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The Science Backed Ways Music Affects Your Brain and Productivity
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Effects of music on productivity
- Listening to music with lyrics is distracting for most people. It’s best to avoid it when working on tasks that require focus or the learning of new information.
- Listening to music with lyrics may help people working on repetitive or mundane tasks.
- Classical or rock music allows people to identify numbers more quickly and accurately.
- Ambient noise, or ambient music, at about 70 decibels can be the best kind of music for work productivity. But increasing it over 85 decibels hurts creativity.
- Searching for the right artist can detract from workplace productivity but, once you know what works for you, music can become a tool for near-instant concentration.
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Music and the brain
Music has a real impact on human emotions and perception. Music activates different areas of the brain in different people, but there are general brain and mood patterns revealed by music research.
For the most part, research suggests that listening to music can improve your efficiency, creativity and happiness in terms of work-related tasks.
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Music and work
Music and repetitive tasks
When a task is clearly defined and repetitive in nature, music makes it more enjoyable.
It isn’t the music itself, but rather the improved mood your favorite music brings that will give a boost in productivity.
Ambient noise
Moderate noise level can get creative juices flowing, but the line is easily crossed; loud noises made it incredibly difficult to concentrate.
Bellowing basses and screeching synths will do you more harm than good when engaging in deep work.
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Happy/sad music
Our brains respond differently to happy or sad music.
One study revealed that participants interpreted a neutral expression as happy or sad to match the tone of the music they heard.
Ambient noise can improve creativity
A moderate noise level is ideal to improve our creativity. It increases the processing difficulty which stimulates abstract processing, leading to higher creativity.
High noise levels impair our creative thinking because we feel overwhelmed and struggle to process information properly.
Music and personality
Different genres correspond to our personality. For instance:
- Blues and Jazz fans have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease
- Classical music fans have high self-esteem, are creative, introvert and at ease
- Opera fans have high self-esteem, are creative and gentle
- Rock/heavy metal fans have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, and at ease
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Music between tasks could boost productivity
Although there may be detrimental effects of listening to music while working, listening to music in between tasks can boost your mental performance and the ability to concentrate on a task ...
Music familiarity is best for focus
Certain regions in our brain—which evoke strong emotions and improve concentration—are more active when we listen to familiar rather than unfamiliar music.
Plus, when we listen to unfamiliar music we’re more likely to lose focus, while adjusting to the new sound.
Music and repetitive tasks
Music can make repetitive tasks more pleasurable and increase your concentration on the task.
For example, one study discovered that music could improve the performance of surgeons who take on repetitive nonsurgical laboratory tasks.