveness and reduced physiological resilience. Therefore, it makes sense that depression might blunt emotional responses to music. But the data tells a different story. The aforementioned laboratory study demonstrated how upbeat music could be a promising regulation tool for individuals with depression. In fact, participants with depressive symptoms responded just as well to uplifting music as non-depressed participants. Upbeat music reliably improved self-reported moods equally across both groups, but the physiological findings were even more compelling. Happy music improved heart-rate variability in the depressed group, shifting their autonomic nervous systems toward the more flexible, responsive patterns typically observed in well-regulated bodies (Wang, 2025). 

“But I really, really want to thank you for dancing 'til the end.” – Janelle Monáe (2013)

One study examined whether music-listening habits predicted mental health outcomes among disaster survivors. After the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, many residents struggled with stress, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and emotional exhaustion. In 2021, researchers surveyed 420 adults living in Fukushima about their music habits and emotional well-being. People who listened to music (especially those who had a current favorite song) were more likely to report positive emotions. The results held up consistently, even when accounting for various factors (personality traits, health, age, gender, marital status, etc). This pattern was especially strong for men and for people in their 40s and 50s (Yoneshiro, 2021).

“And you got me singing another sad song…” Lexnour (2024)

While upbeat songs have demonstrated meaningful benefits in short-term emotional regulation, there are limitations to consider when using music to regulate mood. Kinghorn’s study found that situational factors impacted music’s effectiveness in shifting moods. The research suggested that participants’ purpose for listening, location, and listening activity had a greater impact than personality traits. 

Another small-scale study suggests that young people with depression sometimes choose music that intensifies sadness and reinforces hopelessness. Lyrics, repetition, and mood-matching strategies may worsen symptoms when used unconsciously (Stewart, 2021). The research found that participants often believed the music was helping them even when it was clearly amplifying distress. Self-awareness, not the music itself, determined whether listening supported or harmed wellbeing.

“The Impossibility of Musical Anhedonia” – Amaranth (2025)

What if music has never done anything for you? People can vary drastically in how music stimulates their reward circuits. For a small population, emotional reactions to music have always felt foreign, despite healthy auditory functioning and full ability to derive pleasure in other domains. Researchers call this phenomenon ‘musical anhedonia.’  Neuroimaging research suggests that about 3-5% of healthy participants showed a “stable and selective lack of pleasure from music” (Martínez-Molina, 2016). Musical anhedonia does not imply anything about a person’s personality, emotional depth, or capacity for joy. If this sounds familiar, you are not “broken.” You may just be wired to find emotional reward in other experiences, like conversation, movement, nature, problem-solving, art, humor, or tactile experiences. These domains are equally valid and meaningful.

“I’m gonna tell my therapist on you” – Pinkshift (2021)

Music is not a standalone treatment, but it can be an incredibly effective adjunct for immediate coping and emotional stabilization. Across multiple studies, intentionality consistently emerges as one of the strongest predictors of whether music leads to positive, neutral, or negative emotional outcomes. Furthermore, while intentional listening can regulate our emotions in the moment, music cannot independently treat the underlying causes of disorders like depression, anxiety, trauma, or OCD. Working with a therapist will help address these concerns, strengthen self-awareness, and encourage intentionality. (Kinghorn, 2021; Stewart, 2019; Tague, 2025). 

Better yet, share your favorite song with your therapist! Talk to us about what your top replays mean to you. You might uncover more than you think.

References

Belfi, A. M., & Loui, P. (2020). Musical anhedonia and rewards of music listening: current advances and a proposed model. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1464(1), 99–114. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14241

Kinghorn, E. E. (2021). Mood, Music Choices, and the Emotional Outcomes of Music Listening: An Examination of the Moderating Role of Rumination Using Experience-Sampling Methodology. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.

Martínez-Molina, N., Mas-Herrero, E., Rodríguez-Fornells, A., Zatorre, R. J., & Marco-Pallarés, J. (2016). Neural correlates of specific musical anhedonia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, 113(46), E7337–E7345. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1611211113

Stewart, J., Garrido, S., Hense, C., & McFerran, K. (2019). Music Use for Mood Regulation: Self-Awareness and Conscious Listening Choices in Young People With Tendencies to Depression. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1199. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01199

Tague, D., Annabi, J., Franklin, R., & Nielson, E. (2025). Clinical Implications of College Students’ Music Listening Habits and Perceptions of Personal Impact. Music Therapy Perspectives, 43(2). https://doi.org/10.1093/mtp/miaf008

Wang, X., Lu, T., Zhou, B., Chen, W., Zheng, J., Chen, H., & Chen, S. (2025). Psychophysiological effects of music on sadness in participants with and without depressive symptoms. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 25(1), Article 77. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-025-04824-y

Yoneshiro, A., Takebayashi, Y., & Murakami, M. (2023). The Association Between Music Preferences and Well-Being After the Fukushima Disaster: A Cross-Sectional Study. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 17, Article e372. https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2023.44