If you love jazz and soul music the way I do, you already know there’s something special about the way it moves you, heart, body, and spirit. But even if these genres aren’t a big part of your everyday playlist yet, today I want to invite you to experience just how powerful jazz and soul can be, not just for your mood, but for your entire nervous system.
As someone who studied music at Berklee College of Music and The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, with a background in jazz and contemporary vocal performance, I’ve experienced firsthand how deeply healing music can be, not just on stage, but throughout my everyday life. In a fast-paced world where stress often feels unavoidable, music offers a way to reconnect, regulate ourselves, and even heal. Jazz and soul, with their richness of rhythm, improvisation, and emotional honesty, offer some of the most powerful tools for nervous system balance and restoration.
How Jazz and Soul Music Support Nervous System Health
1. Rhythmic Resonance:
Jazz and soul often feature complex yet steady rhythms that can entrain the nervous system — a process in which our body’s internal rhythms, such as heart rate and breathing, begin to sync with external musical rhythms (Bernardi et al., 2006).
This synchronization can promote relaxation, lower blood pressure, and ease physical tension.
2. Emotional Expression:
These genres invite us into a full spectrum of emotional experience, from joy to sorrow to hope, providing a safe space to process feelings that often go unspoken.
Research indicates that music-evoked emotions activate key brain regions associated with emotional regulation, including the amygdala and hippocampus, thereby making emotional processing more accessible (Koelsch, 2014).
3. Neurological Impact:
Listening to emotionally rich music, particularly when it features improvisation and dynamic flow, such as jazz and soul, stimulates areas of the brain associated with pleasure, relaxation, and connection (Salimpoor et al., 2011).
This stimulation not only boosts mood but also supports the body’s ability to return to a calm, restorative state.
Practical Ways to Bring Jazz and Soul Into Your Wellness Routine
- Create a calming playlist of your favorite jazz and soul tracks to unwind after a long day.
- Pair deep breathing with slow ballads or flowing jazz improvisations to enhance relaxation.
- Attend live performances when possible — immersing yourself in live music amplifies its healing effects through sound vibration and community energy.
- Stay curious. Explore artists and eras you might not be familiar with. Even one new song can open a whole new emotional landscape.
Jazz and soul music offer more than just entertainment; they offer pathways back to balance, grounding, and emotional vitality. Whether you’ve been a lifelong fan or you’re exploring these sounds for the first time, their healing energy is accessible to anyone willing to listen closely. Today, take a moment to let music be your medicine. Turn on a jazz or soul track, breathe deep, and let the melodies move through you, calming your nervous system, lifting your spirit, and reconnecting you to yourself.
Works Cited:
Salimpoor, V. N., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. J. (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature Neuroscience, 14(2), 257–262. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2726
Bernardi, L., Porta, C., & Sleight, P. (2006). Cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory changes induced by different types of music in musicians and non-musicians: The importance of silence. Heart, 92(4), 445–452. https://doi.org/10.1136/hrt.2005.064600
Koelsch, S. (2014). Brain correlates of music-evoked emotions. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 15(3), 170–180. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3666
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