How music affects your mental health

You see these endless articles popping up in the media lately, all claiming to dissect how music supposedly impacts our physical and mental health. From what I gather, there are even specific branches of "music therapy" out there. To be perfectly honest, the whole concept feels a bit dubious to me, yet I find myself wondering where the actual substance lies—especially since they even offer specialized courses on the subject at places like Columbia University. It makes me wonder: what’s the real catch? If we follow this logic to its conclusion, could we just start prescribing aromatherapy as a medical intervention? Is everything that happens to make us feel a little better suddenly classified as "therapy"? And if that's the case, why does music get this privileged, almost sacred status? Why aren't we seeing people prescribed "soccer therapy" to boost their mood? 🤷

Anyway, I just wanted to lay out a few of these inconsistencies and questions to see what everyone else thinks about it all.