Is Music an Addiction?

Everything can be addictive. Porn, videogames, food, and yeah, I'd imagine music too. Not for everyone, maybe for some. But when it comes to behavioural addictions I would say not all are created equal. Your porn addiction is probably affecting you more than music is, so you should probably get that under control first. I don't know you, though.

If you listen to pop or rap music you may as well just stop listening anyway because listening to that stuff is basically torture

 

Music actually makes me more productive and no it does not trigger the same brain chemicals. Music is great! I love music, it's a part of my life now. But as PT said, anything in excess can be harmful.

 

I hate music......its just noise.......

 

(;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)

Btw, music and noise are different. Search them up on Google.

 

Music releases dopamine, the idea is cutting your self from external dopamine outlets and start relying on your self to produce it, meaning you only get dopamine once you achieve something in your life, trust me once the brain starts to starve from deprivation of dopamine it will motivate you to seek it yourself, this is why people who abstained +300 days have all improved other areas of their life, despite many of them fixing their diet and quit other substances just till they get cured, they never return to them after being cured from pmo, the more bad sources of dopamine you rely on to make you happy, alcohol, porn, video games, sugars, music, movies, tv series, all sort of drugs, the less happy you become when doing nothing, or walking in the street or working on your goals, will feel like a shore, but if you stop using them you brain becomes sensitive to the low doses of dopamine you produce when you complete a session in the gym, when you hear birds singing, in other words you brains standards of dopamine are high right now, once you lower them you perform better and become more happier as a personne.. dopamine is a reward hormone and a motivational hormone, the brain motivate you to seek it its up to you how you get it.

 

PMO basically junkifies dopamine.

 

If you feel addicted to it, probably best to cut back on it. For a lot of people however it isn't. Up to you to decide. It isn't bad just because it produces dopamine though.

 

Everything can be addictive.

But I feel music is a really key thing for me.

 

Music is dangerous
I am sorry ,but music doesn't help in anything.......

 

I don't agree with the people saying "everything can be addictive" but I guess it comes down to your definition of addiction. Mine's just a layman's definition:

1. Something you do is causing you harm,
2. You sincerely try to stop doing it, but
3. You find that you cannot stop.

Music does not meet any of those criteria, so no, it is not addictive.

 

First if all we need to define what type of music we are talking about, if the music has lyrics and the listener listen to this type of music a about 3 hours a day and the music is about struggle the user will ultimately see his life as struggles, the lyrics promote drug abuse and sex and so on, the listener will have new thoughts about drugs sex and so on, what the eyes sees and read and what the you hear or tell yourself has a deep effect on how you brain think and behave in auto pilot(subconsciously) lyrics works the same way negative/positive affirmation have on a person, plus many users who went Monk mode have found pop music to be a trigger, because promoted their fantasizing during the day, this like a chain it triggers a certain motion of thoughts eventually leading to the action or emotion of the subject the lyrics speak about but since you are not a normal person, you’re an addict even the head of this chain of thought will take over your brain because the gray matter is reduced and you cant make coherent and logic decision when it comes to pmo, so certain lyrics is are harmless as looking at pictures or reading sex/ romance novels or edging, to normal people harmless until used in the wrong way, but the pmo addict is not good at controling to use it the good or bad way so of the lyrics are about sex it will release dopamine slightly more than a normal person and it will stimulate the pathways of pmo, thus you will not want to listen to more of this music you brain will want dopamine throughout pmo, more pictures, videos, nudity ect. Just like smartphones, You read an article about romance you are an addict you get aroused, you google more stories, stories become pictures, pictures become video and you relapse, you resist you will get a chaser effect, thus an addict is advised to stay way from everything that triggers the chain emotion of sex until his brain heals and return to normal functioning not seeking huge loads of dopamine, music might not be addictive as porn but its has the same effect as eating sugars to the brain, how do i know this ? People rely on music to comfort them, to make them feel happy when they are sad, To motivate them, to control their emotion .. rings a bell, same pattern applies to all addictions, so the answer here Music is harmless if used in moderation also if benefits your end goals in life. As for pmo addicts and for the lyrics and even sex sounds both real and artificial promote the pathways of pmo, because we destroyed our brain anything that arouses us sexually activates those pathways related to pmo, you orgasm you get a chaser effect, you masturbate you get a chaser effect, wet dream ? Chaser effect, you see a picture, you get a chaser effect, you fantasize for tooo tooo long and on a daily basis you get a chaser effect, you hear people having sex you get chaser effect, you hear music about sex, it promotes fantasizing which promotes chaser effect. Hope this puts more light into the subject.

 

The idea a "thing" is addictive *or* a person is an "addict" are both one sided - it takes the interaction of both.

And of course not everyone is addicted to the same thing, why is that?

It's the process and relationship between the person and the thing.

This will never be understood when people frame it as being addicted to an object. People don't realize they need to question the fundamental assumption underlying the way they frame it.

Ironically people recognize process addiction as a "thing" - but this is flipping that around. Even addiction to stuff was a process in the first place. If you don't take a drug, it's just substances that sit there. It involves the substance entering your system and the biochemical and psychological processes that comes after that.

 

Music is very therapeutic for me, but of course it depends on the situation, if I have to study for instance it has to be instrumental. It does affect your dopamine transmitters, so I think music might only harm you if you already have a high dopamine tolerance and you need to get it down with a hard reset. I would google more if I were you, but I really don't think music is harmful, specially because depending on what kind of music it is, it wont impair any other sense or prevent focus.

 

What is the most general definition of music? Organized sound? It's like the whole thing about video games. There's popular games, most of it may be addictive to some extent, just like there's popular music, but that's neither all the music/games out there nor is it saying something about the NATURE of music and games.

I mean what's next, are we going to say reading and language is bad because crappy writing of all kinds exist?

And again it completely ignores the relationship between the person and that thing. I guess there's a lot of people who identify themselves as addicts and they want to play it safe, but I'll bet you close to none of them quit every single thing that could be to some extent addictive. There's some truth to TV is bad, so don't watch any kind of videos ever ever? Never mind the combination of crappy social networking comments on Youtube and the autoplay feature that forces you to watch something even though you didn't ask for it (which you can turn off) but no distinction is made between the platform, the content and the person using both. You just are not looking at the details of what's going on at all if that's the case.

 

Like Awedouble said a drug becoming an addiction depend on the user, but technically speaking when you damage you pre frontal cortex, the grey matter being reduced, it effect all other addiction. Someone who is addicted to harder substance, Porn, cocaine, heroine, alcohol, and uses it in great moderation, will loser the ability to make sane decisions when it comes to that addiction, and also to prevent other addictions, and this is a study on all of these addictions i mentioned. In other words an addict to one of these things i mentioned is prone to replace one addiction to another at least until his grey matter slowly regrows and it takes time will is responsible for willpower, and it is evident that peope that quit pmo also quit other bad habits after going on long streaks this supports this study. Im not saying music is damaging, but what im saying is, you are relying on music to concentrate and to regulate your mood ? Have you tried to do so on yourself and what happen when you quit listening to music for long periods of time ? do you experience void ? You need to realize despite us being advanced in the neuroscience field, we just recently discovered the effect of porn in the reward system, just now. And before everyone was thinking it was harmless in fact 99% of the world population still does, people are addicted to sugars and can still maintin their healthy weight and and regulate their blood dugar level using med and can enjoy cakes and fast carbs and fast food, and they experience the same effect you do when you listen to music, and when they quit they experience mild withdrawals symptoms, same thing goes for social media addict, youtube, games, they all work on the reward circuit, the dopamine you get from music is low compared to pmo and other hard addictions, but it all comes with a cost and once more people are interested on the subject, studies will be funded to study the full effect symptoms and withdrawal effects, just like any other source to overstimulates your reward circuit without you working for it.

a more healthy use of music is to motivate, dopamine is a motivational hormone, so deprive yourself from music for a certain period start to study without music, get better at concentrating, once you become good at it, reward your self by listening to music when you revise for specific periods of times, dopamine is like treat you give to a dog, it should be given only when he does something good thats the whole point of Dopamine, at least before electronic that is.

 

Very impressive man, this the things i want to read on this forum, this isn’t just about pmo, ou lives are damaged because of dopamine, its really impressive you fasted that long. Have gone to a period of void prior to replacing the time you used social media, you kinda go crazy in this period because your brain is trying to look for new activity to attach to, this is where i started implemented long hours of reading without it being a chore, in fact i read a lot after quiting social media and pmo, and prior to this i have never finished reading a book in my entire life despite me want to, tells you how smart directing of dopamine source can benefit any possible life goal you have, the trick is to endure until the brain no longer seek that dopamine source and then simple attach it to a new one, but pmo and other hard drugs will take a very considerable time for the brain to heal, and relapses are a big No during healing time.