Face the Music: How Piano Playing Helps with Work Stress

For as long as I remember, playing the piano was never a serious thing for me. I never had formal training in the instrument at all. When I was around 7 or so years old, I was sent to a piano school to learn the basics, but I had an extremely strict teacher, so I failed to learn anything. Instead, I learned the basics of what is called "chord" playing; i.e. with your left hand, you play the standard musical chords, and with the right hand, you play the melody of the song. In this way, playing the piano became simply a fun activity for me. One that helped calm my mind when I was stressed with school demands and later, architecture work.

Dealing with work stress

As many memes and jokes will confirm, Architecture is a stressful profession. It does not matter if we draw on paper or in the computer, the long hours and endless iteration of design concepts will make anyone tired and sleepy. The piano playing in my spare time (and joining a music organization!) during my architecture school years really helped in taking out the stress from the many projects we had to do.

But why? A study done by the University of the Bath in 2022 "demonstrates the positive impact learning to play a musical instrument has on the brain's ability to process sights and sounds, and shows how it can also help to lift a blue mood." The study shows that when people begin to play and train regularly in musical instruments, there is a definite increase in audio and visual processing, and a decrease in the levels of negative emotions like depression and anxiety.

Mental reset

When you play a musical instrument, the physical and mental (and maybe even emotional) exercise you get lets your mind rove and stretch in a different way, almost like pressing a reset button or doing a cool down exercise. The change lets you calm down and see things in a new light. It's not only music, even walking and other physical activities can help you in this way, too!

So, whenever I can, I share that I play musical instruments for fun (recently I've been learning the guitar) because learning new things (and doing things other than one's profession!) helps me to face the demands of work and family life every day... and maybe you can learn to play an instrument, too.

"When people begin to play and train regularly in musical instruments, there is a definite increase in audio and visual processing, and a decrease in the levels of negative emotions like depression and anxiety."

This is me during college in 2006 playing in the school band .