☁️🍄 Issue No. 011: Of Sound Mind

Happy Sunday, and welcome back to Headlines, your weekly download on the latest happenings in the mental health industry. If you haven’t subscribed yet, join us now:

Today, we’re tuning in to the growing trend of music as therapy. 🎶

OF SOUND MIND

Music as medicine is making its mark.  

WHAT’S HAPPENING

This March, music therapy platform SoundMind announced its $2.25M seed round. 

Founded by and purpose-built for Gen Zers, the platform helps students with “mind management” and “social-emotional learning.” 

With an in-house team of composers crafting binaural beats and soundscapes, SoundMind touts 85K+ users across 30 organizations, including schools and colleges. 

MEDICINAL MELODIES 

– Neal Sarin, CEO of Sona

Music is a powerful healer; humans are naturally drawn to sound.

In particular, music is potent for younger listeners. Gen Z consistently reports turning to their headphones during times of stress:

• A survey of over 20K college students found that music was the most popular tool for managing mental health. 

• During the pandemic, music was the number one thing Gen Z and millennials said felt like therapy to them.

And it’s not just because the beats hit. A growing body of research supports why we turn to audio. Listening to music is linked to reduced anxiety and pain as well as lowered heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure.

Researchers even posit that adolescents may be using music to develop emotional regulation and processing skills. 

With millions already pressing play, a growing repertoire of startups are looking to engineer music for mental health:

• Endel, maker of AI-powered soundscapes, raised a $15M Series B last year and just partnered with Amazon Music on sleep-promoting playlists. 

• SPOKE, a Gen Z-oriented music therapy app based in the UK, closed a £1.1M ($1.5M) pre-seed last February. It works directly with artists, clinical psychologists, and neuroscientists to “help users achieve a desired mental state.” 

• Sona and Olo are furthering the future of “functional sound,” concocting music-based digital therapeutics for well-being. 

And over in psychedelics, music plays a central role — dubbed the “hidden therapist.” Here, startups like Wavepaths are designing live, personalized music for tripping. 

LOOKING AHEAD

The science backs it up; there are strong links between sound and well-being. 

But the next step up—drawing the connection between soundscapes and better mental health—is trickier. Promising too much, brain games like Lumosity have been fined millions for making outsized claims for improving cognition. 

Jonah Davids, who writes about the science and politics of mental health, noted that companies in this space tend to make a lot of lofty promises, laced with buzzwords.

SoundMind’s website claims it can help “increase cognition” and “enable you to retain more information.” Meanwhile, Endel’s site copy makes several nods to its “neuroscience-backed” tech. A deeper dig, however, finds its reliance on just one study — which happens to be partially funded by the company itself. 

Punchline: Fighting the mental health crisis, we’ll need entrepreneurs innovating solutions across all dimensions — audial, visual, somatic, and more.

But it’s also crucial that pioneering companies stay cautious of the claims they make. Precision of language is important, particularly when marketing to vulnerable populations yearning for a way out.

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QUICK HITS

• On a roll. MDMA patch moves toward first-in-human trials; Netherlands creates national MDMA commission; MAPS reports positive results on MDMA for PTSD. 

• DTx downfall. Pear Therapeutics files for bankruptcy, seeks sale. 

• Caps off. Changa Institute graduates its first cohort of psychedelic facilitators.

• Going dry. Beckley Psytech launches 5-MeO-DMT study for alcohol addiction. 

• DMT for depression. Small Pharma releases positive six-month data. [Re-read Issue No. 006: The Spirit Molecule].

• Getting political. Missouri approves psychedelic study measure; Washington pares down psychedelic therapy proposal.

• Private matters. Alcohol recovery startups leaked hundreds of thousands of patients’ data to advertisers. [Re-read Issue No. 004: Privacy, Please].

NEWS & TRENDS

1) Right to Trip 

Last wish: psychedelics. Patients of terminal illness often grapple with intense anxiety and depression as they face the end of their lives. A deeply spiritual experience, psychedelics have proven to be a powerful tool to help bring peace and comfort in twilight years. There’s just one catch — psychedelics are still federally illegal. 

Newly filed bipartisan bill HR1825 wants to change that. The bill is pushing the DEA to allow terminally ill patients access to Schedule I drugs under federal Right to Try laws. For many patients with just months or years to live—and who don’t have the luxury of waiting for psychedelics to get legalized—the bill could be life-changing.

2) Rx: Mother Nature

“Nature-based social prescribing” is on the rise. This week, The Lancet Planetary Health published a systematic review assessing 28 different studies of nature prescriptions, finding evidence of mental health and cardiometabolic benefits. 

And across the world, countries are turning to Mother Nature to help heal both mentally and physically. There’s PaRx in Canada, GRx in New Zealand, and ParkRx in America. Meanwhile, researchers are even touting the holistic benefits of gardening prescriptions. Whether hiking or tilling, it’s hard to beat the natural benefits of the great outdoors.

DEALS & DEBUTS

💵 SAMSHA announced a new round of federal funding to shore up community-based mental health systems. The four-year grant program will attribute $62M to 62 grantees.→ source

🧹 Modo, an Australia-based mental health app, closed $800K. The startup plans on launching its product, a “Marie Kondo for your mind,” in early 2024.→ source 

🤝 Peter/PetraMD, a hormonal wellness platform, signed an LOI to acquire Ketamine Wellness Centers, which abruptly shuttered clinics nationwide in March.→ source 

👟 Brooks Running, an athletic shoe brand, launched the Future Run Initiative to champion youth running habits and empower youth mental health outcomes. → source

😊 Madhappy, a fashion brand promoting mental health conversations, collabed with lululemon on a limited-edition run collection. → source

WHAT I’M READING

• Last week, we covered the importance of community and relationships. Here’s some practical reading on how to build some containers of your own: You’d Be Happier Living Closer To Your Friends, How To Live Near Your Friends, and more resources.

Thanks for reading along this week! Hope you’re having a great start to your month. Myself? I went for a nice long drive last Wednesday and caught the full moonrise. It was beautiful — hope you were able to see it too.

In other news, I’m still making memes:

Til next Sunday,

-Mel

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