avoiding listening to music to protect your mental health

[seafire]

[SnaggleLex]

Nah, not just the 5 posts. I won't sell my licenses I guess, it seems to be too risky right now.
Reading the previous posts, I get the impression that we might be talking about very different things when we use the term mental health. For some people, avoiding music can sound like an abstract or lifestyle-based choice. For me, it is directly connected to a severe psychiatric condition. I live with bipolar disorder with psychotic symptoms, and over many years my brain has created very strong links between music, altered states, and substance use.
In addition to that, psychotic symptoms can include hearing one’s own thoughts out loud or hearing voices. In that context, sound and acoustics are not neutral at all. Music can easily become overwhelming, destabilizing, or triggering. Silence and auditory calm are not a preference for me — they are a form of protection.
So when I talk about avoiding music, I’m not talking about taste, discipline, or productivity. I’m talking about preventing symptom escalation and protecting my mental stability. I just wanted to clarify this, because without that perspective, my position may sound much less serious than it actually is.

[SnaggleLex]

Another aspect that might sound trivial to some people, but really isn’t for me, is how extremely prone I am to earworms. In German we literally call them “Ohrwürmer” — “ear worms”. Little creatures that crawl into your ear and refuse to leave. It’s a funny word, but the experience is not.
For me, music can get stuck in my head very intensely. I don’t just “remember” a track — it keeps looping, pushing, activating me. Especially techno can act as a powerful stimulant. I can reach states of drive, intensity, and mental acceleration that other people might associate with substance use — without taking any substances at all.
Since I’m taking psychiatric medication, part of the effect is a general calming and grounding. Yes, it can feel like it takes a bit of the edge off, but it also removes something far more dangerous for me: the constant noise, the mental fog made of sound, pressure, and inner overstimulation.
In that sense, avoiding music isn’t about deprivation. It’s about reducing unnecessary activation and keeping my inner soundscape as quiet and stable as possible.

[SnaggleLex]

One more thing I’ve noticed over time: even so-called “chill” or “relaxed” music doesn’t work for me anymore. Ambient, chill-out, hip-hop, downtempo, melodic or softer techno — all of that tends to trigger associations with adolescent states of being stoned.
It’s not about tempo or aggression. It’s about memory and conditioning. My brain connects certain sound textures and grooves very directly with intoxication, dissociation, and altered states. What is calming or pleasant for others can quietly pull me back into mental spaces I’m actively trying to leave behind.
So at this point, silence is often healthier for me than “relaxing” music. It doesn’t sedate me, it stabilizes me. It removes noise — not just external noise, but the inner one.

[Bombadil]

I sympathize, but what are you doing on a BBS for musicians?

[SnaggleLex]

Honestly, I don’t fully know myself. I joined mostly to read, observe, and stay loosely connected. I still find it hard to believe that I might never really listen to music again, and I guess there’s some quiet hope involved in being here. Even if that sounds a bit naive.

[pekbro]

I don’t listen to music, my brain is like a tape recorder, so it distracts me when making original music, weirdly.

[jancivil]

I'm the same, my brain remembers everything and at the drop of a hat goes into playback. I attribute it to how I learned music, copying it verbatim off of records. I won't listen to much when coming up with my own; catchy songs are out whether I like them for some reason or not. I can call up something I'm familiar with reading the title. So if I do get something I don't want on loop I think of something else. But I have to wash that kind of brain out and get to a blanker slate, I'm bringing in plenty of influences, I don't want anything on top.

I'm kind of on sabbatical, I'm not doing anything so exposed to a lot of news and other horrors, so music = good mental hygiene, and I look for what I can learn from. If someone is in danger of music hurting them they're doing it wrong. But it's like people taking meth, they prefer to feel shitty, there's that in music.

[ugo]

So, are there any people out there (also you might have heard of), who got a similar issue?

Yes, I can empathize. My diagnosis is different and I don’t have all the same challenges, but there definitely are a lot of similarities. Including having to step away from music (and everything else) for years. As if these sorts of experiences aren’t hard enough, they’re also not easily understood by anyone else. For me, that feels very isolating so I hope it helps a little to know you’re not the only one.

I’m still very much in the shit, but I am getting better. My nervous system is slowly recovering, making everything more manageable, and less overwhelming and triggering. One of the signs of improvement is that some music feels positive again, and my creative drive is rebuilding. If you are anything like me, your mind and body need all the rest and sensory reduction you can give them. Grant yourself a lot of patience, and all the compassion you can. Take care of yourself. Music may not be out of your life forever.

[Mike777]

You need to forget your worries sometimes and music does that. What would be good to know is which music genres are better for your mental health.

[HAL76]

I have to say that I did not listen to any music for 3 years now (of course, also no experiments with software). Of course, there are radios and youtube videos with music. But I avoided listening to songs (better: tracks) and mixes actively due to my bipolaric disorder with psychotic symptomes.
As I never gave a lot about calm music, I now just ended up in listening to no music at all (and finding inner peace). ...I just learned to quit a dangerous addicitive behaviour with all of its consequences.
So, are there any people out there (also you might have heard of), who got a similar issue? Everyone I meet and tell about it reacts with: "REALLY, no more music??? I would not be able to live like that!!!"

A friend of mine also didn't listen to music for a while because it upset his "inner balance". Personally, I have never not heard music, but I have drastically changed my listening habits. There is also "healthy" music.

Try