Music: Moods and Focus

I love music and barely ever go a day without listening to it. I’ve heard that each genre of music changes your mood. I am curious to find out how exactly the brain responds to each type of music and what causes you to feel a certain way after listening to a song. I also am curious to figure out how much listening to music affects concentration. Since I listen to music while I do homework, will a certain genre help me work more effectively or is it just a big distraction all together? So I propose the question, how does listening to music affect one’s mood and concentration?

People tend to listen to EDM or fast paced music when they workout because it gives them more energy and motivates them to keep going. While depressed people tend to listen to slow alternative songs. Angry people might steer towards heavy metal or screamo, while content people listen to the latest pop songs on the top 100 itunes chart. According to best binaural beats these moods are associated with these genres because “when we listen to a rhythm our heart actually begins to synch with it. A slow heartbeat with a strong diastolic pressure tells our brain that something sad or depressing is occurring. Very fast beating is obviously related to excitement, whereas a dreamy rhythm with occasional upbeats can signify love or joy.” Further the BBB says how the heart rhythm affects the brain and causes changes in its psyche, which influences the person’s mood.

One could assume that sad people would want to listen to positive music to try and make themselves feel better. However, according to science alert , “A team of psychologists from the Free University of Berlin in Germany decided to investigate the science behind the lure of the melancholy tune by analyzing how they make us feel…the data revealed that nostalgia was the most prevalent emotion, brought out in over 76 percent of the participants, while peacefulness came in second place at 57.5 percent.” The article continues to talk about how our brain releases a chemical called prolactin to reduce the amount of grief felt. According to David Taylor, “it’s also released during basic human activities – like when we eat, when women ovulate or breastfeed and when we have sex.”

Now that I understand how the brain emotionally responds to listening to music, I researched how listening to music affects a person’s concentration to see whether or not it is beneficial for my work or detrimental. I’m sure many of you have heard of the Mozart Effect from first time moms playing classical music for their babies in hopes that it will make their children smaller. According to emed expert, “Mozart’s music and baroque music, with a 60 beats per minute beat pattern, activates the left and right brain. The simultaneous left and right brain action maximizes learning and retention of information. The information being studied activates the left brain while the music activates the right brain.” That’s great if you only listen to Mozart, but I prefer more recent songs. According to tech times, a study was conducted by researchers from wake forest and UNC Greensboro where “ young adults and placed them in an MRI scanner as they played songs that varied in genre.” The researchers asked them for their favorite songs and recorded how those songs affected their brain activity. They found that “ When the research subjects listened to a preferred or a favorite song of theirs, they were better connected to a part of the brain called the default mode network, which is tied to how humans are able to switch between thinking about what’s going on around them and their self-referential thoughts.” This proves that listening to music can infact help you concentrate better and focus on the task at hand.

However, researchers from the University of Wales Institute refute this and the Mozart Effect by stating that “Those studies are more to do with therapeutic interventions rather than performing tasks while background music is being played.” They conducted their own tests by having people recall a list of things in order while playing no music, music they liked and music they disliked and while playing a voice recording of someone saying the number three on repeat. They found that people performed best under no music or the repetitive voice recording.

It is hard to come to a consensus about whether or not listening to music while doing work is effective since different tests show different results. Personally I think that when I listen to music it turns into white noise, which is like the repetitive voice recording used in the test conducted by the researches at University of Wales. I would conclude that personally it is effective, however it depends on how each person’s brain responds to music and the type of music you are listening to.

2 thoughts on “Music: Moods and Focus

  1. Courtney Michelle Walker

    This blog was so interesting to me because I constantly listen to music that matches my mood. Your description was totally accurate. When I’m sad I listen to sad music and when I am happy I listen to today’s hits. It makes me feel better and makes me feel like someone understands how I am feeling. It calms me and puts me in a better mood. I always listen to music when I study because it helps me focus. It is usually slow pace music to soothe my mind as I try to get work done. Great job on the post!

  2. Dominica A Killeen

    I definitely agree. I usually get more work done faster whenever I listen to music because it does help me concentrate and keeps me focused by blocking out any distractions. I really enjoyed reading this post because like you, I had the same curiosities about music. I love heavy metal and I really enjoy listening to it when I’m angry and my friends always judged me for it and they thought that I should listen to calming music. Now it makes sense why I enjoy such loud and heavy music when I’m angry because of the heart beat. I definitely became more informative after reading this post and I enjoyed it a lot.

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