Have you ever used music at work to jack up productivity or change your mood? Interestingly some rhythms induce enzymes in the brain and add amazing well being. Other tunes leave you punchy … and unable to focus. Has it happened to you?
Music holds an immensely powerful influence over the brain and yet few workplaces benefit from addictive musical sounds. Listen to inspirational music and calm your thinking to see how it works. Or ratchet up brainpower with Makeba’s, Pata Pata. Then read on to discover what research could offer your day.
Across genres, you’ll find that music puts you in touch with your inner beliefs and desires and the cadence can create an amazing mental landscape for you to read, relax or reflect on your day.
Or it can make you moody, edgy and anxious. How so? Music shifts your brain waves that control how neurons talk to one another.
Start with your favorite tunes from Psychologist Don Campbell’s list here and tell us how music alters your mental states. In his book The Mozart Effect, Campbell shows the following results for listeners:
Gregorian chant creates quiet in our minds and can reduce stress.
Slower Baroque music, such as Bach, Handel, Vivaldi or Corelli, can create mentally stimulating environments for creativity and new innovations.
Classical music, such as Haydn and Mozart, often improves concentration and memory when played in the background.
Romantic music, such as Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky , Chopin and Liszt, enhances our senses and increases a sense of sympathy and love.
Impressionist music, such as Debussy, Faure and Ravel, can unlock dreamlike images that put us in touch with our unconscious thoughts and belief systems.
Jazz, blues, soul or calypso music can uplift and inspire us, releasing deep joy or even deep sadness, conveying wit and affirming our common humanity.
Salsa, rhumba, merengue and any form of South American music sets our hearts racing, gets us moving, both relaxing us and awakening us at the same time.
Big band, Top 40 and country music engage our emotions and comfort us.
Rock music, from Elvis Presley to the Rolling Stones, stirs passion and activity, and so can release daily tensions. Rock can also mask pain and cover up unpleasant noises. It also has the power to create dissonance, stress or physical pain if we are not in the mood for energizing.
Ambient or New Age music such as Stephen Halpern and Brian Eno has no dominant rhythm, so it elongates the sense of space and time, inducing a state of relaxed alertness.
Heavy metal and hip-hop music excites our nervous system, and sometimes leads us into acting out dynamic behavior and self-expression.
Religious and sacred music such as hymns and gospel moves us to feel grounded in the moment, and leads to deep peace and spiritual awareness. Sacred music often helps us to transcend pain.
Consider what tomorrow could bring at work if you swing a bar or two of mental and musical acumen into a project today. It’s also fun to match the music with the moment!
I’m listening to Benjamin Britton at the moment …. You?
on Nov 14th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Hi Doctor,
What a beautiful site. Love the ideas and can’t wait to read more. I have listened to Carlos Nikai at my office daily for almost four years now. It was playing in the delivery room when my daughter made her entrance, and I can tell by my physiology which tune was playing when my wife was ready for the delivery to begin. And also, I listen to Celtic music to experience that bittersweet feeling that the Irish seem so skilled at evoking. Mike Logan
mike logans last blog post..Nov 14, Gerontology
on Nov 14th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Mike your kind words, beam through with many serotonin splashes all around! Thanks. I am thrilled to see your site and to see how many similar (yet different) kinds of things we do! Many thanks for coming by and nudging this conversation in some cool directions! I’ve added your site to the Blogroll
on Nov 15th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I am moody. Sometimes I like either of the two Indian classical stream music and on other times, the other. I also go off to old Indian film songs which was very much part of my growing up process. Sometimes, I listen to Western love songs too!
No matter what type, I simply must have music in the background, in my life. As much and as often as possible.
rummusers last blog post..Movie Scenes That Have Stayed With Me.
on Nov 15th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Ellen,
very interesting. You know I don’t listen to anything, except perhaps a dramatized version of the Bible on the way to work. Most of the time I sit in silence at home, at my desk or in the car. (I have not a television either.)
BUT I read everything! Anyway, how are brain waves effected by silence? It’s not really silence I hear my thoughts as chatter throughout the day.
Good stuff. My take away, from someone who wants to build a better brain, is to find some MUSIC and mix it up a bit and see how that effects work, writing, and studies.
ttyl! Fred
Fred Camposs last blog post..11/01/08: Friendship Begins; Good Speaking Sells
on Nov 26th, 2008 at 9:31 am
[...] from Dr. Ellen Weber’s “Brain Leaders and Learners” site, here’s a list of various sorts of music and what sorts of mental activity they seem to help: Gregorian chant [...]
on Nov 26th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Very timely and useful post for me, as you know.
Thanks so much for making it available here on your great site!
JESs last blog post..Thought Music
on Nov 27th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Thanks for stopping by and especially for your kind words. It’s also a reminder to me to play some of the great music out there as I prepare dinner for guests!! Have unexpected melodies move your own day forward!
on Jan 12th, 2009 at 10:18 am
[...] the group. Build a mock-up that illustrate the changes you expect to achieve. Enlist background music that enhances growth at work. Change follows if we draw on multiple intelligences and have participants lead from their [...]
on Jan 18th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Reminds me of good book that came out a few years ago: “This is Your Brain on Music” by Daniel Levitin. Very stimulating.
Also reminds me of a time 20 years ago when I listened obsessively to the ECM edition of Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” while programming. Literally every day, several hours a day, for several months, with earphones and the sound turned up loud, I programmed tens of thousands of lines of C code that ended up exceeding all expectations. However, at this point in my life, I think it would make me nauseous to hear this old album again. I should try it and see.
on Jan 18th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Thanks for stopping by Don! Yes, I too enjoyed that book:-) What a cool experiment to go back and listen to music that once inspired action — to see its current effects now that tastes change. Would love to hear the results:-) to your tastes and your programming:-)
on Jan 30th, 2009 at 6:52 am
[...] or Liszt into your romance and watch it grow. Or gain inspiration from Soul, Blues or Calypso. Don Campbell shows how to gain musical intelligence to jack up productivity, or to improve your moods on a bad [...]
on Feb 1st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Very interesting! I am listening to Chopin right now and often put him in when I am writing or creating.
I will try Bach now and see if I notice a difference.
I started working with music about a year or so ago. For most of my adult life I worked in silence. When I hit my forties I needed more peace and energy and started tuning into the classics. They deliver that is for sure!
Thanks for this topic and information!
Viveca
Vivecas last blog post..Fatigue & Fear — Yikes. How to breakthrough and live fearlessly
on Feb 1st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Thanks for the comment Viveca, and also for sharing the way you are so open to shift and try new approaches. How refreshing! Cannot wait to see what results you get with Bach! Do let us know.
Last night I switched to pick me up tunes when I started to slow down and got a ton of work done as a result. It’s amazing to see brain waves speed up or slow down to good music! Who’d have guessed!
on Feb 5th, 2009 at 11:58 am
[...] favorite music can boost cognitive performance as music rallys your moods for better benefits from the reflective process at the same [...]
on Feb 23rd, 2009 at 6:46 am
[...] Without a wider range of intellectual pursuits, we can easily leave out ethics that prevents science from bombing babies or math from maiming kids. Learners will lack the tone tools to expand insights into collaborative enterprises, or to set standards that avoid bullying in the workplace. Learners will lose intelligence in other areas through lack of use and development. People will miss out on inspiration for change through literature. Leaders who languish will give up rather than build on mistakes with stronger introspective capabilities. People will fail to learn how to create calm under pressure, or to value music that builds mental acumen. [...]
on Mar 12th, 2009 at 11:20 am
[...] it far easier to workout, and inspires you to run past physical challenges? Research show that music does just [...]
on Apr 1st, 2009 at 7:26 pm
i find that music helps me to concentrate at work, not sure why but silence can be deafening..
on Apr 1st, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Alan you build a good case here for the pattern one gets used to also:-) Thanks for another good point on music and the mind. Do you sense that people should change regular routines and try a few different sounds while working?
on May 18th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Your post made me realize that I have become more cautious with the use of music during training sessions. I used to play “training tunes” known to stimulate creativity during individual and group breakouts, etc. but got feedback that groups wanted “real” music. Realizing that musical taste is quite varied, I added several thousand selections of virtually every musical genre and would poll groups to identify trends. Unfortunately, the last group that I used this with could not be pleased, thus, the music became a source of backlash. What are your thoughts?
on May 18th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Jeanne, you make a great point for differences. Some music lends itself more across groups — and yet I always find it’s exciting to share these results with groups and have them help to make the selections.
It even differs for one person – depending on what you are doing, where your brain waves are at the moment, and other variables. So it’s best to tread lightly and start with classical for instance – to allow the groups’ intervention along the way. It’s fun to challenge folks to try variations and report results. I’ve seen great results that way:-) You?
on May 18th, 2009 at 8:48 am
[...] and circuitry which can be altered and upgraded to benefit your work with influences such as music in the background. Sluggish brains, on the other hand, create toxins or depression at [...]
on May 31st, 2009 at 9:36 am
[...] No Brain Left Behind: includes music to transform stressful situations or aid concentration for some learners. It advances learning with music that changes brain wave [...]
on Jun 4th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Good overview of how different music can impact and shape our cognitive function and moods. I am a neuroscientist and drum circle facilitator, so I am always exploring how different rhythmic patterns and tonal instruments affects listeners and participants. Perhaps my best research was a study on sensory integration I undertook with a metronome, and tested a variety of syncopated and unsyncopated patterns on persons with neurological disorders and sensory integration dysfunction. My findings seem to further explain the “Mozart Effect” in music and cognition, whereas, highly melodic is easy to integrate and repetitive or unsyncopated is more challenging and tends to impede cognition. But to some degree, it is how and at what level it is used.
Stephen Dolle
“Stuff for your Brain”
ProfessorMac.net
on Jul 18th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
[...] upbeat and use sleepless spaces to relax and listen to classical music which slows racing [...]
on Aug 9th, 2009 at 7:20 am
[...] change your workplace in the coming week. Rock you brain to music and at the same time ratchet up musical intelligence for benefits from benefits from many different [...]
on Nov 6th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
[...] effects. Share with peers why music puts you in touch with your inner beliefs and suggest tunes that help to focus, relax or reflect at work. Toss out titles of tunes that make you moody, edgy and anxious. Show how productivity increases [...]
on Dec 13th, 2009 at 8:18 am
[...] more opportunities to teach one another and when features such as music enhance a workplace. A brain listening to music is one that enhances productivity. “University of California, Irvine, researchers found that [...]
on Jan 21st, 2010 at 6:36 pm
I love music. I am so happy I read this information. Thank you for posting the link Dr. Weber. I learned something new about music here. I will try new music and begin to listen to different kinds when studying from now on.