Why You Need to Make Room for Music
While the preferred media varies among age groups, with older people listening to the radio and younger people preferring YouTube and Spotify, music remains a favorite pastime for people of all ages. On average, Americans listen to a little more than 150 minutes of music each day. If you’re not already doing so, you may want to increase your listening time. You see, not only is it fun, listening to music has many benefits.
Music can be a powerful force. In addition to reducing the frequency and duration of mental health symptoms, regular music listening can increase happiness, improve memory, promote relaxation and stress reduction, boost academic performance and make the listener healthier. Few things offer these benefits in one pleasurable activity.
The Happiness Factor
Need more dopamine? Listen to music to flood the brain with this feel-good chemical. Studies have shown that music induces pleasure, emotional arousal and for some, even chills. While listening to music you enjoy, heart rate and breathing increase, the body begins to anticipate the changes in the music and listeners may become enthralled—focused. All of these can increase general feelings of happiness and wellbeing, which is why music is such a great mood booster.
Learning and Memory
Regularly listening to music can also positively affect how well we learn and remember things. When combined with music or a tune, information is easier to remember. Think about the alphabet song, for example. But that’s not the only way music affects learning and memory. We don't have to sing-song everything to remember it. When listening to certain types of music, participants in a study exhibited an increased capacity for learning and recall. Interestingly, the types of music that elicited this response varied according to the participant’s musical taste, says Psychology Today.
Physical Health
In addition to improving mental health, listening to music may improve physical health. How? Music reduces stress and alleviates the symptoms associated with it such as headache, stomachache, high blood pressure, muscle tension/pain, fatigue and sleep problems. When stressed, we're also more likely to get sick due to a depressed immune system. Regular music sessions may help in all of these cases.
Academic Performance
Music makes us smarter, it seems. A study involving children showed that 90% of children who were exposed to music experienced an increase in verbal intelligence. Other tests have shown that childhood music lessons boost academic performance, IQ scores and overall intelligence—for life. So get those babies listening to music right from the start.
Music can make us smarter, more eloquent (as we learn new vocabulary words and compositional rhythm), happier and healthier. And the best part? It’s easy, readily available, and usually free to listen to music. What’s more, it's possible to listen to music while doing many other activities, including cleaning, exercising, working and playing. So incorporating the health benefits of music is easy. With so many opportunities for listening to music, there really isn’t any reason not to make more room for this fun health-booster.
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