It was a particularly long weekend day spent with my kids agitating each other. One of those where I prayed for silence but also feared it, because those rare quiet moments meant another round of yelling and tears would soon follow. One where I just wanted to get in my car and drive until I reached an ocean. You might know those kinds of days.
After a dinner where I was met with more complaining about the apparently torturous food I’d served and more arguing over the injustice of the chore distribution, I called the kids into the living room.
Before they came in, I’d grabbed the star light projector from my son’s room and had the lights turned off. Pulsing waves of light shone on the ceiling. I’d turned YouTube on the television and had a video playing displaying colorful psychedelic visuals. I connected my phone to the speaker.
“What is this?” they asked, confused.
“Oh, it’s a rave,” I told them. “And we’re going to dance.”
When I turned on the electronic music, they looked at me momentarily like I was the silliest woman on the planet. But the fast, repetitive beats and the deep bass quickly pulled them in. Soon, they were moving in high energy rhythmic motions, dancing around the living room and laughing. They jumped up and down, expelling the tension that they’d be venting in frantic bursts all day. They were moving too fast to fight or complain. Instead, they were laughing.
And the best part was – so was I. I danced along with them, closing my eyes and letting my body get lost in the hard beats. I shook out my arms and hopped up and down, trying to let go of the day as well. As the music continued, I could see all of our bodies releasing and relaxing, our movements more fluid and our shoulders softened.
After twenty minutes or so, I switched to some slower house music and told the kids it was almost time for bed. They whined, but their protests had lost that agitated charge. They were tired and their bodies had released, everyone in a wildly different state than just a half hour before.
I hadn’t been sure my newfound parenting hack would work that day, but I had suspected it might. I’d welcomed electronic dance music – EDM – into my own life a couple years prior, and so I had already experienced just how profound the emotional shifts it produced could be. At a small scale, I knew how it could radically alter my nervous system on days of stress, frustration, or hopelessness. At a larger, I’d seen how it changed my relationship to my body and mental health.
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EDM refers to a vast array of musical styles that share the thread of being produced by electronic instruments, like synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers. You’ll hear genres like better-known techno to others like house music, trance, and dubstep, DJs and music producers create tracks by building a beat and then adding in melodies, harmonies, and sometimes other effects. The result is music that’s high-energy and designed to facilitate dancing.
In fact, you would have to try to avoid moving your body when these rhythms start. This is related to something called entrainment, a phenomenon where the brain naturally synchronizes its electrical activity to external rhythmic stimuli. Essentially, our bodies have an internal metronome and will synchronize our internal to the external. Our neurons get in sync and we start to flow with the music, whether we intend to or now.
This concept is how and why music has always been such a fundamental part of our soothing process as humans, as we see with everything from lullabies to waiting room sounds. When we hear music – and especially when we feel immersed by it – our bodies coordinate with it,, as does our breathing. Even our sense of perception is altered. Much like sailors being lured by the siren’s song, our brains have a hard time resisting the influence of a good beat.
Music therapists have known and utilized these phenomena for generations, but EDM hasn’t historically been the go-to genre when working with patients with physical and emotional distress. But a growing body of evidence suggests that maybe it should have been.
As I discovered in my entry into this musical world, EDM is actually amazingly well-suited for emotional processing and mental health. EDM tends to have repetitive beats falling in the range of 120-140 per minute. That particular tempo aligns with beta brain waves, which are associated with active thinking and focus. These fast tempos activate our sympathetic nervous system, which boosts energy. Finally, EDM is built on uplifting progressions that create musical tension and promote serotonin and oxytocin, followed by release (through “drops”), which plays on the brain’s dopamine signaling system. The result is that we get these floods of feel-good chemicals.
The impact of the music itself is hard to fully separate from the movement that usually accompanies it. Our bodies are wired to move with music, and particularly at these faster tempos, once we let go we can get lost in music and dance in the best way. Dancing is a prime way to complete the stress cycle, which is a practice of getting our stress hormones back to baseline each day so that we don’t build chronic stress and inflammation. It’s been shown numerous studies to have positive impacts on health down to the molecular level.
Music and movement together seem to be a truly magical elixir.
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Given all of the great science showing how beneficial EDM can be, one could wonder why most of us aren’t seeking it out more often. I suspect one of the core reasons is that the scene that has built up around EDM doesn’t feel as accessible or approachable to a lot of people.
That’s sad, because while we could argue that all music is better live, EDM has a particular amplification when experienced in a live setting surrounded by other people. I suspect many EDM fans would actually say that the communal nature of the music is what drives much of their love for it. There’s yet another science-backed concept and reason for this – collective effervescence. It’s that euphoric feeling of togetherness and even oneness that we get when doing something with a large group, like at an exciting sporting event or religious ceremony.
The way that you feel connected and feelings of awe at that sense of connection is hard to describe, but it’s a beautiful part of the EDM experience. But again, not everyone will feel comfortable being at a show. Some of this is due to the stereotypes that exist that these are just drug-fueled parties for the college set. The reality is that EDM has appeal for people across the lifespan – and no drugs – or alcohol – are needed to feel transported by the music and movement.
With a desire to make raves more accessible, DJ Nikki Beatnik in London actually launched Mons That Rave in 2019. She’s hosted a couple dozen events since then that are for women-only in an effort to help moms and others feel safe and comfortable to let loose. Similar concepts have taken hold across Europe and feature earlier start times since, as one woman commented in a Thrillist piece, “We do have energy,” Mathilde says. “We just have it at a different time of day.”
Others are working to bring in older dancers – much older. In Belgium, a rave event was organized by a non-profit for residents of retirement homes. Their aim is to combat the loneliness epidemic and create fun, meaningful experiences. One of the dancers who was 99 and out dancing for the first time in 40 years,, told the New York Times, “Everyone is happy because we’re doing something different. That matters in life.”
And even here in the US, house and techno music is popping up in daytime coffee shop raves and at family-friendly park events. As our world cries out for more opportunities for connection and restoration, I have to wonder if we’ll see more people finding their rhythm in EDM.
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For many, EDM is a portal back into the body. It’s an invitation to lose yourself in the pace and rhythm, to put aside perfectionism, self-conscientiousness, and ego. There aren’t choreographed dances – simply a chance to see how your body responds when allowed to release.
I suspect we will see even more research coming online soon. There is interest in showing its impact on mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and PTSD. But the data is really in the way that you feel after even a brief session of music and movement.
And just as I saw on my family’s living room rave night (and in others since), this pattern of release and regulation is a tool for all of our nervous systems – regardless of age, gender, or stress level. We all need a chance to let go and rediscover ourselves in a beat. Glow sticks totally optional.
