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How music helps your body in many ways. 

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How music helps your body in many ways. 

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From your brain, to working out, to your health, these are reasons why music helps you.

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Is there a particular song that lifts your spirits every time you hear it? Or one that always brings back not-too-fond memories?

According to Yahoo! Beauty, in addition to its ability to shift our mood and tap into our emotions, when you listen to music you also work better, you can exercise harder and longer, and you experience changes in blood pressure.

But did you know introducing kids to music instruction helps them develop early language and literacy skills?

Last week we explored the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation to read to babies from the time they are born. Now, let's take a look at how music gets a kid's developing brain ready to read and write.

1. Music instruction strengthens listening and attention skills.

We may be born with the ability to hear, but the ability to listen is not innate. Listening involves more than just hearing. It requires children to focus their minds on the sound perceived. The ability to pay attention is also a learned skill.

According to Education.com:

Music activities provide an excellent means for increasing children's listening skills. Four- and five-year-olds can develop listening skills that will help them sing in tune, create melodies, accompany themselves on instruments, and move to music. They can be taught to listen to the expressive elements of music, such as melody, rhythm, and dynamics. In one way or another, music at all levels is focused on listening. The purposes and outcomes of listening may vary with the age of the listener and the musical setting, but there is perhaps no other music behavior so widely valued as good listening.

2. Music instruction improves phonological awareness.

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear sounds that make up words in spoken language. Through phonological awareness, children learn to associate sounds with symbols, and create links to word recognition and decoding skills necessary for reading.

According to a study by Kindermusik:

Where spoken language is comprised of a stream of connected phonemes, music is comprised of a series of discrete musical notes, or tones. Understanding a spoken sentence requires successful auditory processing of the individual phonemes combined with the intonation communicated by pitch, and hearing music requires listening for the individual notes combined with their rhythmic values. Because of these fundamental similarities, the human brain processes music and language in some similar ways. Researchers have recently verified that musical instruction can have an exciting impact on young children's phonological awareness.

3. Music instruction enriches print awareness.

Most children become aware of print long before they start school. They see print on signs and billboards, in storybooks, magazines, and newspapers. Awareness of print concepts provides the backdrop against which reading and writing are best learned.

According to Songs for Teaching:

A child's introduction to patterned text often first occurs in songs, chants, and rhymes that are repeated over and over again throughout childhood. Once children become familiar with this patterning, they are excited and able to participate in shared reading, writing and other oral language experiences. Concepts about print become more meaningful, and conventions of print are learned in context. Additionally, substitutions in songs, chants or poems can provide for real language experience opportunities. When emergent readers see printed words in the text again and again, they come to identify those words and phrases by their similarities and configurations.

4. Music instruction refines auditory discrimination and increases auditory sequencing ability.

The ability to recognize differences in phonemes (auditory discrimination), and the ability to remember or reconstruct the order of items in a list or the order of sounds in a word or syllable (auditory sequencing) are necessary for learning to read.

According to Kindermusik:

As children experience and listen for tempo (fast or slow), dynamics (loud or soft), and melodies (up or down, high or low), they are developing the critical skill of being able to distinguish between sounds - an ability that is absolutely vital to reading. Songs and music activities often require children to remember both the detail and order of what is heard and to respond accordingly, thereby increasing the brain's ability to organize and make sense of sound - a skill that is also required for literacy.

5. Music instruction enriches vocabulary

Most kids reach a phase of repeating everything they hear - even when it's something inappropriate. When learning songs that they recite over and over, the words in those songs become the building blocks of their vocabulary.

According to Kindermusik:

There is substantial evidence that children acquire vocabulary incidentally by reading and listening to oral stories. During the preschool years before children can read, children rely exclusively on the oral language they listen to in order to acquire language. Even as children attend elementary school, only a portion of the vocabulary words they learn are the result of explicit instruction. Research shows that stories read aloud are an effective source of new vocabulary for young children

Check out how the ABC Music and Me program assists with literacy skills through music and motion below.

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Five things to know about music and early literacy

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Is there a particular song that lifts your spirits every time you hear it? Or one that always brings back not-too-fond memories? According to Yahoo! Beauty, in addition to its ability to shift our mood and tap into our emotions, when you listen to music you also work better, you can exercise harder and longer, and you experience changes in blood pressure.

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Is background music a boost or a bummer? 

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Is background music a boost or a bummer? 

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this one is kinda in the middle of both sides. gives evidence for both that it hinders and helps students.

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"Are you multitasking if you're listening to background music?" This is one of the first questions I usually get after making my conquer cyberoverload presentations. As research consistently shows, multitasking reduces the efficiency, accuracy, and quality of what you do. So whether or not music introduces a distracting second task is an important question.

It's not an easy question to answer because the more you look at the research, the more complicated the answer becomes. I've reviewed dozens of studies on the issue, and taken together they show that music can have three important effects: It can distract your attention from whatever else you're doing; it can affect your arousal level; and it can change your mood or affective state. The bottom line is, music can help or hinder your work depending on the nature of the task you're trying to perform and the nature of the music. So here are some general conclusions:

1. Music can improve productivity on repetitive tasks. Workers on assembly lines or quality-control operators need to stay focused on their work even though what they're doing is not necessarily inherently interesting, and attention typically fades over time. Upbeat music has been shown to improve efficiency and accuracy in these situations. Interestingly, this works best if the music is not played constantly, but if it's introduced periodically at intervals when normal attention is likely to wane. In these situations, music can make the task seem less boring, and it can also increase arousal and alertness. Studies supporting this conclusion have recommended that music without lyrics be used; or that if music with words is used, the words should either be familiar or boring! (1)

2. Music can give you a motivational jump-start before you start on both cognitive tasks and those requiring creativity. Up-tempo, pleasing music can boost your mood and be motivational. For example, in a cross-cultural study, Canadian undergraduates performed better on an IQ test after listening to an upbeat selection by Mozart than after a slow, minor-key piece by Albinoni. And Japanese children spent longer producing drawings and drew more creatively after listening to familiar children's songs that they liked than after listening to unfamiliar classical music.

3. Relaxing, repetitive, low-information-load, background music can enhance performance on some cognitive tasks. One study used a highly repetitive synthesizer piece with a narrow tonal range and compared it to a "dissonant, rhythmically varied and highly dynamic piece" (and to silence) as background while high school students were reading. Reading scores were significantly higher in the low-information-load music condition than in the other conditions (3). A similar study looked at the effect of Koan music, which consists of free-flowing, harmonious sounds, often used for meditation. Students performed significantly better on a series of intelligence-test items when Koan music was playing in the background than in silence (4). In both studies, the background music seems not to have interfered with processing of the information in the task, and may have aided relaxation and reduced stress.

4. Typical popular music usually interferes with complex tasks and reading comprehension. Particularly when the music has lyrics, most popular music introduces a multitasking situation that interferes with reading comprehension and information processing. Several studies have shown this (e.g., 5, 6, 7). One study did show, however, that playing quiet classical music during a recorded lecture improved learning from the lecture, perhaps because it made the learning situation more palatable or enjoyable or helped people retain focus without introducing distraction (8).

This area is a work-in-progress. There's still much more we need to know. But based on studies to date, here's the advice:

1. If you're doing a repetitive task requiring focus but not much cognitive processing, you can use upbeat music to boost your energy and attentiveness.

2. Even if your task necessitates cognitive processing or creativity, you can use motivational music beforehand and during breaks.

3. With high-information-processing tasks, monotonous, zen-like background music may sometimes promote better performance on cognitive tasks.

4. For problem-solving or highly cognitive, complex tasks, avoid typical popular music with lyrics as it will likely interfere with the quality of your work. Try rewarding yourself during breaks instead.

There are undoubtedly many individual differences in how people respond to music when they work. If you prefer silence and it works well for you, there's no need to change your habits. But if you find silence unnerving or unsettling, try music that adds the least in terms of cognitive load, but that boosts arousal or reduces tension (whichever you need) or simply makes you feel good.

(1) Fox, J. G., & Embry, E. D. (1972) Music-An aid to productivity. Applied Ergonomics, 3 (4), 202-205.

(2) Schellenberg, E. G., Nakata, T., Hunter, P. G., & Tamoto, S. (2007). Exposure to music and cognitive performance: Tests of children and adults. Psychology of Music, 35 (1), 5-19.

(3) Kiger, D. (1989). Effects of music information load on a reading comprehension task. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 69, 531-534.

(4) Cockerton, T., Moore, S., & Norman, D. (1997). Cognitive test performance and background music. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 85, 1435-1438.

(5) Anderson, S. A., & Fuller, G. B. (2010). Effect of music on reading comprehension of junior high school students. School Psychology Quarterly, 25 (3), 178-187.

(6) Johansson, R., Homqvist, K., Mossberg, F., & Lindgren, M. (2011). Eye movements and reading comprehension while listening to preferred and non-preferred study music. Psychology of Music, 40 (3), 339-356.

(7) Avila, C., Furnham, A., & McClelland, A. (2011). The influence of distracting familiar vocal music on cognitive performance of introverts and extraverts. Psychology of Music, 40 (1), 84-93.

(8) Dosseville, F., Laborde, S., & Scelles, N. (2012). Music during lectures: Will students learn better? Learning and Individual Differences, 22, 258-262.

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Is Background Music a Boost or a Bummer?

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"Are you multitasking if you're listening to background music?" This is one of the first questions I usually get after making my conquer cyberoverload presentations. As research consistently shows, multitasking reduces the efficiency, accuracy, and quality of what you do. So whether or not music introduces a distracting second task is an important question.

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how listening to music hinders learning. 

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how listening to music hinders learning. 

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Students were in 4 groups and found out 60% preformed better on exams than others did.

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There is a wealth of psychology research that can help teachers to improve how they work with students, but academic studies of this kind aren't always easy to access or translate into the realities of classroom practice. This series seeks to redress that by taking a selection of studies and making sense of the important information for teachers, as we all seek to answer the question: how can we help our students do better at school? This time, we consider growth mindset.
Many students do their homework and revision while listening to music. Many of them will swear that listening to their favourite songs makes them study better. But does music help or hinder learning? And does it matter what type of music you listen to while revising?

Researchers from the applied psychology department of Cardiff Metropolitan University led a study to answer this question. The authors, Nick Perham and Harriet Currie, assigned students into one of four groups: the first revised in silence, the second revised while listening to music with lyrics they liked (which included songs from One Direction and Katy Perry), the third group revised to music with lyrics they did not like (which comprised of very heavy metal bands), and the fourth group revised listening to music without lyrics.

The participants then took a test on the passages they had been revising, rating how distracting their environment had been, as well as writing down their predictions for how well they thought they had done.

What are the main findings?

1. Students who revised in quiet environments performed more than 60% better in an exam than their peers who revised while listening to music that had lyrics.

2. Students who revised while listening to music without lyrics did better than those who had revised to music with lyrics.

3. It made no difference if students revised listening to songs they liked or disliked. Both led to a reduction in their test performance.

4. Students who revised in silence rated their environment as less distracting and accurately predicted that this would lead to better performances in subsequent tests.

Related research

There are some benefits to listening to music while performing certain tasks. It can be quite motivating and it can improve mood (listening to your favourite song tends to make people smile, for example). But it does not help people learn new or complex material.

The misconception that music does help us learn stems from a series of studies linked to the " Mozart effect ", which found that people performed better on a series of cognitive tasks after listening to 10 minutes of Mozart. Participants in these studies appeared to be getting smarter and performing better in tests.

However, further research has since revealed this is not the case. While listening to music before a task can make someone feel better, listening to it while trying to learn something new tends not to help. This is because music - especially tunes with lyrics - can take up processing space. This conflicts with the material you are trying to learn, effectively creating a bottleneck in your memory, as there is less space to process what you are revising.

What does this mean for the classroom?

It is important that students are made aware of the pitfalls of listening to music when revising. Perham and Currie's study found that students rated the quiet environment as less distracting and better for them, yet many students continue to listen to music during their homework. Why? Perhaps they're doing so out of habit, or they confuse what improves their mood with what leads to good revision, or it alleviates boredom. Perhaps it's simply because everyone else is doing it.

Students need to know how to revise well. There may well 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. After all, silence is golden.

Bradley Busch is a registered psychologist, director at InnerDrive and author of Release Your Inner Drive. Follow @Inner_Drive on Twitter, and get advice on improving memory and a visual summary of this research on his website
Follow us on Twitter via @GuardianTeach, like us on Facebook, and join the Guardian Teacher Network the latest articles direct to your inbox Looking for a teaching job? Or perhaps you need to recruit school staff? Take a look at Guardian Jobs, the education specialist

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Drowned in sound: how listening to music hinders learning

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There is a wealth of psychology research that can help teachers to improve how they work with students, but academic studies of this kind aren't always easy to access or translate into the realities of classroom practice.

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Does music really help you concentrate? 

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Does music really help you concentrate? 

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People will argue that music does help them focus a lot more than not having anything in the background at all.

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any people listen to music while they're carrying out a task, whether they're studying for an exam, driving a vehicle or even reading a book. Many of these people argue that background music helps them focus.

Why, though? When you think about it, that doesn't make much sense. Why would having two things to concentrate on make you more focused, not less? Some people even go so far as to say that not having music on is more distracting. So what's going on there?

It's not clear why the brain likes music so much in the first place, although it clearly does. Interestingly, there's a specific spectrum of musical properties that the brain prefers. Experiments by Maria Witek and colleagues reveal that there needs to be a medium level of syncopation in music to elicit a pleasure response and associated body movement in individuals. What this means in plain English is: music needs to be funky, but not too funky, for people to like it enough to make them want to dance.

Your own experience will probably back this up. Simple, monotonous beats, like listening to a metronome, aren't really entertaining. They have low levels of syncopation and certainly don't make you want to dance. In contrast, chaotic and unpredictable music, like free jazz, has high levels of syncopation, can be extremely off-putting and rarely, if ever, entices people to dance.

The middle ground ( funk music like James Brown is what the experimenters reference most) hits the sweet spot between predictable and chaotic, for which the brain has a strong preference. Most modern pop falls somewhere within this range, no doubt.

Paying attention

Why would music help us concentrate, though? One argument is to do with attention.

For all its amazing abilities, the brain hasn't really evolved to take in abstract information or spend prolonged periods thinking about one thing. We seem to have two attention systems: a conscious one that enables us to direct our focus towards things we know we want to concentrate on and an unconscious one that shifts attention towards anything our senses pick up that might be significant. The unconscious one is simpler, more fundamental, and linked to emotional processing rather than higher reasoning. It also operates faster. So when you hear a noise when you're alone at home, you're paying attention to it long before you're able to work out what it might have been. You can't help it.

The trouble is, while our conscious attention is focused on the task in hand, the unconscious attention system doesn't shut down; it's still very much online, scanning for anything important in your peripheral senses. And if what we're doing is unpleasant or dull - so you're already having to force your attention to stay fixed on it - the unconscious attention system is even more potent. This means that a distraction doesn't need to be as stimulating to divert your attention on to something else.

Some ​people argue that one of the best music genres for concentration is the video game soundtrack

Have you ever worked in an open-plan office and been working on a very important task, only to be driven slowly mad by a co-worker constantly sniffing, or sipping their coffee, or clipping their nails? Something quite innocuous suddenly becomes much more infuriating when you're trying to work on something your brain doesn't necessarily enjoy.

Music is a very useful tool in such situations. It provides non-invasive noise and pleasurable feelings, to effectively neutralise the unconscious attention system's ability to distract us. It's much like giving small children a new toy to play with while you're trying to get some work done without them disturbing you.

Type of music

However, it's not just a matter of providing any old background noise to keep distractions at bay. A lot of companies have tried using pink noise (pdf) - a less invasive version of white noise - broadcasting it around the workplace to reduce distractions and boost productivity. But views on the effectiveness of this approach are mixed at best.

It seems clear that the type of noise, or music, is important. This may seem obvious: someone listening to classical music while they work wouldn't seem at all unusual, but if they were listening to thrash metal it would be thought very strange indeed.

While the nature and style of the music can cause specific responses in the brain (funky music compels you to dance, sad music makes you melancholy, motivational music makes you want to keep fit), some studies suggest that it really is down to personal preference. Music you like increases focus, while music you don't impedes it. Given the extreme variation in musical preferences from person to person, exposing your workforce or classroom to a single type of music would obviously end up with mixed results.

Music also has a big impact on mood - truly bleak music could sap your enthusiasm for your task. Something else to look out for is music with catchy lyrics. Musical pieces without wordsmight be better working companions, as human speech and vocalisation is something our brains pay particular attention to.

Video game soundtracks

Some people argue that one of the best music genres for concentration is the video game soundtrack. This makes sense, when you consider the purpose of the video game music: to help create an immersive environment and to facilitate but not distract from a task that requires constant attention and focus.

Limitations in the technology used for early games consoles meant the music also tended to be fairly simplistic in its melodies - think Tetris or Mario. In a somewhat Darwinian way, the music in video games has been refined over decades to be pleasant, entertaining, but not distracting. The composers have (probably unintentionally) been manipulating the attention systems in the brains of players for years now.

There are signs that, as technology progresses, this type of theme music is being abandoned, with games producers opting for anything from big orchestral pieces to hip-hop. The challenge will be to maintain the delicate balance of stimulation without distraction. To achieve this, games composers will need to stay focused. Which is ironic.
Dean Burnett's first book, The Idiot Brain, all about the weird and confusing properties of the brain, is available now in the UK and the US.

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any people listen to music while they're carrying out a task, whether they're studying for an exam, driving a vehicle or even reading a book. Many of these people argue that background music helps them focus. Why, though? When you think about it, that doesn't make much sense.