“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here!” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Music has many more benefits than just pleasure. It is used by millionaires across the world to help them focus, calm down and even to cure their diseases. So why don’t you harness these powers too? Well, you can.
First, we need to break down its benefits into 4 simple bullet points:
Focus
Anxiety and Stress
Fatigue
Health
Focus
We all love listen to our favourite songs while working. That’s because music activates both the right and left hemispheres of our brains at the same time, maximising memory and learning. Also it’s release of ‘happy chemicals’ such as dopamine and serotonin help us focus, the happier mood encourages us to work and focus as we don’t worry as much about external problems when happy.
Anxiety and Stress
Do you often feel anxious? Music helps calm you, when we feel anxious our bodies release a strong chemical called ‘cortisol’, the stress hormone. Music drastically lowers the amount of cortisol produced by the brain, thus helping our bodies to calm down and reduce anxiety.
Health
Has your heart rate ever felt too high? Our heart health is extremely important and needs to be kept at a healthy pace. Long term effects of a high heart rate can lead to lots of fatal problems including heart failure, stroke, and cardiac arrest. When listening to music our heartbeat adjusts to the rhythm of the music, allowing us to slow down our heart and defend against these fatal heart problems.
Fatigue
Over 40% of people under the age of 30 experience sleepiness and 30% experience fatigue (low energy while doing normal activities). Have you ever been working late into the night, falling asleep while you try to finish that one assignment, put on some music and suddenly you are awake again. That’s because music also energises us, as shown in a study made in 2015. Scientists found that when playing music, it hugely reduced the fatigue in people when engaged in a task.
So How Do You Maximise These Benefits?
Now that you know the 4 hidden benefits behind music, how do we use them.
Millionaires use music as a tool, choosing music to aid them and help them to achieve their goals. So lets look at the genres of music we should be listening to.
Instrumental Music. All successful people listen to instrumental music while working, they may listen to other genres of music such as rap or pop at other times, but when they are working they have a strict music taste. So what music genres fall under the ‘millionaire’ catagory:
Ambient Background Music/Sounds
Jazz
Classical Music
But why only these instrumental style genres?
Scientists agree that this type of music doesn’t really have any ‘special’ benefits over other music genres but it’s their lack of vocals thats sets them apart. They still have the same boosts of increased focus, increase in dopamine and reduced stress as the others, but they contain no distracting vocals, allowing you to focus on your work much more easily.
Conclusion
Now you know why millionaires listen to so much music and the science behind its benefits. It helps us focus, reduces stress, and helps us all live a longer life. So, if you’re ever un-focused, feeling anxious or stressed and just feeling a bit tired. Just listen to some music, particularly jazz, classical or even background music if thats your thing.
Commonly Asked Questions:
Is it bad to fall asleep while listening to music? It’s fine to fall asleep listening to music, Breus says, but don’t wear earbuds or headphones to bed. They can be uncomfortable, and if you roll over wearing earbuds, you could hurt your ear canal.
Could it be unhealthy? People should listen to music for no more than one hour a day to protect their hearing, the World Health Organization suggests. It says 1.1 billion teenagers and young adults are at risk of permanently damaging their hearing by listening to “too much, too loudly
Can music raise your IQ? A preference for instrumental music indicates higher intelligence, research finds. People who like ambient music, smooth jazz, film soundtracks, classical music and similar genres without vocals tend to have higher IQs.
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