Report: Heavy metal can be good for your mental health

Image: Judas Priest Facebook / Ross Halfin

Listening to heavy metal music can be helpful for mental health in young people because it helps foster supportive communities for fans, a study has found.

The study, published in the Journal of Community Psychology in January, concluded that metal music often provided a social outlet for listeners to find a sense of belonging and acceptance outside of day to day issues.

Paula Rowe and Bernard Geurin of the University of South Australia conducted repeat interviews with 28 people between the ages of 18 and 24 who were fans of metal music.

In the findings, the researchers said that despite "popular opinion" that "metal music and identity" causes mental health problems, the truth is quite the opposite.

“Despite experiences of intense family situations, ostracism, bullying and loneliness, these participants all got through this period of life with little or no explicit mental health issues,” the study found.

Metal communities, it found, "brought about a sense of social protection," for their participants.

Rowe and Geurin also spoke about how limited previous research had been linking metal and mental health problems.

“There is a history of speculating on the mental health of metal youth through correlational and experimental research that record nothing of the detailed social contexts and immediate life-worlds by talking to the metalheads directly.” 

The University Of Queensland’s Dr Genevieve Dingle conducted a similar study in 2015, with similar results. She told the ABC that she hoped such studies would help to change public perception of heavy metal culture.

"It helps to bust the myth that there’s something inherently negative or harmful or delinquent about listening to metal music," she said.

"It’s not causing mental health problems."