STUDENT EXAMPLE 2

BY Jesus Garza

Elizabeth Tran

Prannad Koldwakar

Outline assignment for : Music as Mental Self Care

Hook: Music is a powerful source of taking care of one 's pre-existing mental disorders, poor
mental health, or to prevent any damage that may come in the future. Poor mental health is a
problem in all age groups. Moreover, it is common that most individuals will look for
professional help when things start to progress in a bad way; however, there is still one
inexpensive way to lessen their mental distress – music.

Thesis: Music can be beneficial for those suffering with poor mental health because it has a
positive effect on an individual’s mood and feeling, which is beneficial because listening to
music can relieve stress and decrease anxiety, which can improve one’s overall health.

Body 1

Topic sentence: Listening to music or having it in the background decreases stress leads to health
problems

Point: Stress can lead to major health problems or be life threatening.

Evidence 1: Suzanne B. Hanser states “stress may be the single most significant factor related to
the increasing rate of suicide in the United States,” which shows that stress develops life
threatening diseases and behavior; however, this can be reduced with “relaxing” or “sedative”
music (193).

Evidence 2: Furthermore, authors Alexandra Linnemann, Beate Ditzen, Jana Strahler, Johanna
M. Doerr, and Urs M. Nater performed an experiment with 55 university students in order to
prove their claim that “music listening has health beneficial effects , which might be mediated by
its potential stress-reducing effect” (83).
Evidence 3: Moreover, when students listened to music for relaxation as the main reason,
Alexandra Linnemann et al. found that this showed that listening to music for “relaxation” had a
significant reduction in stress (88).

Sources: Hanser, S. B. “Music Therapy and Stress Reduction Research.” Journal of Music
Therapy, vol. 22, no. 4, 1 Dec. 1985, pp. 193–206., doi:10.1093/jmt/22.4.193.

Linnemann, Alexandra, et al. “Music Listening as a Means of Stress Reduction in Daily Life.”
Psychoneuroendocrinology, Pergamon, 21 June 2015, pp. 82-90.,
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453015002127

Explanation: For example, when speaking about how music relieves her stress, Alejandra
Espinoza discusses how working on homework with a difficult question stresses her out. She
listens to classical music because it helps her focus more on the assignment and not
procrastinate. However, when she is at her job, she listens to more upbeat music to relieve her
from the stress of working in retail and dealing with rude customers.

Body 2:

Topic: same topic as body 1: Music has a positive effect when it comes to decreasing anxiety
because music slows the heart rate and lowers blood pressure.

Point: Music is beneficial and has a significant influence on decreasing anxiety.

Evidence 1: As an example, Gail Kaempf and Margaret E. Amodei claims that music is soothing
for anxiety patients, and it ”increases or decreases breathing, blood volume, pulse rate, and blood
pressure” (114). Likewise, Kaempf and Amodei show that sedative music decreases anxiety and
improves respiration rate in clinical settings (118).

Evidence 2: Furthermore, Katie J. Kemper and Suzanne C. Danhauer states that in one of their
experiment’s music therapy had significantly decreased anxiety and improved mood for many
different types of patients (Katie and Danhauer 282). Additionally, Kemper and Danhauer state
that staff in the ICU prefer classical or instrumental music in hospital settings as it helps the
patients relax and decrease their anxiety level (286).
Evidence 3: For example, Juan Perez stated that when he gets anxiety listening to his favorite
type of music or calming music (piano or classical) slows his heart rate down, and he is able to
relax. (Personal Interview. 13 April 2021).

Sources: Kaempf, Gail, and Margaret E. Amodei. “The Effect of Music on Anxiety.” AORN
Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, July 1989, pp. 112–118., doi:10.1016/s0001-2092(07)67642-x.

Kemper, Katie J., and Danhauer, Suzanne C. “Music as Therapy” Researchgate, Southern
Medical Journal , Apr. 2005,
www.researchgate.net/profile/Kathi-Kemper-2/publication/264954368_Music_as_Therapy/links/
5a79cc37a6fdcc4ffe92751d/Music-asTherapy.pdf

Explanation:. This shows that music is beneficial to an individual’s stress and anxiety
which allows them to process their trauma.

(My Explanation)

Anxiety comes with many different types of emotions, which include uncontrollable shaking or
crying and overthinking. Music helps control this because it allows the individual to listen or pay
attention to something else.

Body3:

Topic sentence: Music allows individuals to process their trauma better due to the lyrics and the
type of emotions that come with the song

Point: The central point of the body paragraph three is the fact that listening to music is
therapeutic and can help with various different forms of trauma.

Evidence 1: Keith M. Davis illustrates the emotions children have after experiencing trauma and
states that the expressive use of music is a powerful therapeutic tool for adolescents who have
gone through trauma (125)- The author provides some reinforceful evidence that helps their main
point which is the repeated use of listening to music may be very “Therapeutic” to a lot of
children.

Evidence 2: Moshe Bensimon, Dorit Amir, and Yuval Wolf state that music is therapeutic to
combat soldiers who have been diagnosed with PTSD (??) - using evidence from a researcher
that proves that music is useful for soldiers which further reinforces the central idea that listening
to music is good for a multitude of trauma.

Evidence 3:Expressive arts (music) is used to help an individual grow and heal from their
trauma, furthermore, music allows an individual to “hold and express emotional and reflective
experience, and to expand and deepen personal understanding and meaning” (Davis 126)

Evidence 4:Moreover, PTSD is an overwhelming threat in which there is distressing feelings

and thoughts of terror and death; however, group music therapy "increased a sense of openness,
Author’s Last Name 4 togetherness, belonging, sharing, closeness, connectedness, and intimacy”
(45 Bensimon, Moshe, et al.).

Explanation: Music helps different forms of trauma from adolescents to soldiers who served in
war. It also shows us a little bit on how music actually does heal individuals who are
experiencing trauma.

Body 4:

Topic: Going through depression can be one of the hardest things a person will go through

Point: Music is able to relieve some of this pain because it improves an individual’s mood and
lets the individual connect with their feelings.

Evidence 1: For example, Sergio Castillo-Pérez, Virginia Gómez-Pérez, Minerva Calvillo

Velasco, Eduardo Pérez-Campos, and Miguel-Angel Mayoral state that there are many
treatments for depression; however, they make no difference and music has been found effective
in many disorders including depression (387). This is because music is used for depressive
patients because it stimulates beneficial feelings and because music is used“to enhance the
effects of decreased depression and disabilities and promote feelings of power” within the
patients (Castillo Perez et al. 390).

Evidence 2: Meanwhile, Kristen J. Eckhardt and Julie A. Dinsmore state that around 25% of
women and 12% of men experience depressive episodes in their lifetime; however, music
therapy is effective tool to arouse emotions and “can act as a springboard to help clients put
emotions into words and thus facilitate communication” (177). For instance, many people go to
music when they are going through difficult times and feel depressed because hearing music and
being able to express one 's feelings is a way to cope and let out all their emotions.

Evidence 3: Montse Zapata discussed what she does when she is depressed and stated that when
she puts on her music, she feels like herself. Furthermore, she listens to sad music because it
allows her to scream her lungs out and release all the pain and sadness in her (Personal Interview.
28 April, 2021).

Sources:

Castillo-Pérez, Sergio, et al. “Effects of Music Therapy on Depression Compared with

Psychotherapy.” The Arts in Psychotherapy, vol. 37, no. 5, 2010, pp. 387–390.,
doi:10.1016/j.aip.2010.07.001.

Eckhardt, Kristen J, and Julie A Dinsmore. “Creating Space for Connection.” Journal of
Creativity in Mental Health, vol. 1, no. 2, 2005, pp. 175–187., doi:10.1300/j456v01n02_09

Perez, Juan J. Personal Interview. 13 April, 2021.

Zapata, Montse. Personal Interview. 28 April, 2021.

Explanation: Listening to music as therapy for depression is effective as it decreases their stress
and improves their mental health

Conclusion

Re-stating the thesis: Music therapy has a major positive impact when it comes to reducing
stress, decreasing anxiety, and improving an individual’s mental health.

Summary: There are many people around the world who do not know the power music can have
on a person. Hopefully, this paper will further expand research that shows that music is
beneficial for an individual’s health, which then leads to more implications for practice.

Look into the structure:

The correct format & structure: Correct structure, including introduction, body paragraphs, and a
conclusion. The MLA citations are also correct in Times New Roman, 12-point font, and with
correct citations including a hanging indent. However, they have excess sources.