Music-based emotional regulation and nutrition strategies for mental health support among medical student-athletes.

BACKGROUND

Medical student-athletes face combined academic, clinical, and competitive training demands that may disrupt sleep, dietary routines, emotional regulation, recovery, and cognitive functioning.

OBJECTIVE

To examine associations between naturally occurring music-based emotional regulation, self-selected nutrition routines, psychophysiological recovery, and mental health-related markers using a non-interventional multimodal digital phenotyping framework.

METHODS

Over 8 weeks, 120 medical student-athletes were monitored without prescribed music, diet, therapy, or behavioral intervention. Data included wearable-derived nocturnal heart-rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep-wake rhythm, activity and training load, participant-recorded music use, meal timing, hydration routines, food-photo logs, and brief emotional reflections. Three indices were constructed: The Music Regulation Pattern Index, Nutrition Rhythm Stability Index, and Psychophysiological Recovery Balance Index.

RESULTS

Monitoring feasibility was high and index reliability was acceptable. Music-regulation patterns were more strongly associated with emotional balance and focus-related language, whereas nutrition-rhythm stability was more closely associated with sleep regularity, heart-rate variability stability, and recovery balance.

CONCLUSION

Naturally occurring music-use and nutrition-rhythm behaviors showed distinct associations with emotional and physiological recovery markers. Multimodal digital phenotyping may help identify potentially protective lifestyle patterns in medical student-athletes while preserving an observational, non-causal interpretation and avoiding unsupported treatment claims.