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(Photo: Clark Young/Unsplash)

More than ever, a well-paying career requires sharp mental skills. People who can process information quickly, ignore distractions, and switch smoothly from one task to another are at an enormous advantage in the workplace.

New research identifies one subset of the population that disproportionately possesses those precise abilities: trained, experienced musicians.

Such people gave stellar performances on standardized tests measuring fluid intelligence, which the researchers define as "the ability to think abstractly and solve problems."

The results "add support to the mounting evidence of the positive relationship between music training and cognitive function," write psychologists Katherine Sledge Moore and Pinar Gupse Oguz of Arcadia University, and Jim Meyer of Elmhurst College.

Most of those enhanced abilities were limited to what they referred to as "music experts"-people who started training early in life, and kept at it for at least a decade. But one very important skillset, "executive functioning," was also bolstered for lightly trained amateur players.

This suggests that even limited training and practice can provide significant cognitive benefits.

In recent years, many studies have concluded that musical training enhances brain function. The goal of this new research was to confirm that link using the National Institute of Health's Toolbox Cognition Battery, a standardized set of tests that measure the key cognitive functions that together constitute fluid intelligence.

These include focus, processing speed, working memory (the ability to temporarily retain information and use it to learn, reason, or make informed decisions), and executive function (the ability to plan, organize, and accomplish goals).

The participants were 72 college undergraduates, who were grouped into three categories: Musical experts (people who began formal training at age 10 or younger, and kept up their practice for at least a decade); musical amateurs (those with at least one year of musical training); and non-musicians.

Combining the results of all the tests, "musicians with extensive experience scored significantly higher than non-musicians and less-trained musicians," the researchers write in the journal Psychology of Music. Specifically, they did better on four of the five cognitive skills that the tests measured.

These included attention ("ensemble performance requires the ability to focus on one's own part without being distracted by other parts," the researchers note); working memory (presumably strengthened by the process of memorizing music); and processing speed (which is enhanced by learning to react rapidly to the demands of the music, as well as to those of collaborators).

The results of the executive-function test, which involved rapidly sorting pictures by shape and color, were arguably the most intriguing, in that modestly trained musicians performed significantly better than non-musicians (although not as well as highly trained musicians).

If that finding is confirmed using a larger sample, "then as a society, we should be interested in universal musical education, perhaps starting in elementary and pre-school-aged children," the researchers argue.

As always with this type of study, there is the danger of conflating correlation with causation. As the researchers concede, it's possible that "people with superior fluid cognition skills are more likely to excel as musicians and stay in the practice."

Indeed, a 2013 study concluded that brighter kids are more likely to take up, and stick with, music lessons.

That said, the researchers point out that fluid intelligence skills "are highlighted in musical training," which involves "quickly comprehending a complex symbolic system, multitasking, reasoning, and more."

These findings strongly suggest that if you can master music, the skills you learn will prove very valuable even if you never touch an instrument again for the rest of your life. Parents and school administrators, take note.

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More Evidence That Trained Musicians Are Superior Thinkers

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More than ever, a well-paying career requires sharp mental skills. People who can process information quickly, ignore distractions, and switch smoothly from one task to another are at an enormous advantage in the workplace. New research identifies one subset of the population that disproportionately possesses those precise abilities: trained, experienced musicians.

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It's finally here. I've been waiting for this research for a long time.

Have you ever heard of the Mozart Effect? The popular (and commercialized) version states that "listening to Mozart makes you smarter."

Actually, the original research (published in Nature in 1993) had some fairly narrow findings. The researchers (Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky) had college-aged students take one of three tests of spatial-temporal reasoning. These tests, subsets of the standard Stanford-Binet IQ test, asked the students to visualize spatial patterns and, over time, to manipulate them. Additionally, there were three pre-test listening conditions: a Mozart piano sonata, repetetive relaxation music, and silence. When the student's listened to the Mozart, they performed better on the spatial reasoning test. But it was a temporary improvement--the effect wore off after 15 minutes.

It should be noted that the researchers themselves made NO claims that listening to Mozart made people smarter. They presented their findings like any good researchers would, stating that listening to Mozart temporarily improved the spatial intelligence scores of college-aged students.

But over the next several years, the notion that "Mozart makes you smarter" grabbed hold of us. We liked the idea of a "magic bullet" approach. For the past 15 years, it's been promoted in books (such as Don Campbell's 1997 book The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit) and turned into hundreds of DVDs, toys, CDs, and other products. And it seemed so easy--you turn on this "educational" video/CD/toy and your child will be the next Harvard valedictorian!

We finally have a follow-up study. Actually, there have been many follow-up studies, but we now have a summary of all those follow-up studies. Researchers at the University of Vienna (Pietschnig, Voracek, & Formann, 2010) performed a meta-analysis of nearly 40 studies. Guess what? They found no evidence that listening to Mozart's music "enhanced" cognitive abilities in any way.

Now this doesn't mean you should throw out every classical CD, DVD, and toy you own. It just means you just can't expect brilliant results from your child by simply having him or her listen to or play with those materials.

However, there IS evidence that learning music and being involved in music helps improve a child's math and language abilities. Additionally, there are tangible social benefits to being involved in music, as well as emotional and self-expression rewards.

So here are a few better ideas of ways to incorporate music in your child's life that have some real benefit:

Sing to your child. Singing is good for parent-child bonding, communicates emotional and regulatory information, and can be a vehicle for learning. Nervous about singing in front of your children? Don't be! Your child loves you and loves your voice...no matter what you may think of it.

Purchase child-friendly musical instruments. Young children learn through creative exploration and play. Have a box of instruments available to them and encourage them to explore their inner musician.

Enroll in an early childhood music class. You will find an early childhood music class in almost any town. Some are provided by musicians, music teachers, or music therapists, others by instructors trained in a certain protocol (such as Musikgarten or Kindermusik).

Pay for formal music lessons. There are some music programs that start training children as young as 3 or 4 in violin or piano (such as Suzuki). But generally children start taking formal lessons in the 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade. Even if your child doesn't end up a professional musician, formal music training is one of the best things you can do for your child's developing brain.

Encourage participation in band, orchestra, or choir. Schools have ready-made music programs, many of which teach your child how to play the instrument (although I still recommend private lessons for maximum benefit!). This type of group ensemble participation provides wonderful social opportunities and encourages working towards your goals.

Follow me on Twitter @KimberlySMoore for daily updates on the latest research and articles related to music, music therapy, and music and the brain. I invite you also to check out my website, www.MusicTherapyMaven.com, for additional information, resources, and strategies.
References

Rauscher, Shaw, & Ky (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature, 365, 611. Retrieved May 17, 2010 from http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/365611a0

University of Vienna (2010, May 10). Mozart's music does not make you smarter, study finds. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 17, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2010/05/100510075415.htm

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It's finally here. Have you ever heard of the Mozart Effect? The popular (and commercialized) version states that "listening to Mozart makes you smarter." Well the myth has finally been de-bunked. But don't fear! There are ways music really can help your brain.

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The concept of the "Mozart effect" was described by French researcher Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis in his 1991 book Pourquoi Mozart? ( Why Mozart?). He used the music of Mozart in his efforts to "retrain" the ear, and believed that listening to the music presented at differing frequencies helped the ear, and promoted healing and the development of the brain.

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You have probably heard of the Mozart effect. It's the idea that if children or even babies listen to music composed by Mozart they will become more intelligent. A quick internet search reveals plenty of products to assist you in the task. Whatever your age there are CDs and books to help you to harness the power of Mozart's music, but when it comes to scientific evidence that it can make you more clever, the picture is more mixed.

The phrase "the Mozart effect" was coined in 1991, but it is a study described two years later in the journal Nature that sparked real media and public interest about the idea that listening to classical music somehow improves the brain. It is one of those ideas that feels plausible. Mozart was undoubtedly a genius himself, his music is complex and there is a hope that if we listen to enough of it, a little of that intelligence might rub off on us.

The idea took off, with thousands of parents playing Mozart to their children, and in 1998 Zell Miller, the Governor of the state of Georgia in the US, even asked for money to be set aside in the state budget so that every newborn baby could be sent a CD of classical music. It's not just babies and children who were deliberately exposed to Mozart's melodies. When Sergio Della Sala, the psychologist and author of the book Mind Myths, visited a mozzarella farm in Italy, the farmer proudly explained that the buffalos were played Mozart three times a day to help them to produce better milk.

I'll leave the debate on the impact on milk yield to farmers, but what about the evidence that listening to Mozart makes people more intelligent? Exactly what was it was that the authors of the initial study discovered that took public imagination by storm?

When you look back at the original paper, the first surprise is that the authors from the University of California, Irvine are modest in their claims and don't even use the "Mozart effect" phrase in the paper. The second surprise is that it wasn't conducted on children at all: it was in fact conducted with those stalwarts of psychological studies - young adult students. Only 36 students took part. On three occasions they were given a series of mental tasks to complete, and before each task, they listened either to ten minutes of silence, ten minutes of a tape of relaxation instructions, or ten minutes of Mozart's sonata for two pianos in D major (K448).

The students who listened to Mozart did better at tasks where they had to create shapes in their minds. For a short time the students were better at spatial tasks where they had to look at folded up pieces of paper with cuts in them and to predict how they would appear when unfolded. But unfortunately, as the authors make clear at the time, this effect lasts for about fifteen minutes. So it's hardly going to bring you a lifetime of enhanced intelligence.
Brain arousal
Nevertheless, people began to theorise about why it was that Mozart's music in particular could have this effect. Did the complexity of music cause patterns of cortical firing in the brain similar to those associated with solving spatial puzzles?

More research followed, and a meta-analysis of sixteen different studies confirmed that listening to music does lead to a temporary improvement in the ability to manipulate shapes mentally, but the benefits are short-lived and it doesn't make us more intelligent.

Then it began to emerge that perhaps Mozart wasn't so special after all. In 2010 a larger meta-analysis of a greater number of studies again found a positive effect, but that other kinds of music worked just as well. One study found that listening to Schubert was just as good, and so was hearing a passage read out aloud from a Stephen King novel. But only if you enjoyed it. So, perhaps enjoyment and engagement are key, rather than the exact notes you hear.

Although we tend to associate the Mozart effect with babies and small children, most of these studies were conducted on adults, whose brains are of course at a very different stage of development. But in 2006 a large study was conducted in Britain involving eight thousand children. They listened either to ten minutes of Mozart's String Quintet in D Major, a discussion about the experiment or to a sequence of three pop songs: Blur's "Country House," "Return of the Mack," by Mark Morrison and PJ and Duncan's "Stepping Stone". Once again music improved the ability to predict paper shapes, but this time it wasn't a Mozart effect, but a Blur effect. The children who listened to Mozart did well, but with pop music they did even better, so prior preference could come into it.

Whatever your musical choice, it seems that all you need to do a bit better at predictive origami is some cognitive arousal. Your mind needs to get a little more active, it needs something to get it going and that's going to be whichever kind of music appeals to you. In fact, it doesn't have to be music. Anything that makes you more alert should work just as well - doing a few star jumps or drinking some coffee, for instance.

There is a way in which music can make a difference to your IQ, though. Unfortunately it requires a bit more effort than putting on a CD. Learning to play a musical instrument can have a beneficial effect on your brain. Jessica Grahn, a cognitive scientist at Western University in London, Ontario says that a year of piano lessons, combined with regular practice can increase IQ by as much as three points.

So listening to Mozart won't do you or your children any harm and could be the start of a life-long love of classical music. But unless you and your family have some urgent imaginary origami to do, the chances are that sticking on a sonata is not going to make you better at anything.
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Disclaimer All content within this column is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. The BBC is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of this site. The BBC is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health.

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Does listening to Mozart really boost your brainpower?

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You have probably heard of the Mozart effect. It's the idea that if children or even babies listen to music composed by Mozart they will become more intelligent. A quick internet search reveals plenty of products to assist you in the task.

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Music triggers various parts of the brain, making it an excellent therapeutic or mood-altering tool. Music's pitch, rhythm, meter and timbre are processed in many different parts of the brain, from the prefrontal cortex to the hippocampus to the parietal lobe. Rhythm and pitch are mainly left brain hemisphere functions, while timbre and melody are usually processed in the right hemisphere. However, meter is processed in both hemispheres. Spatial-temporal tasks (2-D and 3-D manipulation of physical objects and spatial reasoning needed for building structures, etc.) are also located in the same areas of the brain that are triggered by music. Listening to music triggers the areas of the brain that have to do with spatial reasoning.

Here are the different things that happen to the brain when music is experienced in different ways:

Hearing music- The auditory cortex (1) is organized by sound frequencies, with some cells responding to low frequencies and others to high frequencies. From the inside to the outside of the auditory cortex, many different kinds of things are taking place as you hear music. In the core, basic musical elements, such as pitch and volume, are analyzed, while the other parts of the auditory cortex process more complex elements, such as timbre, melody and rhythm.

Imagining music- Singing a song or imagining a tune in your head triggers the auditory cortex even though you are not actually hearing the tune. This activity, however, happens in small, separate areas (1), and to a smaller amount. The inferior frontal gyrus (2) is usually connected with remembering memories and is therefore triggered as you remember a song. Scientists think that the dorsolateral frontal cortex (3) is responsible for holding the song in working memory while it is being imagined.

Playing music- There are not many activities that use more parts of the brain than playing music. Playing music uses complex feedback systems that take in information, such as pitch and melody, through the auditory cortex (1), and this helps the performer hear and adjust their playing. The visual cortex (2) is activated by reading or even imagining a score, while the parietal lobe (3) is connected to many different processes, such as computation of finger position. The motor cortex (4) helps control body movements, the sensory cortex (5) is triggered with each touch of the instrument, and the premotor area's (6) functions are unknown, but it somehow helps perform movements in the correct order and time. The frontal lobe (7) plans and coordinates the overall activity, and the cerebellum (8) helps create smooth, integrated movements.

Reacting emotionally to music- When you get "chills" from a piece of music, the "reward" structures in your inner brain (cross section), such as the ventral tegmental area (1), are triggered. These are the same areas that are activated when you experience other pleasures, such as eating tasty food when you are hungry. If you are listening to a song you find pleasant, the amygdala (2) becomes active. This is the part of the brain that is usually triggered by negative emotions, such as fear.

Absolute pitch/tone deafness- Tone deafness is a hereditary (based on inheritance) condition where people are not able to tell the difference between musical notes. Tone deafness is known as amusia (becoming tone-deaf after birth) or congenital amusia (born with tone-deafness). People who are tone deaf have no trouble speaking or understanding speech or making sense of everyday sounds, but they can't recognize pitch, which is important to understanding music. Scientists are not sure what part of the brain is responsible for this activity. While many people suffer from tone deafness, perfect pitch, the complete opposite, is not as common. Beethoven and Mozart are both believed to have had absolute pitch. Perfect pitch, or absolute pitch, which happens when a person can recognize or sing a note as easily as they can tell the difference between two different colours, without the help of a reference. Scientists have found that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (1), which is used in gaining skills and remembering memories, and the auditory cortex (2) work together to produce absolute pitch. Absolute pitch is a combination of genetics and environment that create this unique skill. Studies have shown that musical training must take place before the age of 15 for perfect pitch to be made.

Musical Hallucinations- Nick Warner, a psychiatrist in southwest England, says there is a big difference between imagining a song (also known as having a song stuck in your head) and having a musical hallucination. According to Warner, a song in your head is something you have a lot of control over and you are aware that the song isn't actually playing. With a musical hallucination, however, music plays in your mind that cannot be stopped, and the sound is so real that you think it is actually playing somewhere nearby. Since musical hallucinations have not yet been studied in depth, it is difficult for scientists to know which sections of the brain are activated when someone experiences them. It is thought that the brain may work the same way as it does during imagining music, but there is no solid evidence. When it comes to the brain, a musical hallucination has the same qualities as hearing music, but does not have the same triggers. Dr. Tim Griffiths, a neurologist at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in England, thinks that the hallucinations happen because the music-processing regions in the brain are looking for signals to interpret. The brain could be creating occasional random impulses that some regions of the brain mistake for sound, even though no sound is coming from the ears. There is no cure for musical hallucinations, since researchers aren't sure of the cause. But fighting the hallucinations with actual music or sound has worked: Some patients can turn on a radio or start a conversation, which interrupts the musical hallucination. Other studies suggest that improving someone's hearing and reducing the amount of social isolation may work as a cure. It has been found that anti-psychotic medication in low doses can also be helpful. However, none of these methods works completely.

Research shows that musical training in children can improve the activity of important neural systems. The changes usually happen in areas of the brain that are activated when playing an instrument. These areas include: the auditory cortex, used for processing musical tones, the motor cortex, an area activated when using hands or fingers, the cerebellum, a part of the brain used in timing and learning, and the corpus callosum, which acts as a bridge between both hemispheres of the brain. Other areas of the brain may also be improved, but this doesn't mean that the improved neural activity will help with other activities. Certain scientists think that musicians who have had early training use their brains differently than non-musicians. For example, musicians' brains function with more complexity compared to non-musicians. Some scientists also believe musicians usually use the left half of their brain when analyzing music. The left hemisphere processes language and is used for reasoning tasks, which is why scientists believe musicians process musical information more analytically than those without musical background/training. For these kinds of brain changes to happen, a musician needs musical training early in their life. If musical training doesn't happen until after puberty, there isn't as much change to the brain. Brain improvements are also different based on the instrument type. When a violin player, for example, listens to a violin tune, the activity in his or her auditory cortex is quite high. But when the same violinist listens to a trumpet tune, the activity in the auditory cortex is quite small. In the past, scientists thought that people experienced most of music-related activities in the right hemisphere, where emotional and spatial information are processed. However, today scientists know that both hemispheres work together when it comes to processing music.

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Music triggers various parts of the brain, making it an excellent therapeutic or mood-altering tool. Music's pitch, rhythm, meter and timbre are processed in many different parts of the brain, from the prefrontal cortex to the hippocampus to the parietal lobe.

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Brain Structure Differ from Musicians and Non Musicians

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Brain Structure Differ from Musicians and Non Musicians

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Brain Structures Differ between Musicians and Non-Musicians

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From an early age, musicians learn complex motor and auditory skills (e.g., the translation of visually perceived musical symbols into motor commands with simultaneous auditory monitoring of output), which they practice extensively from childhood throughout their entire careers.

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This Is Your Brain On Music - How Music Benefits The Brain (animated)

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Anita Collins: How playing an instrument benefits your brain

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When you listen to music, multiple areas of your brain become engaged and active. But when you actually play an instrument, that activity becomes more like a full-body brain workout. What's going on? Anita Collins explains the fireworks that go off in musicians' brains when they play, and examines some of the long-term positive effects of this mental workout.

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Ways Music Affects and Benefits our Brains

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Ways Music Affects and Benefits our Brains

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I'm a big fan of music, and use it a lot when working, but I had no idea about how it really affects our brains and bodies. Since music is such a big part of our lives, I thought it would be interesting and useful to have a look at some of the ways we react to it without even realizing.

"Without music, life would be a mistake" - Friedrich Nietzsche

Of course, music affects many different areas of the brain, as you can see in the image below, so we're only scratching the surface with this post, but let's jump in.

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1. Happy/sad music affects how we see neutral faces:

We can usually pick if a piece of music is particularly happy or sad, but this isn't just a subjective idea that comes from how it makes us feel. In fact, our brains actually respond differently to happy and sad music.

Even short pieces of happy or sad music can affect us. One study showed that after hearing a short piece of music, participants were more likely to interpret a neutral expression as happy or sad, to match the tone of the music they heard. This also happened with other facial expressions, but was most notable for those that were close to neutral.

Something else that's really interesting about how our emotions are affected by musicis that there are two kind of emotions related to music: perceived emotions and felt emotions.

This means that sometimes we can understand the emotions of a piece of music without actually feeling them, which explains why some of us find listening to sad music enjoyable, rather than depressing.

Unlike in real life situations, we don't feel any real threat or danger when listening to music, so we can perceive the related emotions without truly feeling them-almost like vicarious emotions.

2. Ambient noise can improve creativity

We all like to pump up the tunes when we're powering through our to-do lists, right? But when it comes to creative work, loud music may not be the best option.

It turns out that a moderate noise level is the sweet spot for creativity. Even more than low noise levels, ambient noise apparently gets our creative juices flowing, and doesn't put us off the way high levels of noise do.

The way this works is that moderate noise levels increase processing difficulty which promotes abstract processing, leading to higher creativity. In other words, when we struggle (just enough) to process things as we normally would, we resort to more creative approaches.

In high noise levels, however, our creative thinking is impaired because we're overwhelmed and struggle to process information efficiently.

This is very similar to how temperature and lighting can affect our productivity, where paradoxically a slightly more crowded place can be beneficial.

3. Our music choices can predict our personality

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Take this one with a grain of salt, because it's only been tested on young adults (that I know of), but it's still really interesting.

In a study of couples who spent time getting to know each other, looking at each other's top ten favorite songs actually provided fairly reliable predictions as to the listener's personality traits.

The study used five personality traits for the test: openness to experience, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability.

Interestingly, some traits were more accurately predicted based on the person's listening habits than others. For instance, openness to experience, extraversion and emotional stability were the easiest to guess correctly. Conscientiousness, on the other hand, wasn't obvious based on musical taste.

Here is also a break-down of how the different genres correspond to our personality, according to a study conducted at Heriot-Watt University:

To break it down, here is the connection they have found:

Blues fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease

Jazz fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing and at ease

Classical music fans have high self-esteem, are creative, introvert and at ease

Rap fans have high self-esteem and are outgoing

Opera fans have high self-esteem, are creative and gentle

Country and western fans are hardworking and outgoing

Reggae fans have high self-esteem, are creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle and at ease

Dance fans are creative and outgoing but not gentle

Indie fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard working, and not gentle

Bollywood fans are creative and outgoing

Rock/heavy metal fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, and at ease

Chart pop fans have high self-esteem, are hardworking, outgoing and gentle, but are not creative and not at ease

Soul fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle, and at ease

Of course, generalizing based on this study is very hard. However looking at the science of introverts and extroverts, there is some clear overlap.

4. Music can significantly distract us while driving (contrary to common belief)

Another study done on teenagers and young adults focused on how their driving is affected by music.

Drivers were tested while listening to their own choice of music, silence or "safe" music choices provided by the researchers. Of course, their own music was preferred, but it also proved to be more distracting: drivers made more mistakes and drove more aggressively when listening to their own choice of music.

Even more surprising: music provided by the researchers proved to be more beneficial than no music at all. It seems that unfamiliar, or uninteresting, music is best for safe driving.

5. Music training can significantly improve our motor and reasoning skills

We generally assume that learning a musical instrument can be beneficial for kids, but it's actually useful in more ways than we might expect. One study showed that children who had three years or more musical instrument training performed better than those who didn't learn an instrument in auditory discrimination abilities and fine motor skills.

They also tested better on vocabulary and nonverbal reasoning skills, which involve understanding and analyzing visual information, such as identifying relationships, similarities and differences between shapes and patterns.

These two areas in particular are quite removed from musical training as we imagine it, so it's fascinating to see how learning to play an instrument can help kids develop such a wide variety of important skills.

Similar research shows this correlation for exercise and motor skills in the same way, which is also fascinating.

6. Classical music can improve visual attention

It's not just kids that can benefit from musical training or exposure. Stroke patients in one small study showed improved visual attention while listening to classical music.

The study also tried white noise and silence to compare the results, and found that, like the driving study mentioned earlier, silence resulted in the worst scores.

Because this study was so small, the conclusions need to be explored further for validation, but I find it really interesting how music and noise can affect our other senses and abilities-in this case, vision.

7. One-sided phone calls are more distracting than normal conversations

Another study focused on noise, rather than music, showed that when it comes to being distracted by the conversations of others, phone calls where we can only hear one side of the conversation are the worst offenders.

After a survey showed that up to 82% of people find overhearing cellphone conversations annoying, Veronica Galván, a cognitive psychologist at the University of San Diego, decided to study why these are such a pain.

In the study, participants completed word puzzles while one half of them overheard one side of a mundane phone conversation in the background. The other half of the volunteers heard the entire conversation as it took place between two people in the room.

Those who heard the one-sided phone conversation found it more distracting than those who heard both people speaking. They also remembered more of the conversation, showing that it had grabbed their attention more than those who heard both sides and didn't remember as much of the discussion.

The unpredictability of a one-sided conversation seems to be the cause of it grabbing our attention more. Hearing both sides of a conversation, on the other hand, gives us more context which makes it easier to tune out the distraction.

Then again, as we've explored before, getting distracted is often not such a bad things for various reasons.

8. Music helps us exercise

Back to music again, and we can see that just like silence doesn't help us to be more creative or better drivers, it's not much use when we're exercising, either.

Research on the effects of music during exercise has been done for years. In 1911, an American researcher, Leonard Ayres, found that cyclists pedaled faster while listening to music than they did in silence.

This happens because listening to music can drown out our brain's cries of fatigue. As our body realizes we're tired and wants to stop exercising, it sends signals to the brain to stop for a break. Listening to music competes for our brain's attention, and can help us to override those signals of fatigue, though this is mostly beneficial for low- and moderate-intensity exercise. During high-intensity exercise, music isn't as powerful at pulling our brain's attention away from the pain of the workout.

Not only can we push through the pain to exercise longer and harder when we listen to music, but it can actually help us to use our energy more efficiently. A 2012 study showed that cyclists who listened to music required 7% less oxygen to do the same work as those who cycled in silence.

Some recent research has shown that there's a ceiling effect on music at around 145 bpm, where anything higher doesn't seem to add much motivation, so keep that in mind when choosing your workout playlist. Here is how this breaks down for different genres:

Now if we team up these different "tempos" with the actual work-out we're doing, we can be in much better sync and find the right beat for our exercise. If you match up the above with the graphic below it should be super easy to get into a good groove:

So in the same way that exercising makes us happier, it's not surprising that music adds significantly to our work-out success.

What have you noticed about how music affects you? Let us know in the comments.

Image credits: Suites Culturelles, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Ali eminov, PaceDJ

Originally written Nov 20, 2013. Last updated Aug 26, 2016

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8 Amazing, Little-Known Ways Music Affects the Brain

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I'm a big fan of music, and use it a lot when working, but I had no idea about how it really affects our brains and bodies. Since music is such a big part of our lives, I thought it would be interesting and useful to have a look at some of the ways we react to it without even realizing.