How Listening to Music Can Have Psychological Benefits

Listening to music can be entertaining and some research suggests that it might even make you
healthier. Music can be a source of pleasure and contentment, but there are many other psychological
benefits as well.

The notion that music can influence your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors probably do not come as
much of a surprise. If you've ever felt pumped up while listening to your favorite fast-paced rock anthem
or been moved to tears by a tender live performance, then you easily understand the power of music to
impact moods and even inspire action.

The psychological effects of music can be powerful and wide-ranging. Music therapy is an intervention
sometimes utilized to promote emotional health, help patients cope with stress, and boost psychological
well-being. Some research even suggests that your taste in music can provide insight into different
aspects of your personality.

Music can relax the mind, energize the body, and even help people better manage pain. So what other
potential benefits might music provide?

Why Music Therapy Can Be So Effective

Music Can Improve Your Cognitive Performance

Young woman listening to music while commuting

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Research suggests that background music, or music that is played while the listener is primarily focused
on another activity, can improve performance on cognitive tasks in older adults.

One study found that playing more upbeat music led to improvements in processing speed while both
upbeat and downbeat music led to benefits in memory.
So the next time you are working on a task, consider turning on a little music in the background if you
are looking for a boost in your mental performance. Consider choosing instrumental tracks rather than
those with complex lyrics, which might end up being more distracting.

Music Can Reduce Stress

Young woman relaxing with headphones at home

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It has long been suggested that music can help reduce or manage stress. Consider the trend centered on
meditative music created to soothe the mind and inducing relaxation. Fortunately, this is one trend
supported by research. Listening to music can be an effective way to cope with stress.

In one 2013 study, participants took part in one of three conditions before being exposed to a stressor
and then taking a psychosocial stress test. Some participants listened to relaxing music, others listened
to the sound of rippling water, and the rest received no auditory stimulation.

The results suggested that listening to music had an impact on the human stress response, particularly
the autonomic nervous system. Those who had listened to music tended to recover more quickly
following a stressor.

7 Ways to Use Music for Stress Relief

Music Might Help You Eat Less

Mid adult woman having lunch break

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One of the most surprising psychological benefits of music is that it might be a helpful weight-loss tool. If
you are trying to lose weight, listening to mellow music and dimming the lights might help you achieve
your goals.

According to one study, people who ate at low-lit restaurants where soft music was played consumed 18
percent less food than those who ate in other restaurants.
The researchers suggest that music and lighting help create a more relaxed setting. Since the
participants were more relaxed and comfortable, they may have consumed their food more slowly and
have been more aware of when they began to feel full.

You might try putting this into practice by playing soft music at home while you eat dinner. By creating a
relaxing setting, you may be more likely to eat slowly and, therefore, feel fuller sooner.

Music Can Improve Your Memory

Teen using laptop at home

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Lots of students enjoy listening to music while they study, but is that such a great idea? Some feel like
listening to their favorite music as they study improves memory, while others contend that it simply
serves as a pleasant distraction.

The research suggests that it may help, but it depends upon a variety of factors that might include the
type of music, the listener's enjoyment of that music, and even how musically well-trained the listener
may be.

One study found that musically trained students tended to perform better on learning tests when they
listened to neutral music, possibly because this type of music was less distracting and easier to ignore.

Musically naive students, on the other hand, learned better when listening to positive music, possibly
because these songs elicited more positive emotions without interfering with memory formation.

Another study found that participants learning a new language showed improvement in their knowledge
and abilities when they practiced singing new words and phrases versus just regular speaking or
rhythmic speaking.
So while music may have an effect on memory, results may vary depending on the individual. If you tend
to find yourself distracted by music, you may be better off learning in silence or with neutral tracks
playing in the background.

11 Ways to Improve Your Memory

Music Can Help Manage Pain

Older woman listening to headphones

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Research has shown that music can be very helpful in the management of pain. One study of
fibromyalgia patients found that those who listened to music for just one hour a day experienced a
significant reduction in pain compared to those in a control group.

In the study, patients with fibromyalgia were assigned to either an experimental group that listened to
music once a day for four weeks or a control group that received no treatment. At the end of the four-
week period, those who had listened to music each day experienced significant reductions in feelings of
pain and depression. Such results suggest that music therapy could be an important tool in the
treatment of chronic pain.

A 2015 review of research on the effects of music on pain management found that patients who listened
to music before, during, or even after surgery experienced less pain and anxiety than those who did not
listen to music.

While listening to music at any point in time was effective, the researchers noted that listening to music
pre-surgery resulted in better outcomes.

The review looked at data from more than 7,000 patients and found that music listeners also required
less medication to manage their pain. There was also a slightly greater, though not statistically
significant, improvement in pain management results when patients were allowed to select their own
music.

"More than 51 million operations are performed every year in the USA and around 4.6 million in
England," explained the study's lead author, Dr. Catherine Meads of Brunel University in a press release.
"Music is a non-invasive, safe, cheap intervention that should be available to everyone undergoing
surgery."
6

Music Might Help You Sleep Better

Guy with headphones on relaxes listening to music

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Insomnia is a serious problem that affects people of all age groups. While there are many approaches to
treating this problem as well as other common sleep disorders, research has demonstrated that listening
to relaxing classical music can be a safe, effective, and affordable remedy.

In a study looking at college students, participants listened to classical music, an audiobook, or nothing
at all. One group listened to 45 minutes of relaxing classical music while another group listened to an
audiobook at bedtime for three weeks. Researchers assessed sleep quality both before and after the
intervention.

The study found that participants who had listened to music had significantly better sleep quality than
those who had listened to the audiobook or received no intervention.

Since music is an effective treatment for sleeping problems, it could be used as an easy and safe strategy
for treating insomnia.

Music Can Improve Motivation

Woman resting after exercising on city street

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There is a good reason why you find it easier to exercise while you listen to music — researchers have
found that listening to fast-paced music motivates people to work out harder.

One experiment designed to investigate this effect tasked 12 healthy male students with cycling on a
stationary bike at self-paced speeds. On three different trials, the participants biked for 25 minutes at a
time while listening to a playlist of six different popular songs of various tempos.
Unknown to the listeners, the researchers made subtle differences to the music and then measured
performance. The music was left at a normal speed, increased by 10 percent, or decreased by 10
percent.

So what impact did changing the music's tempo have on factors such as distance cycled, heart rate, and
enjoyment of the music? The researchers discovered that speeding up the tracks resulted in increased
performance in terms of distance covered, the speed of pedaling, and power exerted. Conversely,
slowing down the music's tempo led to decreases in all of these variables.

Interestingly, research shows that listening to fast-paced music not only causes exercisers to work
harder during their workouts; they also enjoy the music more.

So if you are trying to stick to a workout routine, consider loading up a playlist filled with fast-paced
tunes that will help boost your motivation and enjoyment of your exercise regimen.

How Motivation Myths Might Be Keeping You From Reaching Your Potential

Music Can Improve Your Mood

Woman with smartphone and headphones.

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Another of the science-backed benefit of music is that it just might make you happier. In one
examination of the reasons why people listen to music, researchers discovered that music played an
important role in relating arousal and mood. Participants rated music's ability to help them achieve a
better mood and become more self-aware as two of the most important functions of music.

Another study found that intentionally trying to boost moods by listening to positive music could have
an impact within two weeks. Participants were instructed to purposefully attempt to improve their
mood by listening to positive music each day for two weeks. Other participants listened to music but
were not directed to become happier intentionally. When participants were later asked to describe their
own levels of happiness, those who had intentionally tried to improve their moods reported feeling
happier after just two weeks.

Music Might Reduce the Symptoms of Depression

Man dancing with headphones on

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Researchers have also found that music therapy can be a safe and effective treatment for a variety of
disorders, including depression.

A study appearing in the World Journal of Psychiatry found that in addition to reducing depression and
anxiety in patients suffering from neurological conditions such as dementia, stroke, and Parkinson's
disease, music therapy showed no negative side effects, meaning it is a very safe and low-risk approach
to treatment.

One study found that while music can certainly have an impact on mood, the type of music is also
important. Researchers found that classical and meditation music offered the greatest mood-boosting
benefits, while heavy metal and techno music were found to be ineffective and even detrimental.

10

Music Can Improve Endurance and Performance

runners preparing in urban invironment

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Another important psychological benefit of music lies in its ability to boost performance. While people
have a preferred step frequency when walking and running, scientists have discovered that the addition
of a strong, rhythmic beat, such as fast-paced musical track, could inspire people to pick up the pace.
Runners are not only able to run faster while listening to music; they also feel more motivated to stick
with it and display greater endurance.

According to researcher Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University, the ideal tempo for workout music is
somewhere between 125 and 140 beats per minute.

While research has found that synchronizing body movements to music can lead to better performance
and increased stamina, the effect tends to be the most pronounced in cases of low to moderate
intensity exercise. In other words, the average person is more likely to reap the rewards of listening to
music more than a professional athlete might.
"Music can alter emotional and physiological arousal much like a pharmacological stimulant or
sedative," explained Dr. Karageorghis to The Wall Street Journal. "It has the capacity to stimulate people
even before they go into the gym."

So why does music boost workout performance? Listening to music while working out lowers a person's
perception of exertion. You're working harder, but it doesn't seem like you're putting forth more effort.
Because your attention is diverted by the music, you are less likely to notice the obvious signs of
exertion such as increased respiration, sweating, and muscle soreness.

A Word From Verywell

Music has the power to inspire and entertain, but it also has powerful psychological effects that can
improve your health and well-being. Instead of thinking of music as pure entertainment, consider some
of the major mental benefits of incorporating music into your everyday life. You might find that you feel
more motivated, happy, and relaxed as a result

Playing an Instrument & Psychological Development

Many parents put their children into music lessons not just because they want their kids to be musically
talented, but because it provides enormous benefits for psychological development. Learn about the
psychological benefits of playing an instrument in this lesson.

What Is Psychological Development?

Josiah Alexander Sila (known as 'Joey Alexander'), born in 2003, is considered a child prodigy jazz pianist
from Bali, Indonesia. Inspired by his parents' love of jazz artists like Louis Armstrong, Joey Alexander
taught himself how to play an electric keyboard by the age of six. Evidently, it came naturally to him. He
won competitions, his family moved to New York City, and a star was born.

The beautiful music that Joey Alexander produces isn't the only advantage of children playing
instruments; there are psychological benefits as well. Playing instruments proves to enhance
psychological development, the progression of cognitive, social and emotional skills, throughout
childhood.

Psychological Benefits of Playing an Instrument

From raising happiness level and self-esteem to serving as a method of stress relief, learning to play a
musical instrument can provide numerous psychological developmental benefits.

Neurophysiological Distinction

It turns out that playing a musical instrument can also help kids with reading and processing language.
This is because kids who learn to play an instrument are able to process sounds that they could not hear
if they did not play an instrument, also called neurophysiological distinction. This is an example of how
playing music can actually make kids academically smarter and better communicators. Smart kids are
happier, have higher self-esteem and self-efficacy, and are generally more confident.

Patience

Hardly any child learns to play an instrument instantaneously. It requires hard work and perseverance.
Mastering a musical piece or song is a form of delayed gratification that is worth the hard work. In this
way, playing a musical instrument teaches children the vital virtue of patience.

Stress Relief

Playing a musical instrument can be a form of meditation, where a child is able to focus entirely on the
musical task at hand without any other thought in their mind. This can be an effective stress
management technique for children and adolescents who learn to play instruments.

Discipline and Responsibility

Learning to excel at a musical instrument requires that a child makes the time to practice. This requires
them to be responsible and possibly put off something else that they would maybe prefer doing over
practicing their instrument, like watching television. This correlates to the same responsibility that
children need to practice in order to do homework or study for a test.

Improves Self-Esteem and Confidence

Knowing how to play a musical instrument is an honorable and well-respected skill. Kids who have this
skill tend to have a heightened sense of self-esteem, self-efficacy and confidence.

Improves Level of Happiness

The role of psychology in music education

Susan Hallam on the nature and importance of musical ability

Music psychology has a long history dating back to the end of the 19th century. It is a distinctive strand
of psychology that has grown in strength over the years with researchers in the UK leading the field.
Much of the research has been of interest and relevance to music education and covers a wide variety of
musical engagement. This article focus on research relating to three aspects – musical ability, the
development of expertise in music and the wider benefits of musical activity.

Historically, as in education more generally, psychology played a major role in music education through
the development of psychometric tests to assess musical ability. Testing began in 1883 when Carl
Stumpf suggested a number of simple aural tests that music teachers might undertake to select pupils.
Subsequently, a range of assessments has been developed that can be administered to groups of
children of different ages and adults (for a review see Hallam, 2006a).

In the UK nowadays, such tests are rarely used. This is, in part, because it has been accepted that every
child should have the opportunity to learn an instrument and actively engage in music making. In
addition, research has demonstrated that a wide range of factors contribute towards the development
of musical skill and that test performance improves with increased engagement in music making (see
McPherson & Hallam, 2009).

The evidence from neuroscientific studies of musical processing has demonstrated that the brain
develops in very specific ways in response to particular learning activities, and that the extent of change
depends on the length of time engaged with learning. The substrates of processing reflect the auditory
‘learning biography’ of each individual (Altenmuller, 2003), which in turn reflects the available musical
opportunities and influences within the prevailing culture.

These findings support the growing consensus that learning in music is best understood in relation to
the ‘expertise’ paradigm (Ericsson et al., 1993). Early exposure to music, through processes occurring
without conscious awareness, enables the development of aural schemata for music. These provide the
basis for subsequent musical skill development when the individual begins to actively engage in making
music. Progress from this point depends on the amount of time spent in the activity and the quality of
that engagement (see Jorgensen & Hallam, 2009, for a review). In addition to undertaking individual
‘deliberate’ practice (Ericsson et al., 1993), the learner may also rehearse and perform with others
where technical and musical skills can also develop and be consolidated (Kokotsaki & Hallam, 2007).

To summarise, the quantity and quality of learning experiences, formal and informal, contribute to the
level of expertise attained and also the quality of that expertise. The evidence suggests that these
principles apply across a wide range of musical endeavours, including improvisation, composition and
performance. It is likely that they also apply cross-culturally, but to date most of the research has
focused on Western music (Hallam, in press-b; Hallam et al., 2009).
What is musical ability?

Developments in our understanding of the way that music expertise is acquired seem to be reflected in
perceptions of musical ability in the wider community. Hallam and Prince (2003) explored the
conceptions of musical ability held by a cross-section of the population, including adults and children,
musicians and non-musicians, asking them to complete the phrase ‘Musical ability is…’ Six categories
emerged from the analysis: aural skills, receptive responses to music; generative activities, the
integration of a range of skills, personal qualities and the extent to which musical ability was perceived
as being learned or inherited. A follow-up study, based on responses to rating scales derived from the
qualitative research, indicated that musical ability was most strongly conceptualised in relation to
rhythmic ability, organisation of sound, communication, motivation, personal characteristics, integration
of a range of complex skills and performing in a group. Having a musical ear came lower in the list than
might have been expected, given its prominent position with regard to musical ability historically.
Musical appreciation, knowledge and being able to read music or compose came further towards the
bottom of the list. The importance attached to rhythm and musical communication may reflect their
roles in much popular music, while the high ratings given to motivation and personal characteristics
suggest that the role of effort and determination to succeed are generally recognised (Hallam, in press-
a).

Taking it into schools

Acknowledgement of the effort required to reach high levels of musical expertise, and concerns about
low take-up of music options in schools and the relatively high drop-out of children from instrumental
lessons (even when there is evidence of their engagement with music outside school) has led to
research focused on motivation and the development of musical identity (for reviews see MacDonald et
al., 2002; O’Neill & McPherson 2002; Hallam, 2009b). Music educators have also explored ways of
utilising informal teaching methods in the classroom, drawing on pupils’ musical interests – usually
popular music – to generate and sustain pupils’ interest (see Green, 2008; Hallam & Creech, 2008).

The fact that young people have plenty of opportunities to engage in music outside school has put
pressure on educators to justify the role of music in the curriculum. The findings from psychological
research have provided evidence for the wider benefits of music education, although some research
exploring the effects of music on general intellectual skills has been controversial. The claims that
listening to Mozart could improve spatial reasoning (Rauscher et al., 1995) have proved difficult to
replicate (Chabris, 1999; Hetland, 2000a), but findings relating to the benefits of active music-making
have been more promising. A meta-analysis of experimental studies examining the effects of music
lessons on spatio-temporal and other abilities, including 15 studies involving over 700 children aged
three to 12 years undergoing music lessons in programs ranging from four weeks to two years, reported
a mean effect size of r = .29 for published studies and r = .44 for unpublished studies. Active music
lessons appear to enhance spatio-temporal performance in children concurrent with instruction and for
at least two years after. The benefits occur with any style of instruction, although individual lessons
produce a somewhat larger effect than group lessons and the effects are more likely with younger
children (three to five years), and when standard musical notation is taught (Hetland, 2000b). In a more
recent study, Schellenberg (2004) randomly assigned a large sample of children to four different groups,
two of which received music lessons for a year. The other two were control groups that received
instruction in a non-musical artistic activity (drama) or no lessons. All four groups exhibited increases in
IQ over the time period, as would be expected, but the music groups had reliably larger increases in full-
scale IQ with an effect size of .35. Children in the control groups had average increases of 4.3 points
while the music groups had increases of 7 points. Schellenberg suggests that these effects may occur
because music instruction requires individual practice, attention and concentration, which may lead to
greater transfer of learning strategies and motivation.

Those working in music psychology have also attempted to disseminate their findings in books that can
be easily accessed by educators (see resources, opposite) as most teachers do not read academic
journals of any kind. While psychological research has had a major positive influence on and for music
education, there is still some way to go in finding ways to engage with people teaching music in a wide
range of environments, both to communicate research findings and also to set up a dialogue with them
to establish how future psychological research could support their work.