Music for Health
The Benefits and Detriments of Music to Overall Health
Music is used to connect people culturally, express strongly held opinions, or get through the grind of the day. As you can see, music is an integral aspect of our daily lives. But did you know that volume, genre, and frequency of music can affect our health? There is widespread contention from the scientific community in regards to the efficacy of music. While some scholars believe that certain types of music correlate with increased intelligence, others cite that it stimulates distraction and inattention.
Pro: Classical Music Bolsters Spatial Intelligence
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Music has the power to evoke emotion, empowerment, and equanimity; however, certain music has been scientifically proven to increase intelligence. Scientist Gordon L. Shaw co-founded the theory of the Mozart Effect at the University of California, Irvine; this theory demonstrated that listening to classical music for long periods of time can increase one’s capacity for spatial reasoning. Spatial reasoning is defined as “the ability to mentally move objects in space and time to solve multi-step problems”. Shaw and his graduate student created a brain model and used musical notes to correlate to brain activity, and eventually realized that the sounds picked up in the brain represented classical music.
Many subsequent experiments confirmed the relationship between classical music and increased spatial intelligence. One of Shaw’s personal studies resulted in college students increasing their IQs by nine points upon listening to Mozart’s “Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major.” In another study, a group of three to four-year-olds were given keyboard lessons for four to six months, and their spatial and temporal reasoning was measured to be 34% better compared to those who did not receive piano lessons.
With the rise in advanced technology, scientists are currently studying neural circuits from infancy to childhood and hope to draw stronger correlations between classical music and intelligence. In the meantime, it’s safe to say that expanding our repertoire of classical music in our daily lives may, in fact, improve our overall intelligence quotient.
Con: Music Hinders Attention Span
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In this day and age, millennials are buried under their headphones in their ears while carrying out day to day tasks such as driving or studying. Despite the ubiquity of the scene, the type of music and its noise level limits a person’s attention span and can be detrimental to overall health.
One study conducted by the University of Wales discovered that listening to music can impede performance. For this study, there were 25 test subjects between the ages of 18 and 30; they had to memorize and later recollect a specific list of letters given to them under quiet conditions, with favorable or unfavorable music, and with audio reciting numbers. The study concluded that students“performed the worst while listening to music, regardless of whether they liked that music, and to the speech of random numbers,” thus proving that music hinders the process of learning.
This idea that music decreases attention span is further demonstrated through the dangers of distracted driving. Participants have a slower reaction time when exposed to loud music. Another study noted that their driving performance worsened with one’s preferred music, including more traffic violations and errors and aggression in driving. Additionally, the volume of the music is important to consider. A study conducted in Canada demonstrated that reaction times decreased up to 20 percent upon being exposed to loud volume, thus increasing motorists accidents.
While music does bring about certain health benefits, it can be detrimental if the projection is not used in moderation. Since music can deter our concentration during cognitively challenging tasks, perhaps it is best to keep the volume at a normal tempo and listen only for a few hours. Moderation of music, when exercised with caution, has the power to make us more alert, aware, and cognizant of our actions and our surroundings.
Regardless of the varied perspectives, the purpose of this pro and con article is to shed some perspective on music and health and help formulate your own opinions. Comment below if you resonate with any of these views or if you have experienced some of the same health effects through music!
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