Music and the Mind

We often talk about how dressing up well and looking freat can make you feel better and give you the right attitude. Furthermore, we always associate this process with the process that takes place when you are listening to music, as we believe that you should expand your mood-enhancers beyond fashion and that you should be in harmony with all the things in your life. We call this metafashion.

Music and sounds in general have a great impact on the human mind, as they influence our emotions, our attitude and our cognitive abilities.

Sounds have always been an important part of human life. Today a lot of sounds that we hear on a daily basis are just noises. We always hear street sounds, cars, construction sites sounds and so on and pretend that they do not exist. Because we are suppressing sounds, our relationship with the world of sounds has become quite unconscious and most of us don’t take much time to think about it. Sounds have physiological, psychological, cognitive and behavioral impact.

Whether we feel it consciously or not, sounds impact our hormones, our breathing and our heart rate. Just think about what you feel like when you hear something very loud that you were not expecting. Smaller sounds have the same impact on our lives, but on a smaller scale. However, if this impact is repetitive and sometimes, constant, the effect will be visible in time, regardless of it being a good effect or a bad one.

Some effects have a rather fast impact on our perception of the world. For example, the sound of the sea heard from a beach has about 12 cycles/minute. This frequency is almost the frequency of a breathing person. This is why most people feel relaxed after listening to this sound for a few minutes. Maybe this is the reason so many people find it useful to sleep while hearing ocean waves in their headphones or in their sleeping environments.

Some sounds do not have such an obvious impact on our lives, but this does not mean that the impact is not there. Hearing birds sing will make us feel safe. This comes from prehistoric times, when hearing birds singing meant that everything was fine and that there were no dangers around.

Concentrating on positive sounds can have a really big impact on our lives. On the opposite side, being surrounded by noise or illogically mixed sounds can harm our moods. Humans have a limited bandwidth to process sounds, so living or working in a chaotic environment can make it harder for you to concentrate and to lower your productivity. According to a study, people who work in busy and noisy offices are 66% less productive than they would be in a more quiet environment.

 

And while individual sounds can be so powerful, the impact music can have on our minds is absolutely fascinating. Music and the mind are highly connected. Music is one of the few things that we associate extremely fast with something and that can place us in a certain mood, good or bad, immediately.

According to some researchers, the kind of music we like influences our brain and the way we feel. There isn’t a type of music that influences it in one way or the other. Our favorite music can actually activate the part of the brain that is vital to processing emotions.

Just like certain foods can impact our memory, our capacity to concentrate and other processes, so does listening to music. According to a study, listening to Mozart can improve your spacial perception by a lot. It was believed that the music composed by Mozart does actually have an impact on how creative you are or how you can solve a problem. Further studies have shown that it wasn’t Mozart in particular that made the people who volunteered for the tests smarter, it was simply the fact that they liked Mozart. It seems that it’s not Mozart or music in general that makes you smart, it’s listening to something you like. This can be an audiobook or another source of sound. Singing or making your own music can also be very therapeutic for those who need it. In fact, music is often used with therapeutic purposes. It can impact the way you perceive things, as some medical tests concluded.

Music can also reduce pain, aid one’s recovery after a stroke and even improve endurance. This way, listening to music you like can make your work or sport endurance a lot better. Music even helps patients who suffer from Parkinson’s walk better.

One thing is for sure: music can impact our mood very much .This is something that you need to take into consideration, as it is very important. It is important because it has been shown that having mood problems or issues with your energy levels can result in a very low cognitive performance. Somebody who is depressed, even though they are functioning very well in terms of cognition, can perform pretty much like somebody who suffers from dementia.

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the fact that music can affect a baby’s brain development and turn it into a smart kid. Some people even think that playing music to a child before it is born will make him or her a more intelligent person. And while studies have shown that music does not affect the development of your brain, it does affect, as stated before, one’s mood.

 

All these are reasons why you should surround yourself with music and sounds you like and that, like your clothes, reflect your personality and boost you energy levels and enhance your mood. Taking control of the sounds around you is good for your health, your productivity and a lot more!

 

Fraquoh and Franchomme

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. What role does music have in your life? How do you use music to change your mood? What sounds do you like or dislike? Share your comments below!