Nowadays, we are always busy, and that makes sense! With access to so many things to do it’s hard to decide what will be most beneficial to you while still being something you enjoy. Add on school and work and you get a lot of stressed teenagers. Well, there might be some evidence that listening to music could help you feel better and get more work done.

For a long time, we have known that listening to any type of music can help boost brain activity, making you more productive and possibly…healthier. This phenomenon is known as the “Mozart Effect.” That sounds cool but, what does it mean?

When sounds enter the ear canal, waves are collected and sent to the eardrum. These sound waves make the eardrum vibrate causing little bones to shake. These little bones connect to the cochlea. The cochlea is a crucial part of receiving sound. It is fluid-filled and contains tens of thousands of little hair cells called cilia. When the cilia feel the vibrations it moves the fluid. This movement releases neurotransmitters that activate the auditory nerve. This is what makes your brain understand that sound is being heard. Now that you have a basic understanding of sound, you can learn how your brain hears music!

Your brain has different parts that perceive things like pitch, rhythm, and timbre. All of this means that your brain can easily understand which instrument is playing and what the song is. When your brain does this, it activates the mesolimbic dopamine center. Dopamine is the brain’s “reward system,” so when you listen to music, you feel happy, or like you are being rewarded. Your brain craves this feeling and that’s why we enjoy listening to our favorite songs!

A study done at Harvard showed that when students listened to music, they performed better on an IQ test. One group of students was made to listen to a Mozart piano sonnet for 10 minutes, whereas another group listened to a relaxation tape. The final group was told to sit in complete silence for 10 minutes. The students who listened to Mozart were the most successful in improving their test scores.

Next, the researchers wanted to see if it was only Mozart that improved test scores or if it was any kind of music. Astonishingly, it was discovered that almost all kinds of music can help improve scores. There are outliers though. Some types of music can be stressful or upsetting to listeners. This type of music that helps people focus might vary from person to person just like how people’s music taste varies

What does all of this mean though? It means listening to music might actually be making you smarter! Music might also be helping your mental health as well. Listening to music you like makes you happy so it would make sense that music could improve your mood. Next time you are stuck on some school work or just feeling down in the dumps, try playing some feel-good music. You might be surprised at how much it could help!