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Why You Shouldn't Listen to Music While Studying | InformED

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Why You Shouldn't Listen to Music While Studying | InformED

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Deeper understanding of memory.

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Drowned in sound: how listening to music hinders learning | Teacher Network | The Guardian

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Drowned in sound: how listening to music hinders learning | Teacher Network | The Guardian

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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 | Education | 

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Does music really help you concentrate | Education | 

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Different types of music result in different outcomes.

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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.

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Benefits of Listening to Music in the Classroom

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Benefits of Listening to Music in the Classroom

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Musics affect on Attitude and Attention.

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The benefits of adding background music during learning are numerous. Music, one of the joys of life, can be one of the joys of learning as well.

Music stimulates students not only mentally, physically and emotionally, but also enhances creative learning states and understanding of the learning material. Music will make the learning process much more fun and more interesting. Music will set a positive mood at the start of the day or at the beginning of a class. It can reduce stress, relieve frustration and create a peaceful classroom environment. At the same time, it can help to encourage interaction, build classroom community, reduce anxiety, improve concentration, on-task behaviour, and enhance the way children can process language and speech.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN BRAIN AND MUSIC

A great spurt of neural integration occurs between ages seven and nine. The more music children are exposed to before they enter school, the more deeply this stage of neural coding will assist them throughout their lives. From nine to 11 the auditory pathway undergoes a further spurt, enhancing speech and listening. The nervous system is like a symphony orchestra with different rhythms, melodies and instrumentations. There are many rhythmic and melodic systems that keep the brain synchronised. Often external music movements or images bring the unconscious systems into expression.

BENEFITS OF MUSIC IN THE CLASSROOM

Integrating music in the classroom could result in many beneficial aspects, such as improving concentration, increasing retention of material, improving grades and accelerating learning, greater retention of material learned, high test scores and reduced stress and tension. The music not only helps eliminate 'white noises' but also creates a sustained supportive ambiance. As a result, it could reduce the students' frustration levels, enabling them to perform tasks effectively and efficiently.

The ability to retain information plays a big role in the education process. Retaining the material being taught is very important for the student. Classical music has been shown to aid in memory enhancement, which helps with all courses of study, especially those that stress knowledge. And the retention of material could lead to better grades, completion of tasks and assignments, and increased participation in the classroom. The emotion that music creates heightens involvement, which generates a stronger neural connection, which in turn makes it easier to remember information. Koppelman and Imig's research indicates that background music also enhances spelling and word retention. ¹ It has been found that using music to teach reading motivates and increases the reading ability of students. ² According to Michael Griffin, 'Do not let the students select the music, it is not about entertainment, but about establishing an environment to improve learning arousal.' ³ Use instrumental music and the volume must be low and consistent. ³

POSITIVE LEARNING STATE

Studies suggest that incorporating background music into the learning environment may help to improve students' academic performance and create a positive effect on cognitive development. Malyarenko studied the effects of background music in preschool settings. ⁴ He found that the music group members appeared to tire less easily than the controls. ⁴

Music creates emotion in people. This emotion can help them learn. This emotional state can be influenced by the type of music played in the classroom. Students are more likely to be working productively if they are in a healthy emotional state.

MUSIC WILL REDUCE STRESS

Many students are stressed. This may be from school-related activities or from home. Students cannot leave their negative emotions and worries at the classroom door. This leads to decreased motivation to learn which leads to decreased productivity. Students with stress are often more passive and cannot focus. Background music will reduce stress and these negative effects will fade for better achievement.

Music affects our chemical composition. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in the reward system of the body. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that makes people feel good. And dopamine, serotonin and endorphins are all released when music is played. These hormones will help the students to relax and reduce their stress levels.

ATTENTION AND ATTITUDE

Music stabilises mental, physical and emotional rhythm to attain a state of deep concentration and focus, to enable the student to process and learn large amounts of information. The rhythms and tempo of musical sound can assist students in setting and maintaining their attention and focus, by perking them up when they are weary, and also helping them to find peace and calmness when they are over-energised.

Baroque music such as composed by Bach, Handel and Telemann - 50 to 80 beats per minute - creates an atmosphere of focus that leads students into deep concentration in the alpha brain wave state. Then, on the other hand, Mozart's music assists in holding attention during sleepy times of day and helps students stay alert while reading or working on projects.

BENEFITS OF MOZART'S MUSIC

Mozart's music can improve test scores, cut learning time, calm hyperactive children, reduce errors, and improve creativity and clarity. At the same time it integrates both sides of the brain for more efficient learning. In a study at the University of California, students used a headset to listen to either white noise, relaxation music or Mozart for 10 minutes. The Mozart group performed better on spatial tasks than those in the other two groups. ⁵

MUSIC AND MATH SKILLS

Listening for, and responding to, short patterns in music also expands a child's understanding of the patterns in maths. It is well known that music improves cognitive skills, and studies show that music improves maths skills, especially when performing music as it reinforces parts of the brain you use when doing maths. ⁶

Tapping out a beat may help children learn difficult fraction concepts according to new findings. An innovative curriculum uses rhythm to teach fractions where students in a music-based programme scored significantly higher in math tests than their peers who received regular instruction.

Music and maths are both full of patterns. Out of simple rhythms, chants and games of pat-a-cake grows an ability to understand and manipulate patterns of big and small blocks. Moving in a different way for each section of music helps children begin to identify, through movements, the parts that make up the whole. ⁷

CONCLUSION

There are two main reasons why teachers should use background music in the classrooms: It will improve classroom behaviour and atmosphere and also the quality and quantity of the work. Music has the potential to be a special assistant in the classroom.

FATTY ACIDS

According to homeopath Dr Juanita Ferreira, 'Omega-3 fatty acids are an integral part of the brain and essential for its functioning as they help to keep the entire traffic pattern of thoughts, reactions and reflexes running smoothly and efficiently.'

Key omega-3 fatty acids contain eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA). Both are found primarily in oily cold-water fish such as tuna, salmon and mackerel. A general dietary guideline is to eat at least two portions of oily fish per week. In capsule form, the US Food and Drug Administration advises one gram, or 1 000 mg, per day.

References

1. Koppelman D, Imig S. The effect of music on children's writing content. Clearinghouse, 1-1. 1995. Retrieved 6 October 2006, from ERIC database (ERIC Item: ED383002).

2. Anderson S, Henke J, et al. Using background music to enhance memory and improve learning. 2006. Clearinghouse 1-30 Retrieved 6 October 2006, from ERIC database (ERIC Item: ED437663).

3. Griffin M. Learning strategies for musical success. Adelaide, Australia: Music Education World. 2013.

4. Malyarenko TN, Kuraev GA, et al. The development of brain electric activity in 4-year-old children by long-term sensory stimulation with music. Human Physiology. 1996;22: 76-81.

5. Rauscher FH, Shaw GL, et al. Music and spatial task performance. Nature. 1993; 365: 611.

6. Graziano AB, Peterson M, et al. Enhanced learning of proportional math through music training and spatial-temporal training. Neurological Research. 1999; 21:139-152.

7. Getting in rhythm helps children grasp fractions, study finds. San Francisco State University. Available from: http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/prsrelea/fy12/031.thml

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Benefits of Listening to Music in the Classroom - Natural Medicine World

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The benefits of adding background music during learning are numerous. Music, one of the joys of life, can be one of the joys of learning as well. Music stimulates students not only mentally, physically and emotionally, but also enhances creative learning states and understanding of the learning material.

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How music could help you to concentrate while studying

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How music could help you to concentrate while studying

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Further understanding of the Mozart Affect.

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It's fair to to say the majority of students prefer to study while listening to music. Whether frantically cramming some last-minute reading to Kanye, or finalising an essay to the sound of the Arctic Monkeys, go to any university or college library and the majority of students there will be listening to their music of choice.

Music is a very significant part of our daily lives; the image of the quietly-focused student isolating themselves into a personal study zone has led to interest into whether listening to music actually helps studies or not. Research into the field has proven fairly ambiguous, with many studies contradicting each other. However this does provide an useful insight for students who maybe looking into ways to use music to enhance their exam performance.

The most famous theory linking music and cognitive performance is the 'Mozart effect', the popular idea that listening to Mozart makes you smarter. The research itself was interested in the relation between Mozart and 'spatial-temporal reasoning', or knowing how to fit things into other things, basically. The idea that music - particularly classical - can improve exam results has endured, with websites such mozarteffect.com selling music supposedly designed to "charge the brain."

However, research has shown that performance in tasks involving memory and concentration was better in a silent environment, though, studying in place often disturbed by talkers, sneezers, or traffic, few students have access to a silent study space. Subjects tested in environments with background music were found to get better results than those tested against background noise. Therefore, taking along an iPod and a set of headphones may come in handy if you're looking to avoid being distracted by any ambient sounds.

The style, volume, rhythm and 'state' of the music a student listens to, as well as the personality of the student, can also be significant factors. Classical music is generally viewed as the best to listen to whilst studying, however there is no decisive research to back this. What has been proven is that listening to music which is constant in state, has a steady a repetitive pulse, and is not too loud is better for concentration than inconsistent musical styles, meaning you should probably avoid listening to anything labelled 'Mathcore' when trying to be productive. The same study also found evidence that people perform worse when listening to their preferred, rather than neutral, music.

Personality has also been shown to affect performance, with introverts more likely to test worse than extroverts. Similarly, people tested who are bad at multi-tasking have also been shown to test worse when listening to background music. For those who feel the pressure during exams, it has been observed that calming music, for example a Haydn string quartet, can help to reduce anxiety in an individual.

This highlights the main thing to consider when listening to music while studying: that how you do so really just depends on you. There is no decisive doctrine or absolute piece of research which tells you what to do, whether it's a Four Tet Boiler Room set or Cannibal Corpse you think helps you to study, do what you believe helps. Listening to music has been shown to cause the release of dopamine, meaning that it is a pleasurable, rewarding experience which can relax an individual.

On the whole, what a student can take from research is that using music to create an environment yourself is conducive towards the task you wish to complete.

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How music could help you to concentrate on work

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It's fair to to say the majority of students prefer to study while listening to music. Whether frantically cramming some last-minute reading to Kanye, or finalising an essay to the sound of the Arctic Monkeys, go to any university or college library and the majority of students there will be listening to their music of choice.

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By David A. Tomar

We made you a mix. It will make you smarter.

Okay, obviously, that's a pretty lofty promise, but we've found tons of evidence that studying to the right kind of music can improve focus, concentration, and productivity. It can even enhance your study experience by creating an association between good work habits and emotionally stimulating music.

Music plays a key evolutionary role in our ability to digest patterns, anticipate events, and create order out of the chaotic strands of human experience.

On top of that, music is just a generally awesome way to fill a quiet room. A pair of headphones can be a good antidote to a student lounge filled with yammering first-year students. A well-chosen album at a modest volume might be exactly what you need to drown out the sounds of your roommate, who doesn't realize the courteous thing to do is to put that "bloop" sound on mute while incessantly mass-texting.

But there's more to it than that. Music is more than a defense against weapons of mass distraction: according to some researchers, it may actually play a key evolutionary role in our ability to digest patterns, anticipate events, and create order out of the chaotic strands of human experience.

It's called the Mozart Effect, according to an article from The Learning Scientists:

The Mozart Effect is a brief enhancement of spatial-temporal abilities in college students after listening to a Mozart piano sonata. Rauscher, Shaw, and Ky conducted an experiment inviting students listen to Mozart's piano sonata, relaxation music, or nothing at all (silence condition) before performing a spatial reasoning task (a subtest from the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale). The researchers found that participants' performance on the spatial reasoning task improved after they had listened to the Mozart sonata compared to the other conditions.

This suggests two things: First, music can temporarily enhance your cognitive abilities. Second, it matters what kind of music you listen to. If you're studying to Justin Bieber, there are at least two levels on which this is not great for your brain.

Music of the Mind

According to a study conducted at the Stanford Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Laboratory, music engages the parts of the brain that control your attention span, your ability to make predictions, and the strength of your memory retention.

According to one of the study's co-authors, associate professor of music Jonathan Berger, "The study suggests one possible adaptive evolutionary purpose of music." Berger elaborated that music engages the brain over a period of time and that the process of listening might be "one way that the brain sharpens its ability to anticipate events and sustain attention."

For more on the cognitive impact of music consumption, consider checking out Focus@Will, which offers further discussion on the way music interacts with your neural functions along with a streaming music service designed to act on that discussion. Focus@Will describes itself as a "new music service based on human neuroscience. It helps you focus, reduce distractions, maintain your productivity and retain information when working, studying, writing and reading. The scientifically tested technology behind Focus@Will has been shown to alter brain activity toward a state that is more conducive to productivity."

If you're prepared to subscribe to something non-pharmaceutical that promises to alter your brain activity, this might be a good outlet for you.

Kill the DJ

Naturally, not every kind of music is ideal for working. For starters, taste is a major factor. The study mentioned above was conducted using eighteenth century classical music. If listening to classical music makes you feel like a brooding supervillain from a James Bond movie, J.S. Bach will probably do more harm than good. That is, unless you're studying to become a brooding super-villain - in which case, here ya go!

But it's not just about music that you find enjoyable. Something you may love when driving or jogging could be completely wrong for a night of cramming. Bob Dylan is a genius. His lyrics are thought-provoking. His imagery is evocative. His insights are revelatory. But man, is he distracting! I love Dylan as much as the next rock geek, but attempting to write an essay while listening to "Blonde On Blonde" is basically a verbal meth-binge. It gets kind of hard to tell where his words end and yours begin.

Glenn Schellenberg, a psychology professor from the University of Toronto, explains the problem here. He suggests that "The reason why it's a mess is you have cognitive limitations. If you're doing two things at once you don't focus as well."

But, says Professor Schellenberg, "We know that music changes how you feel, and often it can change how you feel in a positive way."

It's all about selecting the proper tunage for the proper occasion, the stuff that makes you feel exactly how you want to at exactly the right time. LCD Soundsystem on a Saturday night, Nick Drake on Sunday morning...maybe that new War On Drugs record for a Tuesday afternoon bus ride?

Soundtrack the moments of your life correctly.

Whatever you're into. I'm just saying, you have to soundtrack the moments of your life correctly. Of course, " Let Me Clear My Throat " is a stone-cold classic, but if you blast it at a coffee shop on Monday morning, everybody will hate you.

Choose Wisely

All of this is to say that your study music should make you feel studious. Select something that stimulates without distracting, that energizes without engaging, that motivates without dominating, that matches the tempo of your workflow and the mood of your moment.

A study conducted at the University of Wales found that students were equally distracted by lyric-based music that they liked and that they disliked. By contrast, students tended to be less distracted by music that was lyrically repetitive or instrumental.

Your study soundtrack should be largely comprised of sounds with minimal lyrical content. Look for instrumental music. Start with genres like jazz, classical, fusion, electronica, trip hop, and EDM. Dig into instrumental sub-genres like surf rock and hot rod tunes. I'd recommend Dick Dale for the former and Link Wray for the latter. Try a few of the 1960s bands that specialized exclusively in instrumental rock and roll, like the Ventures or Shadows. There are also all kinds of killer R&B instrumentals out there by guys like Bill Doggett and Illinos Jacquet. Then you've got virtuoso guitarists like John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola. I also like to mix in some cool film scores - you can't go wrong with Ennio Morricone.

If you crave the stimulation of vocals without the distraction of lyrics, consider digging into the international scene. Every culture offers its own rich and diverse musical vocabulary. And because you probably have no idea what the words mean, there's a good chance you'll be able to keep your mind on your work.

Dig into genres like Afrobeat ( Fela Kuti), Tropicalia ( Os Mutantes), Salsa ( Fania All Stars), Son ( Buena Vista Social Club), or Flamenco ( Paco de Lucia) for a taste of what's out there.

And most importantly, try to mix it up. Use these elements to create a playlist that flows alongside your work, that strides gently while you concentrate and climbs in tempo while you toil, that calms your anxiety when you need to chill, and kicks you into higher gear when your energy is flagging. You need a musical companion that is always present, always on the same page as you, but never up in your face.

Brilliant Bundle

Back when I was in college, if you wanted a new song for free, you had to download it on a service called Napster. This was the beginning of free music content online, but it also took forever and the quality was pretty terrible. If I wanted John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, I could be waiting a week for that thing to download. Once downloaded, I might find out it was actually Kid Rock's entire discography, intentionally mislabeled by somebody with a sick mind.

You don't know how lucky you are. This past September, top-notch music streaming service Spotify teamed up with video streaming service Hulu to create a $5 a month bundle just for college students. If you fall into that category, do it! That's an awesome deal. Spotify gives you an incredible amount of power when it comes to exploring music and creating study playlists.

I have nothing to gain by plugging Spotify. I just think it's incredibly worth the money. I would have killed for something like this in college. And as online educational tools go, it doesn't get much richer or deeper than the wealth of insight, knowledge, and inspiration within.

If you still need convincing, or you just want to borrow our playlist for your studies, that's great too. Check out our Spotify-compiled Brain Music Mix below. It's over six hours of instrumental music perfect for maintaining uninterrupted focus. Just don't forget to get up and stretch every once in awhile.

Happy studying!

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By David A. Tomar We made you a mix. It will make you smarter. Okay, obviously, that's a pretty lofty promise, but we've found tons of evidence that studying to the right kind of music can improve focus, concentration, and productivity.