Music is with us even before we were born: the rhythm of our mother’s pulse accompanies our birth. It generates emotions, takes you to past places and moments, helps you connect. Some studies have shown that music to study better is key to excellent learning.
What happens to the brain when we listen to music?
The brain works by impulses, hormones, and chemical reactions. Studying, learning, memorizing and developing takes your brain an extra effort. It has always been insisted that the left hemisphere is responsible for our motor capacity, as well as where most of our language develops: listening, speaking, calculations, memory.
The side attributed to logic. Law, on the other hand, is responsible for our spatial capacity, facial recognition and music processing. The one that helps us understand, interpret, analyze the context. It is the side attributed to creativity.
Music to study better?
The first studies on the effect of music were based on classical music, considered from the Academy, from scholars and great minds. Their results showed a greater incidence on the right side of our brain, so it was of great help in creative processes and logical approaches. The latest studies conclude, broadly speaking, that brain structures are not so differentiated according to the sides of the hemisphere and that they actually work together.
Thus, the music would influence the central part, the one in charge of uniting them, achieving a greater neuronal connection; Yes, both currents agree that the emotional state to which it transports you influences brain functioning. If it is positive, it helps the assimilation of knowledge, since the activity of the hormone dopamine helps in synaptic connection, learning and also in memory.
Thus, for a lot, classical music is the best music with which to relax and be able to concentrate and perform. But classical music does not work the same for all of us, there may even be those who produce the opposite of relaxation.
Alpha waves, music and study
Some studies conclude that the music to study better is the one that activates the alpha waves, those responsible for our relaxation. Our brain functions as an electromagnetic central: it uses four types of waves to make neural connections for all sorts of voluntary and involuntary actions. Alpha waves emanate from our brain when it sits in relaxation. They help our concentration and mnemonic capacity and are basic to improve the potential of your mind. These results recommend listening to music before studying: this is how time is spent concentrating and reaching a high state of relaxation, preparing the brain before exertion.
For alpha waves to be useful for better study, you will need to strike a balance between consciousness and subconsciousness. This way you will get your brain to work at a double level: with the conscious part we concentrate on matter and with the subconscious, we memorize and assimilate.
The first thing to emphasize is that music should make you feel good, since your whole brain works in unison. Emotions activate and connect the brain, and only those related to pleasure help in memory and recall. On the contrary, it happens with unpleasant sensations, which our brain is designed not to retain naturally.
What some studies do conclude is that melody or music without lyrics by general line, works better than songs with lyrics, since they can unconsciously lead us to hum and deconcentrate. Something similar happens with very lively music: our body focuses more on coordinating or moving than on retaining and does not help to study better.
Does your mind need music to study better?
Your mind may need music to study better. Or maybe you’ll perform better being in complete silence. What is certain is that resting the necessary hours, maintaining a state of relaxation during the study, sleeping or breathing correctly are some small tricks that you can carry out so that your study time is optimal.
Whether they are hard rock groups, or classical music, music can be a great help when studying, which is why most students prefer to listen to music while studying. If you go to any public library or a university, you can see how most of the students who are there, will be listening to music that is of their preference.
There was a test where people who were tested with music in noisy places performed better than people tested with background noise. At the end of the day, music can be very useful to study without needing to be a distraction.
Some analyses have shown that the type of music can help relax the mind that allows you to concentrate better to perform tasks in a more effective way and without exhaustion. This reduces the level of distractions and helps you focus better on your tasks. In addition, it can be very useful when memorizing complex texts.
With music people manage to omit all kinds of unpleasant sounds, including rumors caused by the continuous talking of people studying in your same environment, notifications from mobile applications, email, text message or phone calls, or even the continuous tapping of your own keyboard or those around you.
Students who listen to classical music while studying get better results.
Music can be a good way to memorize because of its rhythm. Listening to music with 50-80 beats per minute, such as Justin Timberlake’s “Mirror” and Gary Barlow’s “Back for Good,” has a calming effect on the mind that is conducive to logical thinking, allowing the brain to learn and remember new facts.
It was also shown that to consolidate the information in the mind it is recommended to listen to what is known as “Passive Concert” which is a melodic piece or a baroque of classical music, which helps to consolidate the information in your long-term memory.
The best music to study
It is said that for the study you need to have a calm environment without distractions. But, for those cases in which you study in an excessively quiet environment in which nothing and no one disturbs your concentration this can even be unfavorable. This “calm environment” can cause the person to end the fight against boredom and give in to the seduction of falling asleep at their desk. For this reason it is important to know that music is often not only important, but even necessary.
The real challenge facing a person who is trying to study is to avoid any kind of distraction that impedes the ultimate purpose: to learn what is being studied. For this reason, it is important to select the right music for this purpose. Choosing the wrong or inappropriate type of music can end up distracting the person from their ultimate goal.
How to choose
In this way, following the following tips you can choose the best music to study:
- It must be determined at what time of day it will be studied. If it is in the morning, a more contemporary type of music is recommended. While if you study at night, something more cheerful is recommended to overcome the stress and fatigue accumulated throughout the day.
- It is important to choose a type of music that is to the person’s liking. In general, those who listen to music to study, enjoy it, complete their tasks faster, and have better ideas compared to those who did not.
- Other very important elements to take into account is to prevent music from going from being a support element for the study to an element of distraction. If it is common for us to sing the songs we are listening to or that many times we think about topics related to the song and not so with the studio, then we will know that we have not chosen the right option. Trying among the different types of music that we like will help us select the most appropriate to achieve our purposes.
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