Music improves physical performance

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.

....depends on a few factors:

• How many lyrics the song has.
• How familiar you are with the song.
• How repetitive the task that you’re working on while listening to music is.
• Whether you are engaging i...

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 for long periods of time.

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.

Studies show that music with lyrics reduces our mental performance at work, with performance being reduced with increased speech intelligibility - the more voices we can hear while working, including lyrics, the lower our productivity.

Meanwhile, instrumental music could boost our...

Listening to music you enjoy makes the brain release dopamine, which makes you feel good, and reduces stress and anxiety.

Music has the power to improve our mood, which in turn could improve our ability to focus and concentrate on the task at hand.