From the joy of singing along to your favorite pop song on the radio to the stirring sounds of an orchestra, we all know that music has the potential to have a profound impact on our mental and emotional well-being. But did you know that music can also be a powerful tool for stress reduction?
Thrive Global is excited to partner with Sollos, a new audio wellness venture from Universal Music Group specializing in music scientifically designed to help you focus and unwind.
We’ve created an exclusive series of Thrive Resets using Sollos’s technology, featuring music designed to help you reduce and manage your stress.
What is Thrive Reset?
Thrive Reset is a powerful, science-backed tool that allows users to reduce stress in just 60 seconds.
Thrive’s library features hundreds of Resets: 60 second videos featuring stretching, breathing, mindfulness, and gratitude breaks along with calming visuals. Each video features a guided breathing bubble that helps users inhale, exhale and bring themselves back to center.
Reset is based on neuroscience that shows we can course-correct from stress in 60-90 seconds by activating our parasympathetic nervous system — a network of nerves that relaxes the body after periods of stress or danger — and lowering our levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
What makes Sollos Resets different?
Sollos has worked with audio engineers and neuroscientists to produce and curate music with stress-reducing qualities, using Universal Music’s world-class catalog.
As Dr. Tara Venkatesan, Director of Cognitive Science at Sollos, explains, research shows that certain musical qualities reduce stress and promote relaxation: “Slower tempo music with simple melodies and gentle, predictable rhythmic and harmonic structures has been associated with slower neural activity and a reduction in salivary cortisol levels, heart-rate, blood pressure, skin conductance — all markers of increased parasympathetic nervous system activity.”
By combining Sollos’s music with Reset’s guided breathing exercises and soothing visuals, we’ve crafted an intensively relaxing audiovisual experience. When you take a moment out of your busy day to recenter yourself, you can return to your daily tasks with renewed vigor.
As Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO of Thrive Global, says, “We’re just getting started with all of the ways we can leverage music, both for preventive health and to augment medical treatment.”
By incorporating Resets into your daily routine, you can take a proactive approach to managing stress, giving yourself the tools to deal with stressful situations — and can prevent stress from escalating into a serious threat to your health and happiness.
And as Venkatesan explains, anyone can benefit from Resets: “Life can be stressful, and it’s important that we make space and time regularly in our routine to ground ourselves. Breathing while listening to sedative music is an effective way of regulating our nervous system activity, which is associated with positive, long term health outcomes.”