Imagine your worst day. Now imagine starting your car and your favorite song comes on the radio. Immediately your spirits start to lift, and your mind is transported to a happier place. Music triggers memories — maybe not consciously, but it reminds us of an emotion that we used to feel. We associate songs we like with good memories, and it brings us good emotions.

Whenever I hear the song “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles, despite any mood that I’m in, my heart starts to lighten. I can’t pinpoint what it is. It could be the words, the message of the song, the uplifting beat or a combination of the three, but I can never suppress a smile or the urge to tap my foot to the beat when the song comes on. The tune also will be stuck in my head the entire day.

After a long day, my favorite thing to do is collapse on my bed and have anything by the Dave Matthews Band or Jack Johnson serenading me in the background. The gentle voice accompanied by the acoustic strum of the guitar on any of their songs is enough to ease my stress and calm my mind.

But music can be more than an uplifting trigger of happiness.

Face it; you’ve had that breakup, and that one song that played over and over, as you bawled your eyes out every time the chorus blared through the speakers. Or maybe you had that neighbor who made you wonder why Taylor Swift was radiating through the streets, yet again.

I’ll admit that I belted “Should’ve Said No” by Swift at the top of my lungs after a breakup and it brought me comfort during the hard time, although it also was accompanied by a sore throat. But whenever I felt bad about the situation, I simply played that song — perhaps two or three times — and it was enough to ease the pain, if only for a little while.

I’m embarrassed to admit it but when the Black Eyed Peas song chimes, “I got a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night,” I obtain the urge to shout the chorus and dance obnoxiously, simply because it reminds me of a time I embarrassed myself by dancing to it with my friends on stage at the Whiskey Barrel.

“Have I Told You Lately” by Rod Stewart might be a happy song for some people but it breaks my heart and brings me near tears every time I hear it because it reminds me of someone I lost to cancer years ago.

A study was conducted at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, by Mike Miller. He discovered “music may even be one of the best de-stressors … either by playing or even listening to music.”

Miller discovered when patients heard a song that they enjoyed, the inner lining of the blood vessels “relaxed, opened up and produced chemicals that are protective to the heart.” Miller also discovered that when participants listened to music they didn’t like the vessels actually began to close up.

Now I understand why people throw things at me when I attempt to play country music. Can’t blame them, their vessels are closing up.

Music also is an easy way to convey our emotions or understand them.

Every time I hear Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” I want everything that is going on around me to cease and the song to be started over. I agree with everything he has to say, and I enjoy the peaceful harmonic way he says it. I listen to it almost every day, and I have never tired of it. I feel the same emotion of satisfaction and joy every time I hear it. I adore the song and the harmonica solo so incredibly that I actually feel a slight ownership over it.

Music can help us convey our emotions as well. When you finally have the courage to show someone you love exactly how you feel, and it’s hard to determine how to show it, you can resort to music. If music can evoke emotion in us, how powerful is a love song when you are actually in love? Play the girl you like, “Whatever It Is” by Zac Brown Band, and, trust me, your night will go perfectly. That song always makes me smile, and brings my memory back to cheesy times with my significant other.

As Miller discovered, music is good for our hearts, and perhaps it can be declared, music is a soother of our souls, as well. So slide your headphones on, turn on your iPod and listen to the world’s best medicine.

Elizabeth Brumfield is a State News staff writer. Reach her at brumfie7@msu.edu.