How music can improve your life
It’s hard being a young adult. It’s the time when you’re learning to do everything the “adult way”, managing to mess up everything along the way (unintentionally, of course). There are times when you need motivation and re-assurances, but what you’re looking forward to the most is an escape. You’re willing to take up anything which will help you get your mind off the college/university assignments and the typical teenage drama in your social circles. Music is used by many as a way to work their way around life. You’ve all experienced the feeling of relaxedness when you put on Chopin after a hard day’s work, or the feeling of not wanting to give up when ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ plays through your headphones as you jog past the slow-pokes on the jogging track. All of us, to some extent, believe in the power of music; and now we have scientific research to tell us exactly how much music can influence our lives. The best part about this is that one can use all this research to bring positive changes to one’s life! Here are several research backed facts about music you can use to do better.
I know, it’s pretty obvious because we’ve all “chilled” to our favourite tunes more often than not. At least I have. According to Richard Wiseman, author of ‘59 Seconds: Change Your Life’, blood pressure readings revealed that listening to pop or jazz music had the same restorative effect as total silence. In contrast, those who listened to Pachelbel and Vivaldi relaxed much more quickly, and so their blood pressure dropped back to the normal level in far less time.
your performance!
Anger is an emotion which is generally linked to all-things-bad, but, as it turns out, research has proved that angry music improves your performance. According to the book ‘The Science of Sin: The Psychology of the Seven Deadlies (and Why They are So Good for You)’, test subjects were told to listen to angry music while playing a video game called ‘Soldier of Fortune’ and it was visibly noticed how their performances improved.
According to a research conducted by some scientists for their journal on the effects of music on the human psychology, it was found that music preferred by the test subjects increased tolerance, perceived control over the painful stimulus, and helped to decrease anxiety in comparison to both visual distraction and silence conditions.
There is a ton of evidence that music lessons improve IQ. But there’s even research that says listening to classical music boosts brainpower as well!
Yes, I realize that’s kinda hard to believe, but it is true! In a one-year programme focused on group music making, kids aged 8-11 were noticed to have become more compassionate, according to a recently published study from the University Of Cambridge.
Also, Venezuela made music lessons mandatory at school level which resulted in crime rates going down and fewer kids dropped out of school. Imagine something as insignificant as music bringing this big a change in a country!
All in all, music makes you feel good, and that’s what we all want from life, right?
