For many, music is an essential part of everyday life, one step outside and you would probably see people walking around on the street with headphones in/on their ears. One of which may even be me. Music can heavily influence our everyday lives, affecting our moods, productivity, and a lot more, but the question thought by many is how does music really affect our bodies and brains?

One very common debate is whether or not music is helpful when studying. In short, the answer is that it is both helpful and unhelpful! Music can either distract you or help you when working, it depends on the type of music you’re listening to and differs with each person. Many people have conflicting views and opinions on this debate some people can’t listen to music without being distracted, whereas some people find that they can focus better when listening. 

In 2013, a study on the effect of music on the human stress response was conducted (by Thoma et al), consisting of 60 healthy female volunteers, with a mean age of 25, being exposed to a standardized psychosocial stress test after randomly being assigned one out of three different conditions prior to this test. The three conditions were: relaxing music, the sound of rippling water, and rest without acoustic stimulation. The results suggested that listening to relaxing music affected the autonomic nervous system (in terms of a faster recovery), and made a physical and psychological difference to how people reacted under stress.

Studying is can be incredibly stressful, especially when you have a test or a deadline, all this weight on your shoulders isn’t good for you, so make sure you take a break every once in a while, listen to some relaxing music, do a bit of stretching, or just sit there and do nothing for five minutes if it helps, it’s important to understand what your body needs and to not overwork yourself. 

Our brains are very interesting and complex organs, so how does music actually affect them? Another study (by Wu, Katherine et al), investigated the effect of different music genres and individualized music selection on brain functional connectivity, it found that brain regions involving sound processing, memory retrieval, semantic processing, and motor areas were continuously activated for all five genres of music and functional brain connectivity varied by soundtrack, the largest degree of connectivity being found consistently for self-selected music and unfamiliar music. They also found that incorporating individualized music listening into existing therapy paradigms may positively contribute to standard protocol for stroke rehabilitation and prevention. 

Finally, I asked some people, how music affects them, and why they like it, here’s what they said:

“Music can be so relaxing and helpful for me personally. When I’m feeling stressed in any way, I can really benefit from it”

“I love music, it's so connecting to stuff. It gives me words to feelings and feelings to words. There’s so much that goes into it”

“I like music, it makes me feel nice”

“Whoever said music can’t help you study, lied”

“It can block out everything else in my life and make me forget stuff”

“It helps distract me from all the bad things that go on in my life, it’s a great escape and calms me, it’s like my personal background music, makes me feel better”

To conclude, music is important to many, it helps them focus, soothes nerves, and provides an escape from the hardships of life. How does music help you?

References:

Thoma, M. V., La Marca, R., Brönnimann, R., Finkel, L., Ehlert, U., & Nater, U. M. (2013). The effect of music on the human stress response. PloS one, 8(8), e70156. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0070156

Wu, K., Anderson, J., Townsend, J., Frazier, T., Brandt, A., & Karmonik, C. (2019). Characterization of functional brain connectivity towards optimization of music selection for therapy: a fMRI study. International Journal of Neuroscience, 1-9.    https://doi.org/10.1080/00207454.2019.1581189