Have you ever used music at work to jack up productivity or change your mood? Interestingly some rhythms. such as baroque,
induce enzymes in the brain and add amazing well being and focus.
Other tunes leave you punchy … and unable to focus. Has it happened to
you?
Music holds an immensely powerful influence over the brain and yet few workplaces benefit from addictive musical sounds. Listen to inspirational music and calm your thinking to see how it works. Or ratchet up brainpower with Makeba’s, Pata Pata. Then read on to discover what research could offer your day.
Across genres, you’ll find that music puts you in
touch with your inner beliefs and desires and the cadence can create an
amazing mental landscape for you to read, relax or reflect on your day.
Or it can make you moody, edgy and anxious. How so? Music shifts your brain waves that control how neurons talk to one another. Watch the visible shift happen for people in this video.
Start with your favorite tunes from Psychologist Don Campbell’s
list here and tell us how music alters your mental states. In his book
The Mozart Effect, Campbell shows the following results for listeners:
Gregorian chant creates quiet in our minds and can reduce stress.
Slower Baroque music, such as
Bach, Handel, Vivaldi or Corelli, can create mentally stimulating
environments for creativity and new innovations.
Classical music, such as Haydn and Mozart, often improves concentration and memory when played in the background.
Romantic music, such as Schubert,
Schumann, Tchaikovsky , Chopin and Liszt, enhances our senses and
increases a sense of sympathy and love.
Impressionist music, such as
Debussy, Faure and Ravel, can unlock dreamlike images that put us in
touch with our unconscious thoughts and belief systems.
Jazz, blues, soul or calypso music can uplift and inspire us, releasing deep joy or even deep sadness, conveying wit and affirming our common humanity.
Salsa, rhumba, merengue and any
form of South American music sets our hearts racing, gets us moving,
both relaxing us and awakening us at the same time.
Big band, Top 40 and country music engage our emotions and comfort us.
Rock music, from Elvis Presley to
the Rolling Stones, stirs passion and activity, and so can release daily
tensions. Rock can also mask pain and cover up unpleasant noises. It
also has the power to create dissonance, stress or physical pain if we
are not in the mood for energizing.
Ambient or New Age music such as
Stephen Halpern and Brian Eno has no dominant rhythm, so it elongates
the sense of space and time, inducing a state of relaxed alertness.
Heavy metal and hip-hop music excites our nervous system, and sometimes leads us into acting out dynamic behavior and self-expression.
Religious and sacred music such as
hymns and gospel moves us to feel grounded in the moment, and leads to
deep peace and spiritual awareness. Sacred music often helps us to
transcend pain.
Consider what tomorrow could bring at work if you
swing a bar or two of mental and musical acumen into a project today.
It’s also fun to match the music with the moment and watch what you
learn
Not surprisingly, research
also suggests that music may recruit neural mechanisms similar to those
previously associated with pleasant or unpleasant emotional states.
