Exploring the Potential of SoundWheel for Mental Health Improvement
In the year 2024, mental health issues are a significant concern across the globe, with an estimated one in four individuals in the UK experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, or related mental health conditions. This concerning statistic underscores the critical need for innovative and accessible interventions that can offer relief without over-dependence on pharmaceutical solutions.
Interventions based on art and cultural experiences have shown great potential in this regard. However, they call for critical exploration of the complex, for example, embodied, technologically mediated, or socially and culturally situated circumstances for potentially positive effects.
The aim of this research project is to contribute to available knowledge within this field. Specifically, it explores the positive potentials for improved mental health and emotional well-being in using music for daily meditation via the SoundWheel app.
At the same time, the project investigates opportunities for enhanced engagement of user experiences in studies of art and, specifically, music as a tool for mental health improvement.
SoundWheel is a music meditation app, which, according to the company, is designed to respond to the need for effective, non-pharmaceutical interventions for mental health issues. Thus, it provides an ideal context for the project's investigation, where participants are provided free access to explore the therapeutic potentials of everyday music meditation.
SoundWheel is based on the principle that music and meditation combined can significantly impact an individual’s mental well-being. Participants in the project will engage with the app independently, allowing them to experience the facilitated music meditations at their own pace. SoundWheel have stated that they have worked at producing a user-friendly approach to ensure that anyone, regardless of their familiarity with meditation or music, can benefit from the experience.
The project's involvement of user experiences is done through the online platform Involved, which allows participants to anonymously respond to surveys and exchange views (which are shared and which participants can concur with to varying degrees).
Experiences of emotional well-being and mental helath are sensitive and – like experiences of music – difficult to describe. Therefore, both the security entailed in anonymity and the opportunity to exchange experiences are crucial. For the project, it is also important that Involved enables exchange among a potentially large number of participants.
Exploring Involved's potential as a research tool is part of the project's aim – in both a constructive and critical sense.
In the research project, we inquire about the potentially positive effects of music meditation – daily and using SoundWheel – in relation to emotional well-being and mental health. We attempt to identify differences in users’ experience of these conditions in connection with their use of the app. At the same time, we also address the many circumstances that influence everyday ‘health musicking’, and which call for a situated understanding – including, e.g., bodily, social, and cultural conditions, in addition to the technological affordances of the SoundWheel app.
In utilizing Involved, we ask about users' experience of the platform and its potentials but also limitations as a tool for research. The potential up-scaling of the number of participants in a joint session for knowledge exchange is a focus here, as are the challenges when it comes to exchanging views on topics, which may be sensitive or difficult to describe.
Participants are invited to explore SoundWheel but also to share their experiences and insights through a structured feedback process. This involves:
Online Knowledge Exchange Sessions: Completing questionnaires and participating in exchange of viewpoints facilitated by Involved, enabling participants to share insights and learn from others' experiences.
Focus Group Interviews: For those in Aarhus (Denmark) and Uxbridge (West London, UK), there's an opportunity for some participants to explore the app's effects in small group settings.
This research project is the result of a collaborative effort among several organisations and institutions, including:
Aarhus University and Brunel University: Leading the academic research component.
SoundWheel and Involved: Offering app and platform access along with music-meditation, technological and engagement expertise.
Danish Sound Cluster and the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science: Supporting the project's research and development.
Exploring the Potential of SoundWheel for Mental Health Improvement
In the year 2024, mental health issues are a significant concern across the globe, with an estimated one in four individuals in the UK experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, or related mental health conditions. This concerning statistic underscores the critical need for innovative and accessible interventions that can offer relief without over-dependence on pharmaceutical solutions.
Interventions based on art and cultural experiences have shown great potential in this regard. However, they call for critical exploration of the complex, for example, embodied, technologically mediated, or socially and culturally situated circumstances for potentially positive effects.
The aim of this research project is to contribute to available knowledge within this field. Specifically, it explores the positive potentials for improved mental health and emotional well-being in using music for daily meditation via the SoundWheel app.
At the same time, the project investigates opportunities for enhanced engagement of user experiences in studies of art and, specifically, music as a tool for mental health improvement.
SoundWheel is a music meditation app, which, according to the company, is designed to respond to the need for effective, non-pharmaceutical interventions for mental health issues. Thus, it provides an ideal context for the project's investigation, where participants are provided free access to explore the therapeutic potentials of everyday music meditation.
SoundWheel is based on the principle that music and meditation combined can significantly impact an individual’s mental well-being. Participants in the project will engage with the app independently, allowing them to experience the facilitated music meditations at their own pace. SoundWheel have stated that they have worked at producing a user-friendly approach to ensure that anyone, regardless of their familiarity with meditation or music, can benefit from the experience.
The project's involvement of user experiences is done through the online platform Involved, which allows participants to anonymously respond to surveys and exchange views (which are shared and which participants can concur with to varying degrees).
Experiences of emotional well-being and mental helath are sensitive and – like experiences of music – difficult to describe. Therefore, both the security entailed in anonymity and the opportunity to exchange experiences are crucial. For the project, it is also important that Involved enables exchange among a potentially large number of participants.
Exploring Involved's potential as a research tool is part of the project's aim – in both a constructive and critical sense.
In the research project, we inquire about the potentially positive effects of music meditation – daily and using SoundWheel – in relation to emotional well-being and mental health. We attempt to identify differences in users’ experience of these conditions in connection with their use of the app. At the same time, we also address the many circumstances that influence everyday ‘health musicking’, and which call for a situated understanding – including, e.g., bodily, social, and cultural conditions, in addition to the technological affordances of the SoundWheel app.
In utilizing Involved, we ask about users' experience of the platform and its potentials but also limitations as a tool for research. The potential up-scaling of the number of participants in a joint session for knowledge exchange is a focus here, as are the challenges when it comes to exchanging views on topics, which may be sensitive or difficult to describe.
Participants are invited to explore SoundWheel but also to share their experiences and insights through a structured feedback process. This involves:
Online Knowledge Exchange Sessions: Completing questionnaires and participating in exchange of viewpoints facilitated by Involved, enabling participants to share insights and learn from others' experiences.
Focus Group Interviews: For those in Aarhus (Denmark) and Uxbridge (West London, UK), there's an opportunity for some participants to explore the app's effects in small group settings.
This research project is the result of a collaborative effort among several organisations and institutions, including:
Aarhus University and Brunel University: Leading the academic research component.
SoundWheel and Involved: Offering app and platform access along with music-meditation, technological and engagement expertise.
Danish Sound Cluster and the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science: Supporting the project's research and development.
