Psychologist Susan Pinker explores new discoveries in the science of human nature. Read previous columns here.
What’s the most popular fix for the Covid-19 blues? The Italians and Spaniards who ventured out onto their balconies last March to sing and play instruments have at least part of the answer. Emerging evidence shows that the more the world gets us down, the better music feels.
So says a new study involving 1,000 participants from the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Carried out by Pablo Ripollés and Michael McPhee of New York University in collaboration with Robert Zatorre, a professor of neuroscience at McGill University, the study looked at what people considered their most effective coping mechanisms during the shelter-in-place orders at the beginning of the pandemic last spring.
The researchers began by assessing how profoundly the pandemic affected each participant. Did that person get very sick? Did they lose a spouse, a parent, a friend or a job? How anxious did they feel? The researchers then looked at which activities worked best to lift people’s moods. Sex and drugs were among the 43 options participants could choose from, along with exercise, cooking, social media, video calls and various types of entertainment.
The participants, who were fairly representative of their countries in terms of gender, age, ethnicity and social status, also completed standardized personality tests, as well a questionnaire designed to assess their sensitivity to rewards. “The sensitivity to reward questionnaire assesses how much enjoyment you get out of certain activities. It could be eating, sex, staying in the shower or smelling the flowers,” said Prof. Zatorre. In addition, the participants completed a survey assessing their emotional expressivity, or how readily they reveal their feelings.
‘The more pleasure you get from music, the more it reduces your depression symptoms.’
The study found that music, exercise and entertainment were the most potent stress relievers for the greatest number of people. But of those three activities, music—singing, dancing, playing an instrument, or just listening to a favorite playlist—was the only one that led to a reduction of depression symptoms. A fifth of all the participants reported it as the most effective way to reduce their pandemic-induced blues. Music’s palliative effects were particularly potent for people who were highly sensitive to rewards.
“That’s super interesting,” said Prof. Zatorre, “because as a neuroscientist, I’ve known for quite some time that music provokes pleasure. When we scan your brain [while you listen to music], we can see dopamine molecules released in the striatum and the ventral striatum. Fifty years ago, when you gave a hungry rat food, you saw that response in the striatum,” Prof. Zatorre explained, inferring that humans are similarly wired to get visceral pleasure from music. “Now we find that the more pleasure you get from music, the more it reduces your depression symptoms.”
Cooking, baking and eating also helped tamp down the blues, especially for people who find it easy to express their emotions, the study showed. Though the study didn’t address why that is, one possibility is that cooking provides a creative outlet when emotions are running high and so many external venues have been closed. “Cooking might allow you to cope with the stress that you are feeling without burying it,” wrote Prof. Ripollés, one of the paper’s authors.
This study is so new it hasn’t been published yet, so it hasn’t been peer-reviewed. Plus, it hinges on participants’ self-assessment; there’s no independent party measuring whether people’s depression symptoms did, in fact, abate. But for now, these preliminary data suggest that music and food might well cure what ails us, especially in these turbulent times.
Yum! And I totally agree: I’m always listening to music (singing along too—although members of my family may not agree that hearing me sing helps them dispel the covid blues) and cooking/baking/eating. Of course, I’d been doing all those things for years before covid, but I do believe that music and cooking lift your spirits. Today I’m going to be making lentil soup (using my new favorite kitchen appliance, the Instapot) and a fruit crumble (I noticed we had a lot of frozen fruit in the freezer, so I’m using a simple “dump cake” recipe where you put the frozen fruit in a casserole dish, top it with a combination of melted butter, oats, pecans, walnuts, and yellow cake mix, and stick it in the oven until the fruit is bubbly and the topping is golden brown).
Deb, you knew instinctively about the power of music and food! That fruit crumble sounds delicious!
Yum! Those look great. Love crumble, Deb. That sounds delicious too.
On your list, George, they all look fabulous. I bet Jackie would go for the double apple cake or maybe the cranberry pomegranate. I see a pecan pie there too. I think that and the Key lime tarts and maybe the blood orange cake would do me. I’d skip the honey cake and the pumpkin.
Yeah, we listen to music a lot. No baking, but we are cooking more. But despite staying home and eating, we are being as careful as possible not to gain weight as so many people have this year. So far we’ve done fairly well.
Jeff, notice that Patrick annotated the baking box contents by the cookbook/recipe he and Katie used. Most of the desserts were boxed up and then Patrick and Katie delivered them to a dozen of their friends. Masks and Social Distancing were practiced during the dessert drop-offs. Katie and Patrick produced more than just desserts, they delivered a lot of Holiday Cheer!
If I baked, I would eat it all or at least that is my excuse. Although I am cooking tons more, I haven’t baked at all. I try to have baked fish at least twice a week. It’s easy and delicious. I just put olive oil, lemons and garlic on it, wrap it in parchment and foil and throw it in at 400 for twenty minutes. And I can throw asparagus or sweet potatoes in with it. My favorite fish for this is rainbow trout now that salmon is deemed not a good choice if it’s farmed. Phil would be proud of how much my cooking has improved.
Patti, congratulations on your improving cooking skills! We call for Take-Out food at least once a week to support local restaurants and pizzerias. But, the rest of the time Diane and I follow a weekly menu that features plenty of veggies and low-carb choices. Diane will bake about once a week–usually cookies or apple crisp. I make oatmeal cookies about once a month.
Love salmon. We had salmon stuffed with crabmeat stuffing (no, we didn’t make it ourselves, just cooked it) yesterday. Today is crab cakes with spaghetti and salad. Tomorrow, whole wheat ravioli.
Jeff, Patrick is spending the weekend with us so our menu will be amended (or completely changed!). Patrick is an adventurous eater so anything but squid might show up on the dinner table tonight.
I am so very fortunate to be in relationship with a woman who loves to bake!
Same here!
And my wife also likes to cook, not only the typical Hungarian dishes but also recipes from all over the world.
On our journeys to Germany and our holidays all over Europe and the USA she tried so many things – and sometimes she said:
I’ll have to cook/bake this too!
So now we have a mix of Hungarian, German, Spanish, Italian and Greek cooking with some stuff from TexMex or the Balkan too, even a few Yiddish meals like Solet.
Wolf, variety–especially in food–is the Spice of Life!
Dan, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach!
I’d vote for the olive oil cake and key lime anything sounds good and nice of them to share with friends
Maggie, the honey cake turned out to be dessert Diane and I liked best. But the Double Apple Cupcakes were a close Second.
We’re being extremely cautious and careful, and I don’t go out at all and Barbara just once a week, but we don’t do much baking, as it’s to fattening. We eat a lot of chicken dishes, veggies and salads but stay away from desserts. That said, we don’t have “Covid Blues”, as we’re mostly stay-at-home people.
There’s not a thing in the picture we’d have.