Everyone listens to music while they work: it keeps your mind from wandering, but it also helps you stay on task. People love to listen to music while working, cleaning, or even exercising. Today we’ll be looking at how music can improve overall productivity, as listed in a BusinessNewsDaily article.
The science behind music and the brain
Are you aware of the theory of the Mozart effect? For years, people believed that if you listened to classical music that you’d become smarter. That has been proven wrong in the following years, as it only boosts your spatial-temporal reasoning for about fifteen minutes.
What we did find out is that music can help the brain create dopamine. This stimulates the prefrontal cortex– the part of the brain responsible for most planning, organizing, inhibition control, and attention.
The more dopamine that’s produced gives the prefrontal cortex the ability to be more productive if you’re listening to music that you enjoy.
Types of music that increases productivity
There are two different thoughts about this sort of sentiment. According to Daniel Barolsky and Saunders, the best type of music is the genre that makes you the happiest, but songs that you’re so familiar with that you’re not listening to the lyrics as you work, keeping your attention on the task at hand. This creates a good background ambiance that increases dopamine levels that don’t distract you.
Mental health expert Will Tottle, on the other hand, feels pretty confident about the genres that he has in mind: nature sounds, video game/movie soundtracks, funk, as well as classical music. His thoughts are that because there aren’t words, it lowers the risk of distractions, and it elevates the mood as you listen, so it has the added benefit of raising dopamine levels.
Tasks affected by music
Music can help you accomplish the tasks you want to complete, as long as the tasks that you’re trying to accomplish include planning, organizing, as well as the need to pay attention. Exercising is linked to the tempo of the music, as the high tempo motivates you to keep going, or it could even be presented as a positive distraction from the exhaustion you could feel.