Written by: Ashwot Acharya - 22021, Grade XII
Posted on: 26 January, 2022
Music is one of the most amazing ways to relax and enjoy. We tend to listen to music everyday from early morning to late night. For me especially it makes my day a little more exciting. Even if you are having a bad week, bad day, music becomes an amazing fix . We all love listening to music. We may not like some type of music and most of the music you listen to also depends on what mood you are in. But is this music actually good to listen to while studying?
Article first published in july of 1989 on the topic of effect of music on anxiety where about 33 people were taken and tested on whether music reduces anxiety or not, and to induce a standard anxiety test the patient had to complete the state portion of the state trait anxiety inventory. Blood pressure, heartbeat rates, respiration of each patient was measured carefully. The experiment was then performed and the result then indicated that the patient did in fact show a lowered anxiety score after listening to music.
So from the article what i am trying to get to is that we don't yet fully know how music changes our state of mind but from the experiment if it is found out that music does lower anxiety then i am pretty sure that when your anxiety level is lower you will have a better understanding of what you are reading and what you are writing.
But we also have to consider the distraction from music. As a personal experience I started listening to music while studying since I had heard that from recent studies it showed listening to music helped to understand better. But while doing that I found myself getting lost in the music rather than the actual studies. This in fact can be a serious problem if you are someone who gets easily distracted by music.
Have you ever tried music meditation? It's a meditation with slow , peaceful and very light music and it is said that this music helps you concentrate. Which I have found true while doing so myself a meditation called 'soul of healing' by Deepak chopra . But the purpose of the music was that you don't lose focus on what you are doing here focusing on breathing , and if you were to ever get distracted by your own thoughts the music would be a way to get your distracted mind back to a focused state. What I am trying to bring out is that the type of music that helps you focus, study is different from the type of music you listen to in your leisure time. It mostly has to do with your brain waves and how they react to different music.
In a nutshell it depends on the person who listens, what type of music he or she listens and what happens to their brains during listening to a certain music. Nostalgia, sometimes loneliness, happiness, these feelings may be induced while listening to music. In my opinion listening to music may be good but something that's not distracting and should be listened to in a very small volume so that your mind can truly concentrate. As it is still fully unknown why music helps calm us down or create happiness or why it reacts with the brain in such a manner and is still a hot topic of this generation.
References:https://aornjournal.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1016/S0001-2092(07)67642-X
