The Power of Music on Your Brain
Music makes the world go round. Regardless of its type, music can create landscapes in our minds and transport us to other times and places without the need to move or travel.
But did you know that, aside from giving us enjoyment and aural pleasure, the music you’re listening to can have an enormous impact on your health and emotional well-being, and even help you succeed and augment your cognitive ability?
To learn more about the amazing effects of music on the brain, read on!
Since the dawn of times, music has been used as a tool to elicit emotional states - meditation and reflective mood in churches and temples, celebratory spirit in parties and concerts, a sense of solemnity at formal events, and mourning in funerals and farewells.
Music’s power to alter emotional states seems to even transcend the human species, installing the notion that certain music can even soothe beasts.
The truth is, in the human species, music engages all our senses, both physical and emotional, like no other stimulus can.
Through thousands of years of evolution, the human brain has been wired to find in sounds not merely a source of communication but also of pleasure, connecting it inextricably to our emotional states and even the development of our cognitive abilities.
The indivisible link between music and the brain, and the need for more specialized research on this subject originated a new branch of neurological research, neuromusicology, in order to explore how the nervous system reacts to music.
The development of advanced new technologies and the arise of new fields of scientific study have rendered quantitative measures to our historical concepts about the power of music over the human mind - and the results are remarkable.
Teams of neuroscientists all over the world have carried out specific research, focussed on the study of the effects of music in the brain, confirming with hard evidence our suspicions about its effects, and expanding even further the scope of its influence over our general health.
Through the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers have found that the simple action of listening to music is enough to increase the blood flow to the brain, as well as the connectivity between the different regions of the brain.
The increment of these, as well as the number of brain areas activated, depend on the type of music listened. The more you like the music played, the higher the boost.
Listening to music we find pleasurable triggers the release of dopamine (the feel-good neurotransmitter) and helps to lower the levels of cortisol (the stress hormone), both of which cause beneficial side effects such as relaxation of the muscles, increase of antibody production and lowering of blood pressure.
But dopamine is also the neurotransmitter that makes us want to get up in the morning and tackle all obstacles.
It’s no secret that athletes have a track list of songs which pumps them through training and puts them in the winning mood. Just as they train their muscles for victory, they train their minds through music.
But music can also help us during times of grief or sadness due to its cathartic effect.
On the psychological level, listening to sad music when we feel downcast makes us feel comforted, in the subconscious confidence that our grief is shared, echoed and understood. However, for troubled psyches with destructive tendencies - self-flagellation, manic-depressive, suicidal tendencies, etc - sad music may only act as an exciter to these negative feelings.
The same goes for aggressive music, which can make us feel understood and backed up when wére angry, even to the point of invincibility, but can also incite aggressiveness in minds with violent tendencies.
This is particularly helpful to people with attention deficit disorder, prone to panic attacks or who suffer from schizophrenia.
But if listening to music brings a panoply of health benefits, playing music is even better.
Researchers have found evidence that learning to play an instrument from an early age results in an increase to the gray matter in the brain.
Reading and playing music requires a concert of abilities playing at unison: the visual ability to read notes and music notations, the ability to translate them into specific movements, and the muscular coordination to follow a specific tempo, often in cooperation with other members.
The regular repetition of this effort causes an increment of neurons in order to support these activities. But that’s not where the benefit ends.
Brain scans of professional musicians have revealed that these not only contain more grain matter, but their brains are noticeably more symmetrical and they respond more at unison when listening to music, they present a larger corpus callosum (which transfers the information between the let and right hemispheres of the brain), which implies a greater brain connectivity than brains of non-professional musicians.
Also, the areas responsible for motor control, auditory processing, and spatial coordination are larger in professional musicians, which is explained by the skills demanded by playing an instrument.
Scientists who have studied the brain development in young children have found that early music instruction not only increases the child’s gray matter, but also has a positive impact in the child’s overall cognitive ability.
Children who’ve followed musical education for at least four years have reportedly presented, among other benefits, higher levels of concentration, memory, language ability, mathematical ability, and better socialization and cooperation skills.
These benefits were found in children who played instruments and also in those who sang and followed routine choir singing.
What’s more amazing is that these benefits remained in the brain even after the music training ceased. The conclusion of this research seems to be that having music lessons during early childhood encourages the brain plasticity - that is, the brain’s capacity to change and grow.
The catch, however, seems to be that you need to have at least four years of musical training as a child in order for your brain to develop the extra gray matter and thus reap the lifelong benefits.
Although years ago the benefits of early music training was popularized in the so-called “Mozart effect”, there is no scientific evidence that the music of Mozart in specific will help children to develop higher cognitive abilities.
But researches seem to agree that the specific nature of baroque music (J.S. Bach, Vivaldi, Scarlatti, etc.) does present special benefits for the brain in terms of heightened concentration and relaxation, and even in boosting creative abilities.
Also, music seems to be closely linked to language. Thus, it is no surprise that people who have a talent for music may also exhibit a talent for languages.
But if listening and playing music can have a beneficial effect to our cognitive abilities, playing music in a goup can be even better.
Researchers have found that playing music with others triggers the production of oxytocine - the so-called trust molecule- in the brain, making music players feel both more at ease and trustworthy towards each other.
This may explain why members of a band or orchestra develop such tight bonds after a while of playing together.
However, even if you’ve never had music training before, don’t despair - it’s never too late to reap the benefits of music.
New studies have found evidence that music can have beneficial effects in seniors - even in those with dementia or Alzheimer.
Due to its capacity for activating all areas of the brain, music may protect against memory problems and cognitive decline in adults more efficiently than other leisure activities.
Simply listening to music has been shown to improve significantly the levels of working memory in older adults.
While the brains of professional musicians exhibit an additional layer of protection from cognitive disease, even those already affected by dementia or Alzheimer’s may still reap significative benefits from music-related activities such as playing an instrument, singing, or merely listening to music they enjoy.
This is due to music’s capacity to access and activate regions of the brain which - in the case of Alzheimer’s patients - may not be reachable through any other activities.
The benefit is added to the feeling of comfort that patients may find in pleasing, personably meaningful music, which in turn may help them lower their anxiety.
The National Institutes of Health has published dozens of research papers which evidence that music can alleviate the symptoms of mood and mental disorders including anxiety, depression, insomnia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and schizophrenia.
Music therapy has also proven to be of great help in the treatment of strokes, autism, Parkinson’s, dementia, and Alzheimer’s.
Music can also help with the psychological aspects of illness and can improve the quality of life in patients with cancer, dementia, Parkinson’s and chronic pain.
But you don’t need to be ill in order to reap the benefits of music. Recent studies show that music can affect positively your productivity at work.
Aside from lowering the stress levels in workers, background music can also enhance a worker’s performance on cognitive tasks, improve their accuracy, and may enable the completion of a repetitive tasks more efficiently.
In fact, music has such a pervasive effect in our brains that sometimes it’s used with manipulative effects, specially in commerce and in social environments.
Playing certain type of music may make people more inclined to cooperate, donate, help, or even buy. For instance, think of the last Christmas season - remember how inclined you felt to do good deeds for others as you strolled the mall playing Christmas tunes?
Many shopping malls, stores and even restaurants apply this concept, playing a careful selection of tunes in order to encourage shoppers to spend more, leave a generous tips, spend longer time at the venue, etc.
Music is an enjoyable, virtually free and powerful tool that works at the subconscious level, and you can use it to your advantage.
Whether it’s jazz, blues, pop, classical or folk, listening to any type of music that we find enjoyable will have a beneficial effect on our brain and well-being. However, the more complex it may be, the more cognitive benefit it will report.
Feed your brain daily with good quality music, and you will soon notice the positive results in your cognitive ability, your memory, your attitude, your health and overall happiness.
To Learn More
Intrigued about the effects of music on your brain? You may want to read a classic book on the subject, “This is your brain on music” by Daniel J. Levitin
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/141565.This_Is_Your_Brain_on_Music
Sources:
Ashford University, BeBrainFit.com, The New York Times, Sage Journal, The Journal of Neuroscience, Medicalxpress.com, PBS, The Independent.
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