# Developing a Music Listening mHealth Intervention for Stress Reduction in Early Recovery

> **NIH NIH R61** · WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $536,249

## Abstract

Project Summary
Alcohol use in the Unites States is a public health crisis that costs the U.S. health care system $249 billion
annually. However, only about 10% of individuals with alcohol use disorder receive treatment and a significant
proportion will relapse within one year of treatment. These trends are especially troubling among young adults
who exhibit the highest prevalence of alcohol use disorder among U.S. cohorts but are least likely to seek
treatment. Disruption of the body’s stress response system has been identified as a key factor that contributes
to risk of relapse and innovative and widely accessible interventions that help individuals cope with acute
stress during early recovery are urgently needed. Music listening has been shown to elicit activity in areas of
the brain associated with reward and emotions and has thus been proposed to be an effective tool for emotion
regulation and stress management. However, no relapse interventions have capitalized on the potential of
music listening to rehabilitate these systems. There is a lack of evidence that music-listening can influence
emotion regulation, and ultimately reduce acute stress, in real-world settings and uncontrolled environments.
We aim to develop the first just-in-time adaptive music-listening intervention to regulate emotions and reduce
stress among individuals within the first 90 days of detoxification from alcohol use. We design the study with
two phases to address three aims: For Aim 1, we will conduct formative research with a sample of young
adults who have received treatment for alcohol use disorders and are within 90 days of sobriety to identify
features of music selections that are most effective in reducing stress in real-world, ambulatory settings; For
Aim 2, we will focus on developing mobile health technology that uses passive sensing and machine learning
to automatically predict moments of heightened stress in real-time and suggest specific musical selections
when stress is detected. During Aim 3, we will test the feasibility of a novel music-listening intervention among
a second sample of young adults who have received treatment for AUD and are within 90 days of sobriety.
The goal of our proposed study is to provide a cost-effective and accessible music-listening intervention to
support the increasing population of individuals struggling with relapse risk during early stages of recovery
from alcohol use disorder. This research will provide a critical foundation upon which large-scale efficacy
trials of adaptive just-in-time music interventions can be conducted.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10855869
- **Project number:** 1R61AA031474-01
- **Recipient organization:** WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Michael Cleveland
- **Activity code:** R61 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $536,249
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-08-15 → 2026-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10855869

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10855869, Developing a Music Listening mHealth Intervention for Stress Reduction in Early Recovery (1R61AA031474-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10855869. Licensed CC0.

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