Music has a powerful effect on the mind and body. Have you ever noticed how you feel when you hear your favorite music or see your favorite band live in concert?
Faster music can help you focus and feel more awake. Upbeat music can lift your spirits. A slower pace will help quiet your mind and relax your muscles so you can recover from the day. Music can help you relax and relieve stress.
Studies have shown that personal anecdotes are right when it comes to how music can impact our lives. The brain synchronizes to the beat of the music at around 60 bpm and generates alpha brainwaves (8-14 hertz or cycles per second frequencies).
These alpha brainwaves occur when we are relaxed and alert. To fall asleep (5-hertz delta brain waves), you should relax and listen to soothing music for at least 45 minutes.
According to researchers at Stanford University, “it appears to be able to affect brain functions like drugs.” They found that music is easily accessible and can be used to relieve stress. Putting this in context and looking at how music can improve your life reveals some great health benefits.
– Improved brain function
– Helps you sleep better
– Improves your mood
– Helps you relax
– Can help you move more
Let’s find out these benefits in detail below:
- Improved brain function:
You need to keep your brain active to prevent memory loss and reduced brain capacity that comes with aging. Memory loss is a natural process, but music can help you retain your memory longer. For example, learning a new musical instrument or playing new songs on a kalimba can create new pathways in your brain and stimulate new cells. This is overall better for you than many brain training games. So, get out your instrument and teach yourself something new.
- Helps you sleep better:
A study of college students found that listening to soothing classical music before bed improves sleep quality. It has also been found that this activity is associated with a reduction in symptoms of depression.
- Improves your mood:
According to research, listening to upbeat music can improve mood, especially if you’re trying to improve your mood while listening to the music. There is also evidence that formal music therapy coupled with other medications may help treat depression.
- Helps you relax:
If you’re feeling jittery or agitated, listening to soothing music can help calm your nerves. More than one study has found that listening to calming music reduces blood pressure and requires less pain medication in people undergoing surgery than when they don’t listen to calming music.
Just listening to music can lower blood pressure, lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and lower heart rate. Music can also help you relax.
- Can help you move more:
Put on your favorite tunes and see how infectious the beat can be. If you’re having a hard time motivating yourself to exercise and be more active, listening to your favorite music can get you in the mood and give you the impetus and motivation to move more.
