The background music industry

• There is still ambiguity if listening to or playing the music causes the benefits.
• It is not known if stimulating or relaxing music is doing the healing.
• It is not known if the music is the person’s favourite music or of his liking, as opposed to something chosen by the experimenter.
• There are several other factors like a group playing vs individual playing of music, or a large random trial, which needs to be looked at in the future

If you know that you will eat junk food because your refrigerator is filled with it, remove all the junk food.

Just as removing friction aids in doing the activity more often, adding friction can aid to remove the bad habit, by making it difficult or cumbersome to do so.

Example: Cigarette smoking declined due to adding taxes, banning in public places and removing from vending machines.

• Counterfactual thinking makes us look at the events from multiple angles, making us mentally experience it from a different spectrum.
• Thinking with a counterfactual bend of mind boosts creativity in solving future challenges.
• It helps the thinker store important information that could impact the analysis and solutions of future events.
• A non-linear, non-mainstream way of thinking avoids the usual pitfalls of anger, anxiety, fear and grief when things go wrong. This sort of action-oriented approach comes with a positive bend of mind and a desire to do something, instead of getting stuck in an endless loop of worry and anxiety.

Playing the right music in the office motivates staff.

When you're concentrating, you'll want calmer, more relaxing music. At the end of the day, when you're feeling tired, you'll desire more upbeat music.

There are two possible ways music might be beneficial while working:

• It makes us feel good, therefore helping us to work through otherwise tedious tasks.
• It makes us smarter. The Mozart effect is a well-known example - that listening to a piano sonata composed by a genius can make you perform better.

Some famous composers' work has better cognitive benefits than others. Studies show that Mozart's sonata increased "alpha band" brain waves, which is linked to memory, cognition, and problem-solving.

• It improve self-awareness.
• It allows you to understand and see things from a different point of view. 
• It allows you to respond, not react.
• It facilitates a deeper level of learning.
• It improves confidence.
• It makes you challenge your assumptions.

• STOP: Take a step back from life or a particular situation.
• LOOK: Identify and get perspective on what you notice and see.
• LISTEN: Listen to your inner guide, the innate wisdom that bubbles up when you give it time and space to emerge.
• ACT: Identify the steps you need to take moving forward to adjust, change or improve.

One study supplemented Kenyan schoolchildren with three different types of soup (meat, milk and oil) as a snack over seven school terms. 

The children who ate the soup containing meat each day had a significant edge: they outperformed all the other children on a test for non-verbal reasoning. The children who received meat soup or soup with added oil did the best on arithmetic ability.

Several essential nutrients are not available from plants or fungi. Creatine, carnosine, taurine, EPA and DHA omega-3, haem iron and vitamins B12 and D3 generally only occur naturally in foods from animal products.

The nutrients found in vegan foods are minimal. To get the minimum amount of vitamin B6 each day from the richest plant sources, you'd have to eat about five cups worth of potatoes.

Rockers like Chuck Berry and Bill Haley, who idolized the legend Louis Jordan, strangely enough, sounded nothing like him. The new rockers, influenced by the previous generation of music, looked and sounded completely original and breathtaking.

Bill Haley and The Comets were a runaway success in 1955, having an R&B style yet a unique sound of their own.

... were recorded by producer Sam Phillips of Sun Label including Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis among other stalwarts.

The tunes were mostly rebellious, catering to the teen crowd, and the ‘Marginal Americans’, those living in the ghettos or doing lowly jobs. This segment helped rock & roll explode in the mid-Fifties, making it a social and generational disruption of the highest degree.

In 1986, a discovery was made that dopamine did not produce pleasure, but in fact, desire. While dopamine makes us want, pleasure comes from opioids and endocannabinoids ( a kind of marijuana produced in the brain), which paints pleasure on good experiences.

We cannot explain away our minds by brain mechanisms. Brain mechanisms are part of our minds.

Understanding that desire and dread, for instance, share the same brain operations, could help ease schizophrenia symptoms by restricting a particular dopamine neuron that produces fear.

• Musically, Nirvana popularized a sound and a DIY aesthetic.
• Culturally, Nirvana removed the distinction between the underground and mainstream and marked the end to the baby-boomer era.
• Aesthetically, they spawned “grungy” fashion, while the Nirvana T-shirt - a yellow logo and a smiley face - remains a festival favorite.

• Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl, all in their early-to-mid 20s, had left independent label Sub Pop and signed to DGC Records, a subsidiary of major label Geffen Records.
• Sub Pop was almost entirely responsible for the grunge sound of sludgy and detuned guitars, with darkly neurotic lyrics.
• Moving to a major was grounds for "public hanging," where any push for commerciality was seen as selling out. But Nirvana wanted to break out and strive for broader recognition.
• The frame of Nevermind's 12 tracks were recorded in a week. Nevermind joined the central tenents of the grunge sound - crunching guitars and loud vocals - with memorable tunes.
• In covering the dual bases of noise and melody, Nevermind ensured Nirvana had crossover appeal to young and old, fans of punk and folk alike.
• "Nevermind" sold a million copies in the US alone. The alternative was now mainstream.