The soundtrack to success: can music enhance elite athletes health and performance?

Elite athletes operate in a world of ever-growing physical and psychological demands. With escalating training intensity, relentless match schedules, constant travel, rigorous rehabilitation and mounting scrutiny from media and fans, alongside internal pressures to perform at peak levels, the environment remains unyielding for players’ physical and mental health.1 To gain an edge and protect health, teams and athletes continually seek new strategies to enhance performance, accelerate recovery and improve overall health and well-being. Many athletes report using music to boost positive mood states, motivation and experience ‘flow’, a state of deep focus,2 with emerging research showing that music can enhance sports performance outcomes3 and aid post-exercise recovery.4 Although sports-specific studies are limited, the broader music psychology literature suggests that music has the potential to improve sleep quality5 and reduce long-term anxiety6—both of which could significantly impact the well-being of athletes. Principles from music psychology can, thus, help us understand and design interventions that support the performance and well-being. Music influences the performance and well-being through several key mechanisms: activation of reward circuitry, affect and arousal regulation, and entrainment.