An Investigation of the Effect of Music on Mental Health and Happiness

The aim of this study is to investigate the stable effect of music on mental health and evaluate simultaneous usage of music and other therapeutic methods for enhancing mental health. This research is amongst causal-comparative researches which employs Independent T, ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation for analyzing data. The statistical population of this study includes artists in the area of music (singers, players and composers) and common people. Thus, using simple random sampling, from among music art schools for girls and boys in Tehran and music unit of IRIB, 78 artists and, from common people, 70 persons were selected. For gathering data Mental Health and Happiness questionnaires were used. The results of this study show that music and style of music have significant effect on happiness and there is correlation between happiness and mental health but music and style of music have no significant effect on mental health. Therefore, in addition to short-term effect, music can have long-term effect and lead to more happiness in people and increase their mental health.