Music Helps Your Brain With… A Lot
Almost every brain region responds to music.
I came to realize recently that tasks I normally associate with music, suddenly become a lot harder to do without music. Working or exercising (especially exercising) become significantly more boring, challenging, or otherwise less productive without music.
So I did some googling and came across Kiminobu Sugaya, a neuroscientist at UCF, and this article summarizing how your brain is affected by the music that you enjoy. If you really want to go down a rabbit hole, here is Sugaya’s list of recent publications.
Here are a few helpful skills that music can not only help you improve, but also utilize in different ways to be even more productive and efficient:
- Communication
- Decision Making
- Planning
- Emotional Awareness
It also has helped stimulate neurogenesis in Parkinson’s patients, improving their sense of rhythm to help them move better and safer.
Do you listen to music while you work? Since many of you are working remote now, you either can listen to it alone, or should listen to it because you have others in the house working as well making noise.
If you want to be able to increase dopamine (feel good neurohormone), decrease stress, and increase productivity, you should be listening to music while you are doing challenging things. Use intervals of on/off if you don’t want to become dependent on it, but give yourself some time with it to get some more productive spurts in the day.
And remember, the best type of music to listen to is the music that you already enjoy. Don’t listen to other types if you don’t enjoy it, regardless of what other people think about certain types of music being better or worse.
Take care, have fun, stay safe!
