Losing a job is hurting: you don't skip down to the job centre with a song in your heart, delighted at the prospect of doubling your income from the generous state.
For many months afterward, and at many times since, I was swallowed up in the deep fog of grief—what I think of as the void—an emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even to breathe.
One possible explanation is that listening to music you like stimulates the Alfa-wave in the brain, increases the heart rate and expands the breathing.