Think Better – the Mozart Effect and You

Do you have a favorite song? One of those songs that as soon as you hear it, you have an immediate reaction. Your heart gets happy. You smile,  Your toes might start tapping.  You may even sing along. You remember who you were with and what you were doing when you heard it for the first time. Many of us have a deep personal connection to certain songs or certain types of music. Music can motivate us and pump us up. I remember when my daughter played volleyball. Before a big tournament, their coach would blast Eminem’s Lose Yourself to pump them up.

“You better lose yourself in the music, the moment

You own it, you better never let it go

You only get one shot, do not miss your chance and blow

This opportunity comes once in a lifetime.”

Listening to the words and the beat motivated the girls. Every time I hear it, i get a vivid image of eight young girls storming the court ready to play.

Music is konwn to reduce blood pressure, improve mood, reduce stress and anxiety, and energize us. It can also positively impact our ability to learn concepts and helps with improved attention and memory.

This is due to the Mozart Effect.

What is the Mozart Effect?

The Mozart Effect proposes that listening to classical music, such as Mozart, can make you smarter. The term was first coined in 1993 by scientists at the University of California.  They had one group of volunteers listen to a Mozart sonata for ten minutes, while another group listened to audios designed to relax and lower blood pressure for ten minutes.  you can listen to the sonata in the video below.

The results?

The students who listened to Mozart had a significant increase in their spatial reasoning leading to the conclusion that classical music would increase brain function and help students retain more information and perform better on tests.

While not everyone likes the same type of music, and music doesn’t always affect everyone in the same way, it is true that some kinds of music boost concentration, memory and wake our brain.

What Can Music Do?

1. Improve Your Mood. Good music reduces stress and encourages us to think positively. When we feel better, are less stressed, and are more motivated, learning is more manageable, and we retain concepts more quickly.
2. Increased focus. It’s been shown that classical music helps us retain information more easily. According to a study done by Stanford University, our brains take the thousands of pieces of information being thrown at it on a second-by-second basis and segments that information into smaller bits of information. Music helps the brain absorb that information more quickly and easily and assimilate what you’re trying to learn into memory. It also helps us make better inferences so during a test.  Even if you can’t recall an answer specifically, your ability to reason your way to the correct answer is improved.
3. Motivate you. While it would be nice if music could trigger the super-secret part of your brain that knows all and remembers all, that’s not exactly how things work. However, certain types of music can motivate you during a problematic study session. According to a study published on PNAS.org, music activates the same reward centers in the brain as our favorite things do. So listening to music while you study or rewarding yourself with a favorite song once the studying is complete can make study time more enjoyable.
4. Enhance memory. Music, especially classical music, encourages better performance on memory and cognition tasks according to a study published on the National Institute of Health website. This study explicitly addressed the impact of music on cognitive tasks performed by older adults suggesting that listening to classical music can improve our memories and performance on other cognitive functions such as test-taking and homework.

What The Experts Say

A study conducted in the United States of college students listening to classical music while in class, studying, and during sleep proved that those students who used music performed better on exams than those who didn’t. This study finds that classical music could be a key element in helping students remember topics covered in their classes at school.

Another interesting study released by the Institute of Education demonstrated that children who listen to classical music have enhanced listening skills and an increased attention span at school. Parents who expose their children to classical music from an early age also produce children who appreciate a wide range of music later in life.

How does this benefit me?

Even if you’re not a student, you can benefit from music. We can use music to enhance our memories at any stage of life. Music helps relieve the symptoms of anxiety and stress and can help ease dementia symptoms.  When we listen to beautiful harmonies, our brains use the frequency following response to sync with the music. The BrainTap audio sessions in the BrainTap Pro App use 10Hz or ten cycle music, which triggers the same responses in our body as meditation. This puts our biology in a better space to learn new information. That’s one of the reasons BrainTap works so well to initiate changes we want to make in our lives. Learning and retaining new information–such as relaxation techniques or healthy eating habits–is easy and effortless when our brains are primed with the proper tools.