It feels as if everyone knows a number of songs which they turn to whenever they go through hard times in their lives. The same playlist is listened to by many while commuting long distances in their tiring journey back home or in the evening hours due to anxiety. However, as suggested by psychologists, it may have deeper reasons than mere comfort alone.Currently, familiarity is seen as an aspect that enables the accessing of memory. In addition to being soothing, some songs enable individuals to get immersed in emotions they know about and find easy to experience. Such a close connection between music and memories may be the reason why certain pieces of music are listened to over and over again.Familiar music triggers quicker memory recallAccording to a study carried out in 2023 at the Department of Psychology, it was discovered that familiar songs triggered almost three times more memories in people than songs unknown to them did. Moreover, the appearance of such memories took place much faster in the case of familiar music.Nevertheless, it should be stressed that familiarity itself was rather powerful. If a person liked a certain song, then familiarity would help him evoke memories linked to a number of personal experiences.This is what makes a person not choose any songs to make up "hard day playlists," but select those that share similarities with different periods of life, people he or she knows or events that are somehow associated with stability in a person's life. It is important that music is a highly salient trigger when it comes to autobiographical memories since familiarity greatly improves a person's chances to recall certain memories.Music and memory are inseparable conceptsFor decades, science has studied the correlation between music and autobiographical memories. According to a review published in Memory, music was perfect for bringing back the entire emotional context of events from the past life of a person.It seems that not only memories were evoked by a particular song, but also emotions, context, and sensations associated with certain events. This is because of the linkage between memories and emotions tied to music.According to Professor Petr Janata from the Department of Music at University of California Davis, music should be seen as a soundtrack for each person's life story. The soundtracks usually become emotionally relevant as time goes by because they are associated with meaningful events in life.Psychology explains why people replay the same songs during stressful times. Image credit - GeminiHow is the familiar music emotionally trustworthy?In 2019, a scientific research was conducted regarding the process of processing familiar music through EEG recording and eye tracking. It was concluded that the role of familiarity in this process is associated with emotional memory traces in the brain related to songs. This fact is vital for cases of high-stress levels because emotions make people lose attention to other aspects of life.In this sense, the use of familiar music can be considered better compared to the efforts to look for another method of coping with stressful situations, which is caused by already existing emotions in a certain song. However, scientists do not state that music is going to fix people's state of distress.Music memories could affect the emotion itselfIt was found out that memory could actually facilitate the effect of music on the emotion of a person. Thus, in one of the articles dedicated to music-evoked autobiographical memories of 2024, it was found out that memories about past experiences help feel emotions better. It means that people feel emotions while listening to music not because of the melody itself but due to associations of every particular tune that are formed within their minds.For this reason, people can feel completely different emotions when listening to the same piece of music. For example, a tune that is connected with safety and resilience will most probably result in relaxation when a person is stressed again. The conclusion drawn by researchers shows that memory plays a major role in changing a person’s emotions under the influence of music.Evidence in favor of the hypothesisStudies conducted in the field of neuroscience prove the connection between music that one is familiar with, self-related cognition, and emotions. Thus, in 2022, there was a review concerning nostalgia and music. Personal songs cause activation in memory and self-relevant brain regions, namely, the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex.According to scientists, such neurosystems can reveal the essence of emotionally significant music grounding. Not all songs affect a person equally well. Most likely, a person will react to those songs that mean something personal to him or her. Such selectivity is the reason why during difficult periods people prefer using particular playlists instead of searching for some new songs.Playlist turns into a useful toolIn addition, there are clinical studies describing music-evoked memories in Alzheimer's disease. These studies prove that music remains an effective cue for emotion and memory despite dysfunction in other memory systems. In the view of researchers, this finding shows how entrenched music is in memory systems.The study is not implying that the playlists be adopted to replace therapy, emotional bonding, or any other form of coping mechanism. On the contrary, the research reveals that the familiarity with the music helps in stabilizing the emotional state more rapidly. This may explain the persistence of some playlists for years together. People do not just cherish their favorite music; rather they cherish the ability to retain an emotionally stable state.