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What this all means is that whether having music playing in the background helps or hinders performance depends on the task and on the type of music, and only understanding this relationship will help people maximize their productivity levels.

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Music and work don't always mix. wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

Many of us listen to music while we work, thinking that it will help us to concentrate on the task at hand. And in fact, recent research has found that music can have beneficial effects on creativity. When it comes to other areas of performance, however, the impact of background music is more complicated.

The assumption that listening to music when working is beneficial to output likely has its roots in the so-called " Mozart effect", which gained wide media attention in the early 1990s. Put simply, this is the finding that spatial rotation performance (mentally rotating a 3D dimensional shape to determine whether it matches another or not) is increased immediately after listening to the music of Mozart, compared to relaxation instructions or no sound at all. Such was the attention that this finding garnered that the then US governor of Georgia, Zell Miller, proposed giving free cassettes or CDs of Mozart's music to prospective parents.

Subsequent studies have cast doubt on the necessity of the music of Mozart to produce this effect - a " Schubert effect", a " Blur effect", and even a " Stephen King effect" (his audiobook rather than his singing) have all been observed. In addition, musicians could show the effect purely from imagining the music rather than actually listening to it.

So researchers then suggested that the "Mozart effect" was not due to his music as such, but rather to people's optimum levels of mood and arousal. And so it became the " mood and arousal effect ".

Unfortunately, the situations in which most mood and arousal effects are observed are slightly unrealistic. Do we really sit and listen to music, switch it off, and then engage in our work in silence? More likely is that we work with our favourite tunes playing in the background.

Pressmaster/Shutterstock

How sound affects performance has been the topic of laboratory research for over 40 years, and is observed through a phenomenon called the irrelevant sound effect. Basically, this effect means that performance is poorer when a task is undertaken in the presence of background sound (irrelevant sound that you are ignoring), in comparison to quiet.

To study irrelevant sound effect, participants are asked to complete a simple task which requires them to recall a series of numbers or letters in the exact order in which they saw them - similar to trying to memorise a telephone number when you have no means to write it down. In general, people achieve this by rehearsing the items either aloud or under their breath. The tricky thing is being able to do this while ignoring any background noise.

Two key characteristics of the irrelevant sound effect are required for its observation. First, the task must require the person to use their rehearsal abilities, and second, the sound must contain acoustical variation - for example, sounds such as "n, r, p" as opposed to "c, c, c". Where the sound does not vary much acoustically, then performance of the task is much closer to that observed in quiet conditions. Interestingly, it does not matter whether the person likes the sound or not. Performance is equally as poor whether the background sound is music the person likes or dislikes.

The irrelevant sound effect itself comes from attempting to process two sources of ordered information at the same time - one from the task and one from the sound. Unfortunately, only the former is required to successfully perform the serial recall task, and the effort expended in ensuring that irrelevant order information from the sound is not processed actually impedes this ability.

A similar conflict is also seen when reading while in the presence of lyrical music. In this situation, the two sources of words - from the task and the sound - are in conflict. The subsequent cost is poorer performance of the task in the presence of music with lyrics.

What this all means is that whether having music playing in the background helps or hinders performance depends on the task and on the type of music, and only understanding this relationship will help people maximise their productivity levels. If the task requires creativity or some element of mental rotation then listening to music one likes can increase performance. In contrast, if the task requires one to rehearse information in order then quiet is best, or, in the case of reading comprehension, quiet or instrumental music.

One promising area of the impact of music on cognitive abilities stems from actually learning to play a musical instrument. Studies show that children who are being musically trained show an improvement in intellectual abilities. However, the reasons behind this are, at present, unknown and likely to be complex. It may not be the music per se that produces this effect but more the activities associated with studying music, such as concentration, repeated practice, lessons and homework.

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Music only helps you concentrate if you're doing the right kind of task

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Many of us listen to music while we work, thinking that it will help us to concentrate on the task at hand. And in fact, recent research has found that music can have beneficial effects on creativity. When it comes to other areas of performance, however, the impact of background music is more complicated.

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If you’re looking to use music to de-stress, pump yourself up or otherwise shift your mental or emotional state, Levitin says you probably already have a bank of songs you can pull from that you know will have the appropriate effect. Dive in. Just be sure to set aside distractions.

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If you're looking for an easy way to transform your mood, cue the music.

Studies have shown that music can buoy your mood and fend off depression. It can also improve blood flow in ways similar to statins, lower your levels of stress-related hormones like cortisol and ease pain. Listening to music before an operation can even improve post-surgery outcomes.

How can music do so much good? Music seems to "selectively activate" neurochemical systems and brain structures associated with positive mood, emotion regulation, attention and memory in ways that promote beneficial changes, says Kim Innes, a professor of epidemiology at West Virginia University's School of Public Health.

Innes coauthored a 2016 study that found music-listening could boost mood and well-being and improve stress-related measures in older adults suffering from cognitive decline. Her study compared the benefits of music to those of meditation -a practice in vogue for its mental-health perks. She found that both practices were linked to significant improvements in mood and sleep quality. "Both meditation and music listening are potentially powerful tools for improving overall health and well-being," Innes says. If the idea of listening to music seems a lot more practicable to you than meditating, these findings are great news.

But music can also agitate and unsettle, experts have learned.

"Silence can be better than random listening," says Joanne Loewy, an associate professor and director of the Louis Armstrong Center for Music & Medicine at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York. "Some of our data show that putting on any old music can actually induce a stressful response." (Just turn on the creepy themes from films like Halloween or The Shining if you need examples of how music can fan the flames of anxiety, rather than squelch them.)

Along with inducing stress, Loewy says, the wrong music can promote rumination or other unhelpful mental states. One 2015 study from Finland found that music can bolster negative emotions-like anger, aggression or sadness-much the same way it can counteract these feelings. Why? The rhythm and other characteristics of the songs we select can modulate our heart rates and the activity of our brain's neural networks, explains Daniel Levitin, a professor of psychology who researches the cognitive neuroscience of music at McGill University in Canada.

Tracks with a slow tempo, gradual chord progressions and drawn-out notes tend to be calming, Levitin says, while chaotic and up-tempo music tends to have the opposite effect. But all of this is subjective. Levitin says he's encountered people who have said that AC/DC is their relaxation music. "These were people who normally listened to Swedish speed metal, so to them AC/DC was soothing," he says. "There's no one piece of music that will do the same thing for everyone."

There's also no single "music center" in the brain, he says. "One thing people find surprising is that music activates nearly every region of brain we've mapped so far." This hints at music's universality and power to affect us.

If you're looking to use music to de-stress, pump yourself up or otherwise shift your mental or emotional state, Levitin says you probably already have a bank of songs you can pull from that you know will have the appropriate effect. Dive in. Just be sure to set aside distractions. "We fool ourselves into thinking we can do two things at once," he says. While listening to inspirational music can help you exercise harder or longer, calm music won't help you unwind if you're listening to it while you're scrolling through your news or social feeds, he says.

To cultivate an even deeper connection between music and your health, consider a field called music therapy, which focuses on using music to improve patient outcomes. "Music therapy starts with the idea that, as therapists, we're collaborating with a person who's looking to help themselves to feel more complete or optimistic-or to discover parts of themselves they aren't aware of-using music," says Alan Turry, managing director of the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy at New York University.

Music therapy can take many forms. One is "guided imagery in music," Turry says, where a trained therapist helps a person uncover her strengths or challenges by listening to music the patient chooses. "A feeling of [therapist-patient] attunement can happen with music," he says. "Sharing music helps the patient feel like the therapist 'really gets me.' "

Other forms of music therapy may involve singing or playing instruments. "The way each of us makes music can reveal something about us that a therapist can work with," he says. "Someone might play a drum in only one tempo or one dynamic, and that may represent their difficulty in being flexible in other areas of their life."

"Music is a way to bypass our rational side and to get in touch with the emotional life we often keep hidden," Turry says. "If people are having trouble, there's usually a way that music can help."

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You Asked: Is Listening to Music Good For Your Health?

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Are there health benefits to music? Yes, it turns out: music can boost your mood, reduce stress and even improve sleep.

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effect of music while reading and writing. 

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effect of music while reading and writing. 

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“When I study, listening to music allows me to feel relaxed instead of feeling stressed.” says Neishla. “I can get frustrated and music is what helps me relax and keep going. It allows me to have a balance between music and work.”

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Walking into classrooms, what most see is students with headphones or earbuds on. Leaving the classroom most think: How can they read and study? Does it make a difference at all what they are listening to while studying?

Dependent on the student and their personality, the effects of listening to your favorite tunes while studying can vary.

"I listen to music every day, it helps me escape and live in my own world," senior, Neishla Manzano, says. "Without music I think I won't be doing that good of a job in most of classes".

Studying with music could become more popular in the classroom because of the influence of the Mozart Effect. This effect states that listening to Mozart's music may induce a short-term improvement on the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks and improve your intelligence.

"When I study, listening to music allows me to feel relaxed instead of feeling stressed." says Neishla. "I can get frustrated and music is what helps me relax and keep going. It allows me to have a balance between music and work."

Perhaps, students may be listening to music while studying because it improves their mood, or because they are seeing everyone else in the classroom with earphones.

"Almost all of my friends listen to music while we are in class," senior, Andrey Andreev, says. "Sometimes I notice that my notes are more organized and focused than others."

Comparatively, music can be very distracting and can make students feel less focused on their work. Science research has shown that students who listen to music with lyrics while completing reading or writing tasks tend to be less efficient and come away having absorbed less information.

"I prefer to do my work without listening to music because it's very hard for me to concentrate with music," Andreev, states. "I have seen that I perform better on tests, when I study without music.

Students need to know how to revise their work before submitting it to be graded. For some students, there may be a time and place to listen to music during the course of their revision, but not when they are learning new and complex material.

"I believe that while music may seem as a way to be less stressed and less pressured while in school," Andreev, adds. "However in the classroom- silence is golden."

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Listening To Music While Studying: A Good Or Bad Idea

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Walking into classrooms, what most see is students with headphones or earbuds on. Leaving the classroom most think: How can they read and study? Does it make a difference at all what they are listening to while studying? Dependent on the student and their personality, the effects of listening to your favorite tunes while studying...