Music education, as a special form of art education, has a unique function of aesthetic education and psychological guidance. However, its specific impact on reducing students’ psychological anxiety has not received sufficient attention and research.

A randomized controlled experimental design was adopted in this study. 200 college students were selected as research objects and randomly divided into an intervention group and a control group, 100 in each group. The intervention group received a semester of music education, including learning music theory knowledge, participating in choir, receiving music therapy and other activities, while the control group maintained regular learning. Both groups of students were asked to complete the anxiety self-rating scale before and after the experiment to evaluate the change of their psychological anxiety level. The statistical software is SPSS23.0.

After the experiment, the self-rating anxiety scale score of the intervention group was significantly lower than that before the experiment, and significantly lower than that of the control group. Further data analysis shows that music education has a significant effect on reducing students’ psychological anxiety.

From the perspective of aesthetic education psychology, music education can effectively reduce the psychological anxiety of college students. This may be related to the fact that music education can provide a good emotional outlet, enhance students’ self-cognition and self-efficacy, and thus improve their psychological state.