Music and Its Influence on Our Moods

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” ~ Bob Marley

Music plays a special role in most of our lives.  It evokes a response that is universal.  It can take you back to a place and time long ago.  It can change your mood.  It can inspire, or it can make you cry.  It can get you through a long morning commute or accompany you in a workout at the gym.  Music can help you pass the time while you are doing mundane chores like laundry.  Employees have been found to be more productive when allowed to listen to their preferred music choices over those who have no control over their musical choices.  But even background music increases performance and accuracy in employees and also enables efficiency in repetitive tasks.  Music has been a teacher to us as children, helping us learn the alphabet and numbers.  Like with color, advertisers exploit music to get us excited to buy the products that they are peddling.  Example:  McDonald’s jingle for a Big Mac:  “Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.”  Don’t tell me you didn’t have that tune playing in your head as you read that line!

It may create a timestamp in your mind.  For instance, the song “Amazing” by Aerosmith was popular when I found out that I was pregnant.  When my grandfather died, I listened to the song “Creep” by Radiohead as we were driving to the gravesite.  Two very different songs, but when I hear them, I am brought back to specific places and times along with all the emotion that went with them.  Even listening to “sad” music is beneficial in a cathartic way.   

Music has been influencing the human race since nearly the dawn of man.  Bone flutes have been dated back to between 40,000-80,000 years ago.  The first instrument, however, was the human voice.  It is thought that primitive man probably communicated emotion before the constructs of language were established.  Before there was writing, our ancestors used music to help them remember things. 

The brain’s relationship with music is fantastic.  When a musician sits down at a piano, several things happen.  The brain executes a motor-action plan, which is a sequence of events that unfold in a particular order.  Your brain relays information to your fingers as to what pattern of notes to play in what order.  As you rehearse these movements repeatedly, you strengthen the neural circuits in your brain.  Like the saying, practice makes perfect!  Music is also associated with the brain’s reward system.  As we play or listen to music, dopamine is released.  This process is similar to what happens in your brain in response to sex or food, except unlike the other two, there is no survival value involved in music.  Oxytocin is also released by singing.  It is often referred to as the “cuddle hormone”.  Serotonin levels can increase after listening to music.  

It is proven that music improves the health and function of our brains.  By listening to and playing music, we become more intelligent and happier regardless of our stage of life.  Children who study music and the arts do better in Math and Science.  Stanford University of Medicine investigated the power of music on the mind, and they found that when people listen to music, their attention spans can be increased.  They learned this by the brain images of people as they listened to music and even in the pauses in between musical movements and pieces.  During these pauses, there was still activity in the brain, which led them to believe that the brain anticipates events to come.

Music influences our behavior.  It affects the brain as well as other body structures, which can be observable and measurable.  Music is the only sensory experience that can activate all areas of the brain simultaneously.  This affects a person’s cognitive, emotional, and physical functions.  Because of this, music therapy is used successfully in rehabilitation, education, and wellness programs.  Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital offers a music therapy program to work with children of all ages and their families to create individualized interventions to aid their patients.  Music therapy can help with pain management, anxiety, stress, socialization, coping, sensory stimulation, memory building, and enhancing mood.  For example, classical music tends to have a calming and relaxing effect.  That being said, no matter what type of music, your brain prefers the same kind of music that you do.  It depends on personal experiences, background, and preferences, much like with color. 

How does this happen?  There have been studies that used brain imaging to show that the right hemisphere is activated when listening to music in relation to the emotional experience.  Even just imagining music activates this part of the brain.  Plato thought that music would arouse different emotions, and there seems to have been a link between music and emotion for most of human existence.  Even the tempo of the music affects our moods, for example, slower music seems less joyous than faster rhythms. 

A study by Michael H. Thaut, PhD., a Music Professor of Neuroscience, has shown that music’s relationship to the brain can actively facilitate the recovery of movement in patients with cerebral palsy, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, and traumatic brain injury.  Another study called Music Therapy for Depression by A. Maratos, C. Gold, X. Wang, and M. Crawford of patients with memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease suggested that musical traces can be deeply ingrained and are more resilient to these neurodegenerative influences.  Another study from the University of Central Florida found that Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s patients responded positively to music.  Some studies suggest that learning new skills, like how to play a musical instrument, may possibly help stave off dementia.  There is evidence to support that music can decrease the frequency of seizures in children with epilepsy in both awake and sleep states.  And yet another study in the Trends in Cognitive Sciences journal showed that patients who listened to music prior to surgery had lower cortisol levels and less anxiety than those who took anti-anxiety medications.