Study finds that music eases stress

Study Finds Music Reduces Stress for Most

August 17, 1999 NEW YORK (Reuters)
Listening to music is what most people do to ease stress, with watching television a close second, according to a global study released Tuesday. "Today, we believe music's ubiquity and increasing portability make it the number one stress buster," said Tom Miller, director of the study by Roper Starch Worldwide, which found that 56 percent said music minimized stress. Watching TV at 53 percent was the next most popular way of easing stress, followed by taking a bath or a shower at 49 percent in the study, which covered 30 countries.

Two weeks ago the New York-based marketing, public opinion, advertising and media research group published the first part of its "Global 2000 Consumer Study" showing that all over the world, women suffer more stress than men, especially full-time working mothers with children under age 13.

"When you think of music's cost and its availability via radio, TV, personal CD players, the Internet and so many other new channels of individualized distribution and communication, it's not surprising that more than half the world listens to music to relax," Miller said.

Roper Starch Worldwide said the study in Europe, North America, South America, Asia and one country each in Africa and the Middle East was based on interviews with 1,000 consumers in each country. It said the study is projectable to 1.39 billion people and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points for each country. The interviewees were asked which activity out of 24 they prefer to minimize or release stress. Music ranked highest for North America (64 percent) and lowest for developed Asia (46 percent). Making love ranked 16th of 24 stress-easing activities at 11 percent. Among men, 13 percent said they liked to make love to ease stress compared with 9 percent of women. Only 8 percent of respondents said they used relaxation techniques such as yoga or meditation to relieve stress; consulting a psychologist, therapist, counselor or doctor was last on the list, with only 3 percent saying this would release their stress.

Easing stress by watching TV was highest at 62 percent in developing Asia and lowest at 41 percent in Eastern Europe, the researchers found. They said more than half of Western Europeans (58 percent) cited taking a shower or bath as a stress reliever versus 43 percent in developing Asia.

One in three people (34 percent) relaxes by spending time with friends. This activity is most favored by Western Europeans, at 38 percent, compared with Latin America, where 27 percent said they socialized to relax, according to the study.

Other activities covered by the interviews included taking a walk, reading a book, talking on the telephone, a hobby, drinking alcohol and cooking. Markets covered by the study were the national populations of the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain and Russia; urban populations of Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, South Africa and Saudi Arabia; and urban populations without lowest income groups of Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, China, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela.