How to Use Music to Boost Motivation, Mood & Improve Learning | Huberman Lab Podcast

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday life

I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and Ophthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine

today we are discussing music and your

brain however this episode could have

just as easily been entitled music is

your brain or your brain is music and

that's because music believe it or not

is a neurological phenomenon most of us

think of music as something that happens

outside of us the sounds we hear the

lyrics we hear their meaning how they

anchor us to pieces of our history both

emotional or social

it turns out that when we listen to

music it activates nearly every piece of

our brain moreover when we listen to

music it activates our brain in ways

that our brain itself and indeed our

body as well helped to create that music

at the level of so-called neural

ensembles that is the firing of neurons

in other words when we listen to music

our brain and our body become part of

the instrument that contributes to our

perception of that music today I'm going

to make clear how all of that happens we

will also discuss how music can be

leveraged towards shifting our brain

States and our bodily States for

instance what sorts of music to listen

to in order to make ourselves happy yes

Studies have been done on that as well

as how long to listen to music in order

to shift our mood or our overall bodily

State including how to process feelings

of sadness many of you are probably

familiar with particular songs that

anchor us to particular times in our

history or people in our history and

there's an age-old question really as to

whether or not listening to sad music

can help us process our feelings of

sadness or whether or not they drive us

further down the spiral of sadness and

despair and indeed Studies have explored

this as well so today I will explain how

music indeed how different types of

music activate different neural circuits

in your brain to create different brain

and bodily States how we can leverage

music toward things like emotional

processing shifting our emotions as well

as to enhance learning and memory and we

will also talk about the use of music to

enhance brain plasticity that is your

brain's ability to change in response to

experience not just in response to that

music but rather using music as a tool

to expand our capacity for

neuroplasticity giving us the ability to

learn far more in other contexts and

areas of life I confess that in

researching this episode I found myself

continually delighted as to first of all

how impressive the science of the study

of Music in the brain is and secondly

how fundamental music is to all of our

lives and this is true whether or not

you're somebody who listens to music

often or you're somebody that really for

silence indeed we will talk about

whether or not it's better to listen to

music or remain in silence when you

perform certain kinds of work it turns

out that there's a very clear answer to

that if you want a little bit of a Hint

it is best to listen to music in between

bouts of work or during brief rest

periods as opposed to listening to music

while you work and for those of you that

listen to music while you work and

thoroughly enjoy listening to music

while you work we will also discuss what

that means about your brain in

particular because it's likely that it

got wired up that way at a particular

phase of development and each and all of

you can learn today how to best leverage

music toward productivity but perhaps

equally important how to leverage music

for enrichment and enjoyment of life I'm

pleased to announce that we will be

hosting three live events in Australia

all three events will cover science and

science related tools for mental health

physical health and performance there

will also be a Live question and answer

session the first live event will take

place on February 10th in Melbourne at

the plenary theater

the second live event will take place on

February 17th in Sydney at the Sydney

Opera House and the third event will

take place on February 23rd in Brisbane

at the Great Hall to access tickets to

any of these events simply go to

hubermanlab.com tour and use the code

huberman I hope to see you there and

last but certainly not least thank you

for your interest in science before we

begin I'd like to emphasize that this

podcast is separate from my teaching and

research roles at Stanford it is however

part of my desire and effort to bring

zero cost to Consumer information about

science and science related tools to the

general public in keeping with that

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talk about music and your brain and to

start off I just want to take a step

back and acknowledge something that is

absolutely remarkable about music which

is

if you think about language

I could describe to you a glass I could

describe to you an apple I could

describe to you a story I could describe

to you a face I could describe to you

any number of different things and you

could do the same for me language is

essentially infinite in the number of

things that it can explain and the ways

that it can explain it

and yet if you think about music music

provided there are no lyrics in that

music can't explain how a glass is

shaped it can't even tell you that

there's a glass present in the room or

on a table it can't tell you what a face

looks like it can't tell you what that

person who owns that face did or is

doing so in some ways you might think

wow music is fairly diminished in terms

of its qualitative depth compared to

language

and yet if you take a step back and

think about what music can do it's

astonishing and it actually overwhelms

What language can do what can music do

well even in the absence of any lyrics

any words put to music music can

describe an emotion in fact music can

describe numerous types of emotions and

they can do it with a lot of nuance so

not just displaying for us happy or sad

but rather different degrees of

Happiness different degrees of Sadness

music can be used to convey a sense of

longing a sense of nostalgia a sense of

delight a sense of awe and on and on so

whereas music can't describe nouns very

well it can beautifully describe

emotions

and not only can music describe emotions

with a tremendous degree of nuance music

can evoke emotions with a tremendous

degree of nuance

now this is spectacular and it's not

only spectacular it is important because

as we move through today's episode

you'll soon come to realize that it's

very likely

and indeed we have a lot of scientific

evidence to support the fact that music

evolved prior to spoken language

moreover it's very likely that singing

evolved prior to spoken language and

that music singing and dance together

evolved prior to language making music

as well as singing and dance but really

just music even on its own in the

absence of any lyrics or any bodily

movement as the fundamental form of

human communication indeed music can

evoke empathy again we're talking about

music in the absence of any lyrics When

I Say music can evoke empathy I'm not

talking about the sort of empathy where

you look at somebody and Nod and

understand so-called cognitive empathy

which is important by the way in

relational Dynamics or emotional empathy

where you're actually feeling what the

other person is feeling but of course

you never really know what somebody else

is feeling how could you you can only

have a sense of what they might be

feeling

and you have a sense of what you're

feeling but let's be honest um as one of

our prior guests on the huberman Lab

podcast Dr Carl dyseroff so aptly noted

rarely do we ever understand how anyone

else truly feels because indeed rarely

do we ever understand how we ourselves

truly feel and certainly with language

it's very hard to explain our feelings

with words in a way that can convey the

way that we feel with the kind of nuance

that represents our own reality even in

a state of extreme happiness or extreme

sadness words fall short of explaining

how we feel inside and yet as I

mentioned earlier music not only can

describe emotions it can evoke emotions

within us and in doing so it can evoke

emotions that give us a sense of empathy

for the person playing the music or

simply for others in the world and music

can do that so powerfully because not

only does music come in through our ears

and we'll talk about the process of how

sound is converted into what we perceive

as music in a little bit because indeed

it comes in through our ears and we can

hear that music of course but the nerve

cells the neurons in your brain as well

as the nerve cells in your body

can become activated by music in a way

that the firing of those neurons

literally the frequency of those neural

impulses comes to match the frequency of

the sounds that you're hearing in your

outside environment in other words when

you listen to music not only is that

music coming into your body through your

sense organs your your hearing but your

body itself is an instrument playing

that music from within so for instance

if you listen to a piece of music that

has a lightness to it that evokes a

sense in you of the Turning of the

seasons from Winter to Spring and

something that's common in certain

classical music but other forms of music

as well

when you hear that music indeed it's

coming in through your ears but also the

firing of the neurons in your brain and

body responding to those particular

frequencies of sound is such that your

body itself is an instrument playing

that sense of the Turning of the seasons

from Winter to Spring within you which

is why your body starts to feel lifted

in some cases or it starts to feel a

lightness in some cases and an entire

set of emotions starts to be recruited

that at least for you resemble the

Turning of the seasons from Winter to

spring now that may sound rather complex

but we're going to break that process

down into its component parts but what I

essentially just said is that when you

listen to music not only are you hearing

that music but your body that is your

neurons and indeed your hormones as well

things like oxytocin and some other

hormones in your brain and body that

we'll discuss are contributing to a

symphony of emotion from within your

body and brain okay so while music can't

explain objects it can't describe them

it can explain in a very nuanced ways

emotions and it can evoke emotions

within us now if that's not amazing

enough music can not only describe and

evoke emotions it can also imply intent

think for instance about drumming that

you would hear off in the distance and

we're not talking about

we're talking drumming of this sort

and perhaps the Cadence of that drumming

changes such that as it's approaching it

gets more and more frequent

what is the intent being implied well we

know from numerous studies and you know

from numerous movies that you've seen

and heard that that sort of low

frequency drumming of increasing Cadence

as it approaches is implying the intent

of aggression or War

or at least is implying that something

serious is going to happen now contrast

that with a different frequency of sound

played at a higher case done

now

the second set of tones

are far less clear in terms of what they

mean what their intent is but if we

contrast them with let's just call them

what they're typically called the war

drums or the drums that that convey a

sense of aggressive intent

what we create then is a juxtaposition

of two different emotional states in you

perhaps or maybe you don't respond to

those with any robust emotional shift

but we are conveying two separate or

distinct sets of intent

now of course spoken language can convey

intent I could say for instance you know

I'm going to help you how can I help you

today or I could say I'm gonna hurt you

right of course with spoken language you

could do that and you could change the

intonation of that language you change

the frequency so if I were to say I'm

going to hurt you it's very different

than if I say I'm gonna hurt you okay or

if I put it as a question I'm gonna hurt

you okay so with language of course

there's also the opportunity for a lot

of nuance depending on where the

inflections where the accents are on a

particular phrase even a particular word

but with music as you recall

when we convey a sense of intent we are

also conveying that sense of intent

through the body of The Listener not

just bringing it in through their ears

and so when we do that what we do is we

start to recruit a huge number of neural

circuits that are involved not just in

understanding or a sense of empathy for

an emotion but rather that can recruit

movement or what we call pre-motor

circuits in the body pre-motor circuits

are the neurons that start to fire

before a particular pattern of action is

generated and so when we hear music that

conveys emotion that evokes emotion and

especially when we hear music that

conveys a sense of intent from the

outside we too start to feel as if we

need to move or respond to that music in

a particular way now what I just

described to you is not something that's

learned in fact it is innate how do we

know that well there are some beautiful

studies that have explored how babies

respond to music indeed how babies

respond to specific types of music

specific frequencies of sound spacing

between particular notes and on and on

it's been demonstrated for instance that

babies as young as three months old

respond to music very differently than

they respond to just other forms of

sound scrambled in time now of course

babies that are three months old aren't

speaking so you could ask them does that

sound like music how does it make you

feel Etc they're not going to answer at

least not with any coherence because

they don't have spoken language yet but

despite their absence of language we

know that babies as young as three

months old respond to music because they

do so with rhythmic movements of their

bodily Limbs and actually their torso as

well now a little bit later we will

touch on this issue of what types of

music evoke movement of the Torso versus

movement of the limbs versus movement of

the Torso and limbs no I'm not going to

dance for you during this podcast

however there's a really interesting

story there that relates to how

primitive or evolved the motor neurons

the neurons that actually move the

musculature are and how primitive or

evolved the music that one listens to is

but just to give you a sense of where

that's headed

in this study where they examined the

responses of very young babies to music

what they found is that certain

frequencies of sound evoked movements in

those babies that were rhythmic where it

was mostly their torso moving back and

forth and maybe their head a little bit

whereas other patterns of sound

different frequencies in different

Arrangements

evoked movement of their limbs more than

their torso and still other patterns of

sounds evoked movement of their torso

Limbs and head in other words babies

dancing and if you've ever been to a

wedding or a party or been out dancing

you will see people who include more

torso versus limb versus limb and torso

movement when they dance and yes of

course some of this relates to

Proficiency in dancing Comfort on the

Dance Floor

Etc but there are some Universal rules

out there about how certain frequencies

and patterns of sound AKA music

evokes different types of bodily

movements so starting from a very young

age prior to any instruction in terms of

how to dance

or what music is babies are dancing to

music and that highlights an important

point that we will return to again and

again throughout today's episode which

is that the systems of the brain that

respond specifically to movement not

just sound but specifically to musical

sounds are intimately tied to the neural

circuits of the body that generate

movement and this is especially

important to understand when we get into

our discussion about music and our sense

of motivation okay so the list of

incredible things that music can evoke

within us by way of how it activates our

nervous system and body is starting to

grow we've talked about how music can

convey emotion how music can evoke

emotion and how music can convey a sense

of intent as well now as how music can

generate action within us this is a

pretty spectacular list if you think

about it

in addition

music causes changes within our bodily

physiology that extends beyond the

nervous system although it has a

relationship to the nervous system

in particular there's been a lot of

studies that have explored how music

changes things like our blood pressure

or how fast our heart is beating our

so-called resting heart rate

and here we've made some important

discoveries in recent years and when I

say we I don't mean my laboratory I mean

Laboratories that focus on the

relationship between music and our

bodily physiology because we've long

known that music can change various

Health metrics there are some really

nice studies and I'll link to one or two

of the meta-analyzes of these studies in

the show note captions that have showed

that if people listen to anywhere from

10 to 30 minutes of Music per day and by

the way the selection of Music in these

studies ranged everything from Rock and

Roll to classical music to country music

typically these studies would ask

subjects what their favorite music is

and then they would have them listen to

that particular genre of music for

anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes per day

and if you look at the meta-analyzes of

those studies what you find is that

almost all of them see some sort of

significant effect that is some

statistically significant shift in the

bodily physiology of people that

deliberately listen to music for 10 to

30 minutes per day

not while doing anything else but just

listening to that music they find for

instance that their resting heart rate

is reduced if not during the period in

which you're listening to the music then

after the time in which they're

listening to the music they find that

their so-called heart rate variability

tends to increase for those of you that

aren't familiar with heart rate

variability having increased heart rate

variability is a good thing and that's

because heart rate variability reflects

the sort of push and pull or the balance

rather of the activation of a so-called

sympathetic nervous system which is the

one sometimes called the fight or flight

system although I don't really like that

nomenclature the sympathetic nervous

system by the way is not about emotional

sympathy it's what drives your heart

rate higher it tends to put us into

activated states where we favor movement

and motion and makes us alert whereas

the parasympathetic aspect of our

nervous system is the portion of our

autonomic nervous system sometimes

called the rest and digest system the

parasympathetic nervous system Drive

states of deeper relaxation of calm in

any event heart rate variability

reflects a periodic breaking a slowing

down of heart rate and breathing and

other aspects of our neural system

function that

Works alongside with sympathetic

activation think of sympathetic

activation as an accelerator

parasympathetic activation is a break

and when heart rate variability is

higher it reflects the fact that our

parasympathetic nervous system is

periodically engaging it's getting

activated and slowing our heart rate

slowing our breathing down music seems

to have the effect of activating that

parasympathetic aspect of our nervous

system and so we are pumping the break

every once in a while slowing down our

heart rate slowing down our breathing in

other words when people listen to music

for a dedicated period of time each day

of about 10 to 30 minutes some studies

looked at as much as 60 minutes but

typically 10 to 30 minutes what one

finds is that heart rate variability

increases not just during the period

when they're listening to the music this

is very important but also heart rate

variabilities increased Around the Clock

in those subjects even during sleep

making listening to 10 to 30 minutes of

your favorite music each day not just

what I would think to be a enjoyable

protocol if you could even call it a

protocol it's so enjoyable to listen to

your favorite music that it feels almost

inappropriate to call it a protocol

because protocol sounds kind of rigid

like you're imposing that on yourself

but if you need an excuse to listen to

your favorite music for 10 to 30 maybe

60 minutes per day and just attending to

that music not while doing anything else

which is what these studies had subjects

do well indeed that's been shown to

increase heart rate variability Around

the Clock which we know is beneficial

for your mental and physical health more

generally okay so there are dozens if

not hundreds of studies that have

explored how music impacts our

physiology and as I just mentioned it

seems that if we listen to music that we

like for 10 to 30 maybe 60 minutes a day

our physiology certain Health metrics

heart rate variability in particular

improve now in light of the positive

effects of listening to music on one's

Health there's a recent meta-analysis

that I found particularly interesting

the title of this meta-analysis is

effects of Music on the cardiovascular

system and it was published in Trends in

cardiovascular medicine now from the

title of this paper for effects of Music

on the cardiovascular system you might

think that it's just yet another

meta-analysis exploring how music

impacts heart rate variability and

things of that sort but what's

interesting about this study is that it

identifies that the way in which

listening to one's favorite music

positively impacts the cardiovascular

system and other aspects of our

physiology is very likely not through

direct changes on our heart rate simply

by listening to music but rather through

changes in our breathing and this is

true even if people were not singing

along with the music by the way now the

relationship between breathing and heart

rate is something that I've touched on

before but if you haven't heard me

discuss this I'm just going to briefly

tell you the relationship in two or

three sentences and then I'll explain

the mechanism also in about two to three

sentences so if you have a background in

biology or even if you don't this will

all be very simple and very clear

when you deliberately inhale

with a lot of vigor or you deliberately

make your inhale longer than you

naturally would so for instance if I

breathe in very vigorously through my

nose

something very specific happens to your

heart rate

it increases whereas when you

deliberately exhale

meaning when you exhale and deliberately

make that exhale longer or you

deliberately add Vigor to that exhale

or even a shorter deliberate more

vigorous exhale

you slow down your heart rate and that's

because of a phenomenon called

respiratory sinus arrhythmia which

because it includes the word arrhythmia

sounds like a bad thing but it's

actually a wonderful thing it has to do

with the relationship between a

particular muscle in your body called

the diaphragm which when you inhale our

lungs fill with air our diaphragm moves

down and our heart therefore has a

little bit more space it actually gets

bigger temporarily bigger but bigger and

when it does that whatever volume of

blood is in the Heart Is Now moving

through a larger space so it's the same

amount of blood moving through a larger

space and the nervous system registers

that as the blood moving more slowly

through that temporarily enlarged heart

and as a consequence there's a signal

sent through various Stations of the

nervous system to the heart to speed the

heart up in other words just as I said

before when we inhale our heart rate

speeds up

conversely when we exhale our lungs

empty out some air our diaphragm moves

up and as a consequence of that there's

less space for the heart and so our

heart temporarily becomes smaller and

when that happens the volume of blood

within that smaller heart moves more

quickly and that's detected by the

nervous system which then triggers a

neural signal from the parasympathetic

arm of the autonomic nervous system

which is just fancy nerd speak for a

neural signal is sent to your heart

every time you exhale to slow your heart

down so the well-established effects of

listening to your favorite music

increasing your heart rate variability

is not a direct interaction between the

sounds coming in through your ears and

changes in your heart rate while you're

listening to the music that's actually

what I would have thought happened but

this more recent meta-analysis pulls

apart the variables in these different

studies it really illustrates that when

we are listening to music We Are

subconsciously most of the times

subconsciously changing our patterns of

breathing we are inhaling in

anticipation of certain things happening

in the music we're exhaling when we feel

a relief of tension we get excited we

may get sad we may get happy we may even

just be listening to music that we don't

think is impacting our physiology at

such a core level but indeed it is music

is able to Route into our nervous system

at levels below our conscious awareness

and literally turn the various knobs if

you will of our cardiovascular system of

our breathing apparatus the diaphragm

the lungs it can evoke respiratory sinus

arrhythmia which again sounds like a

terrible thing but is actually the

reflection of a healthy nervous system

in heart and in doing so yes it

increases heart rate variability

something that is beneficial to all of

us but it's doing so by changing our

patterns of breathing so if you've ever

wondered why music can change how you

feel so robustly well it's doing that at

a deep foundational level of your

nervous system indeed at the levels of

your your nervous system that typically

are not in your conscious awareness

because I have to imagine that most of

you are probably not listening to music

and thinking oh here comes that one

chorus or here comes that one Melody and

this is where I always exhale or this is

where I always hold my breath this sort

of thing no most people are just

listening to music it's coming in

through their ears they're experiencing

some bodily Sensations maybe they're

moving their torso arms maybe arms and

torso maybe you're not moving at all no

dancing maybe just listening within your

head or maybe it's just dropped into the

background below your conscious

awareness at all and yet that music is

communicating emotion it's evoking

emotion it's communicating intent it's

activating those pre-motor circuits that

would have you move if it could and

we'll talk about dance a little bit

later but even if you're not dancing

even if you're not swaying the tiniest

bit your patterns of breathing are

changing and through respiratory sinus

arrhythmia your heart rate is changing

and through changes in your heart rate

your heart rate variability is

increasing so if ever you want wanted a

tooler protocol that was easy to use but

could positively impact your mental and

physical health well listening to your

favorite music for 10 to 30 maybe 60

minutes maybe more per day is that

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huberman so hopefully it's becoming

clear just how absolutely powerful music

is at evoking different physiological

responses within you that is within your

brain and body but there's an additional

one that I find particularly interesting

because it addresses and indeed answers

one of the most common questions that I

receive all the time which is how can I

get more motivated not how I Andrew can

get more motivated although of course I

ask myself that question from time to

time although admittedly most of the

time I'm wondering how I'm just going to

get everything I need to get done done

but

I often get the question how can I feel

more motivated or what can I do to

sustain my motivation over time and you

know we hear a lot of different

strategies about how to do that we hear

about the quote unquote just do it

strategy the incredible slogan that Nike

created and that persists to this day

has become commonplace in culture and

indeed the just do it form of advice can

be a good one but for a lot of people

uh just hearing just do it or telling

themselves just do it is not something

that can evoke action in them uh other

people will listen to motivational

speeches they'll look at motivational

videos they'll read motivational books

um they may even hire coaches in other

words people invest a ton of time energy

and money into trying to be more

motivated and indeed a number of

episodes of The huberman Lab podcast

have focused on the relationship between

say motivation drive and the

neuromodulator dopamine we have several

episodes about that as well as a toolkit

all of which are available zero cost at

hubermanlab.com you can access those

easily by putting motivation into the

search function at hubermanlab.com all

of that will come up time stamped Etc

but perhaps surprisingly today's

conversation about music offers us a

particularly potent tool to increase

motivation and that's because one of the

fundamental properties of listening to

music is that it evokes activation of

these pre-motor and motor circuits

within our brain and body that is the

neural circuits whose specific job is to

mobilize our body from its current

position and state to a new position in

state

so for those of you that listen to music

while you work out or prior to when you

work out you are definitely on to

something for those of you that don't

that's fine too what I'm going to

describe now are the specific sets of

neural circuits that listening to music

activates as I mentioned earlier

listening to music activates so many

circuits throughout the brain and body

that really one can take a step back

from the scientific literature on this

and say anytime someone has done a study

where human beings listen to music and

people record from a particular brain

area believe it or not even from the

olfactory system from the system and the

brain responsible for smell there seems

to be some significant shift in terms of

the neural firing there or the release

of neural chemicals

which on the one hand might lead you to

conclude that listening to music is just

sort of a non-specific generalized

activator of nervous system function

it's just kind of like turning all the

lights on but

that's not the case music in fact is

activating different neural circuits

differently in time and space to evoke a

whole set of specific reactions in your

brain and body but not the least of

which is the propensity for you to move

and this is something that you can

leverage and indeed I'll describe a

protocol by which you can leverage music

in order to greatly increase your state

of motivation okay so this is the

portion of today's episode where we're

going to discuss some specific neural

circuits but I want to assure you that

if you're a neurobiologist you can

understand this if you are not a

neurobiologist in fact if you took no

biology ever in your life I'm going to

make it clear and easy for you to

understand as I mentioned before when we

hear music it activates many many

circuits throughout the brain and body

when I say circuits I mean neurons nerve

cells that communicate with one another

sort of chains of reactions when I say

respond to one another what I mean is

when neurons are quote unquote activated

they release chemicals those chemicals

are called neurotransmitters things like

glutamate Gaba

they're also called neuromodulators

things like dopamine serotonin the names

don't really matter for sake of today's

discussion but what those things do is

they influence the likelihood that the

next neuron will be active or less

active Okay so neurons speak the

language if you will of electricity

because that's how they evoke release of

these chemicals and chemistry they vomit

out these chemicals those chemicals then

bind to little parking spots on the next

neuron called receptors and then the

next neuron gets activated electrically

and then to the next neuron and next

neuron and so on it's a chain of

electrochemical reactions okay so

there's your Neuroscience 101 lesson for

today

when people listen to music there is

heightened activation of the so-called

frontal cortex the area of your brain

which is on the surface below your skull

but just behind your forehead more or

less and that area of your brain is

involved in a lot of different things

it's involved in understanding context

you know what sorts of behaviors and

thoughts and actions are appropriate for

a given environment by the way if any of

you have ever been in an environment

where everyone was really quiet and you

thought oh my gosh what's keeping me

from just blurting out my name right now

or saying something totally

inappropriate

your frontal cortex is the one providing

the sh the so-called top-down inhibition

on that impulse to blurt something

inappropriate out and by the way your

thoughts about that impulse are

perfectly normal they actually reflect a

heightened sense of normalcy

um because it means that your brain is

thinking about how it's not going to do

that and so therefore you're not going

to do that likewise if you are ever at

the edge of a high bridge please stay on

the safe side of the railing but if you

think oh my goodness what's keeping me

from just jumping off the bridge right

now what's keeping you from doing that

is your frontal cortex it's suppressing

certain actions in a context-dependent

way in particular actions that are

dangerous to you socially physically

dangerous to others socially physically

Etc

now the frontal cortex in order to do

that also has an incredible ability to

make predictions so this is the function

of the frontal cortex that I want to

focus on for the moment your frontal

cortex is great at doing the if this

then that type of analysis if I say this

everyone will be offended or if I say

this maybe they'll laugh or if I don't

say this I'll be safe if I do say that I

won't be safe this kind of thing

frontal cortex is activated when we

listen to music because within music

there are some regularities

sometimes these are described as motifs

or melodies or choruses again this is

the entire landscape of discussion that

we could have and we will have with an

expert guest about how the mathematics

of Music impacts the electrochemical

signaling within the brain and the

coding that is the mathematics of brain

function which leads us to predict that

certain things because they just happen

are likely to happen again or not happen

again but let's set all that aside for

the moment and just State the simple

fact which is that when you listen to

music your frontal cortex increases

inactivation because it is predicting

what you're going to hear next based on

what you're currently hearing and what

you heard before now I am from the

generation that we didn't have iPods

when I was a kid we did have CDs we did

have tapes but you had to fast forward

or rewind a cassette tape or you had to

skip on the CD in order to move about

the album in time

nowadays you can queue up different

songs in different order really easily

but if you are somebody who listens to

albums start to finish or if you're like

me and you grew up listening to albums

start to finish maybe occasionally

skipping a song but

you will be very familiar with this

phenomenon which is that right is a

given song ends if you're familiar with

that album you already anticipate the

start of the next song in your head and

that just speaks to the predictive

function that the frontal cortex plays

so if you have a mixtape with a bunch of

different songs sure you don't expect

one song of a given artist to lead into

the next but if you're somebody who's

listened to that mixtape a lot so you're

familiar with What song comes next or if

you're listening to a given album start

to finish and you're very familiar with

it well then you'll immediately resonate

with what I'm saying here which is that

your frontal cortex is always

anticipating what sound is likely to

come next and this is very important

because one of the key things about

music and its ability to evoke our sense

of surprise or Delight

through the release of a neuromodulator

called dopamine we'll get to this a bit

more later is because that prediction

Machinery is thinking oh I heard that

set of chords a moment ago I'm going to

hear it again and then when it changes

up your brain goes oh whoa hold on that

wasn't what I expected and it sometimes

does that with a sense of delight like

oh yes and sometimes it hears that and

it goes oh wait what's this I don't

really like this that much I like the

opener of that song but I don't really

like the rest I think of that as um you

know there's certain pastries muffins in

particular where I really like the top

it's got the little crumbs it's got the

berries and stuff and then you like get

down past the top and then you get to

the middle then you're like oh well this

thing's not that good okay there's

certain songs like that for me so I

always thought of those as muffin songs

because the top of the muffin is always

the best whereas a donut is great the

whole way through and now I'm going on a

tangent because I'm thinking about

muffins and donuts so I'm going to take

us back to music but the point is

relevant nonetheless which is that your

frontal cortex is making predictions and

when those predictions are broken

that's a sense of novelty and when that

novelty is something that you like okay

so it evokes a sense of yes I like that

well then dopamine is deployed and when

that novelty is something you don't like

typically there's a reduction in the

amount of dopamine released in a

separate set of brain circuits below

whatever level of dopamine happened to

be there prior your so-called Baseline

level of dopamine okay so when you

listen to music there's a strong

activation of the prediction Machinery

in your brain there's also activation of

the circuits in your brain that register

novelty what are those circuits these

are things like the ventral tegmental

area and the nucleus accumbens I've

talked about these before on the podcast

again you don't need to know those names

those are the names given to certain

brain areas that control the release of

dopamine in time according to whatever

you happen to be experiencing in that

moment okay so the mesolympic reward

pathway could perhaps better be called

the mesolimic reinforcement pathway so

for those of you out there shouting wait

the mesolimic pathway does a bunch of

other things it's not just dopamine I

agree it's all serotonin it's a bunch of

other things but for today's discussion

we're thinking about the mesolimic

pathway as deploying dopamine which it

does when we hear something novel

meaning not what we predicted and we

like what we hear and then there are a

bunch of other brain centers and

circuits that listening to music

activates I'll just list off a few again

this isn't intended to confuse anybody

or add a lot of useless nomenclature but

since I am a neuroscientist and this is

a science and science informed tools

podcast I'd be remiss if I didn't

mention that we get strong activation of

a brain structure you actually have two

of them one on each side of the brain

called the amygdala this is a brain area

that's part of a larger set of circuits

that's associated with arousal okay

meaning becoming more alert becoming

more aware of our surroundings and the

particular sensory stimuli that are

coming in at particular time such as the

notes of the music or a particular set

of lyrics and music also activates areas

of the brain such as the para

hippocampal formation the cortex and the

hippocampus itself brain areas that

encode and store memories and this is

something that I think everyone will be

familiar with when you hear certain

songs or even songs that sound like

certain songs or even songs that you

swear you've never heard before it can

evoke a sense of nostalgia of longing

for something of missing somebody of

sadness or of delight and happiness and

positive memories of somebody or

something indeed I think it's fair to

say that hearing particular pieces of

music particular songs more than any

other experience can activate a whole

library of memory and emotions within us

and that's because of its ability to

activate the para hippocampal regions of

the brain the cortex and the hippocampus

itself again several different brain

areas all which communicate with one

another and other areas of the brain in

order to encode our memories

our sense of self our sense of others

our sense of history with those people

and on and on now

rather than just make this a catalog of

different brain areas that music evokes

what I'm trying to do is spell out how

music activating these different brain

areas is creating different components

of what we are familiar with as our

experience of music so frontal cortex

prediction mesolimbic reward pathway

novelty amygdala a sense of emotion and

arousal

para hippocampal cortex and cortex and

hippocampus our memories in particular

our emotional memories and our location

Memories associated with a particular

piece of music right haven't you ever

heard a song from let's say a summer

camp that you went to when you were a

kid and all of a sudden you're

remembering the smell of the grasses at

that summer camp you're remembering how

some of the kids were really great and

how some of the kids were really

obnoxious you're remembering some things

that you did remember your counselors I

mean there's just a whole landscape of

neural information there life

information stored in your head that

hearing a particular song that was sung

when you were what eight years old 10

years old I can't just flips the lid on

and it comes geysering out remarkable

now there are two other sets of brain

circuits that are activated by music

that deserve specific attention and

deserve that specific attention now in

the context of discussing motivation and

music's ability to motivate Us in

particular ways and those brain circuits

are the basal ganglia okay so this is a

set of circuits within the brain they're

associated with action initiation

so-called go circuits and withholding

action so-called no-go circuits but

basically the basal ganglia are involved

in regulating movement

and

the cerebellum the cerebellum is

sometimes referred to as the mini brain

it looks like a little mini brain in the

bottom back of the human brain

and some species the cerebellum is much

larger relative to the rest of the brain

but in humans it's like this little

piece in the back that looks like a

little mini brain like you're carrying a

second brain back there that's why I

call it mini brain cerebellum it's

involved in a lot of things but one of

its primary functions is to encode

rhythmic timing and processing and along

with its outputs to some deeper brain

stem areas things like the vestibular

and cochlear nuclei we'll talk about

this the parabrachial nucleus again you

don't need to know these names it

meaning the cerebellum along with the

basal ganglia creates patterns of

activity in our brain that Cascade down

to particular circuits in our body

so these are so-called pre-motor

circuits and motor circuits that

generate the sense that we not only can

move but that we want to move and that

we want to move in particular ways so if

you internalize nothing from the last

five minutes or so in which I've been

describing how music impacts different

neural circuits in the brain please do

take away this important point which is

that when we listen to music we think of

that as an auditory experience but now

you know that it's also an emotional

experience

and

and this is a very important and when we

listen to music it is programming a

specific set of motor actions that are

more likely to occur put differently

when we listen to music we are more

likely to move our body and not just

dance not just move our torso our limbs

or our Limbs and torso together in

concert with the music but rather move

our body from its current position to

another position and this is one of the

most important things to understand

about music music despite being an

auditory stimulus coming in through our

ears evokes the activation of neural

circuits in our brain that creates a

sort of inertia it creates a propensity

for Action across our entire body so now

that you understand that listening to

music activates lots of different brain

circuits of course the circuits that

respond to auditory stimuli so-called

primary auditory cortex is powerfully

activated by listening to music but also

circuits associated with novelty

anticipation we talked about circuits in

the brain associated with memory but

also circuits in the brain that are

associated with generating movement and

not just movement that is in sync with

or corresponds to the music that we're

listening to but all forms of movement

but when we listen to music that has a

relatively fast Cadence and we can

actually Define what that Cadence needs

to be and we'll do that in a moment

when we do that so-called pre-motor

circuitry the circuitry that's going to

initiate that kind of inertia where that

pressure for movement within the neural

circuits that actually evoke movement

are all activated so for those of you

that like to listen to music while you

exercise you're familiar with the fact

that listening to great songs with a

great beat with particular lyrics or

that associate you with a particular

time or place in your life can be very

motivating but there are data showing

that when people listen to music that's

faster than about 140 to 150 beats per

minute that it creates a heightened

state of motivation in the body to move

and the way that it does that is by way

of Shifting the balance between those

ghost circuits and no go circuits of the

basal ganglia there's some other ways

that it does it as well for instance

music can evoke the release of certain

neurochemicals called the catecholamines

these include dopamine but also

norepinephrine and epinephrine from

centers in the brain and body glands in

the body like the adrenal gland that

shift the body toward a predic position

of being more likely to move so if we

want to distill all this out to a simple

actionable takeaway

simply know this listening to music

relatively faster music predisposes you

to be more motivated to move and that is

independent this is what I find so cool

it's independent of whether or not

you're familiar with the song

independent of whether or not the lyrics

of the song are motivating lyrics if

they are that's just going to layer on

top of the faster Cadence which is going

to predispose you to move but what's

remarkable is that just listening to

that faster Cadence Music is creating a

neuronal resonance if you will a pattern

of neuronal firing within you that is

going to essentially take your and here

I'm using metaphor is going to put your

state of motivation from either back on

your heels to being flat-footed or let's

say you're mildly motivated so I'll call

that flat-footed to being forward Center

of mass so for any of you that are

suffering from lack of motivation in

particular to exercise but believe it or

not also to do cognitive work where

you're going to be still and you're

going to sit down and you're going to

read or learn or practice something

listening to music for 10 to 15 minutes

prior to doing that work prior to doing

that exercise is one of the best ways to

get motivated in order to engage in that

work or engage in that exercise that's

been demonstrated in the data very

conclusively using a variety of

different types of music and again there

are multiple mechanisms that converge to

create that heightened state of

motivation some of those mechanisms are

neurochemical like the release of the

so-called catecholamine dopamine

norepinephrine and epinephrine some of

them are strictly neural circuit based

so activation of premotor circuitry and

those are going to combine with neural

circuits that are going to narrow your

field of vision this is a good thing

whenever you want to be motivated

they're going to literally constrict

your field of vision to more of a tunnel

type of vision as opposed to more

panoramic vision and that I described it

as placing you into a forward Center of

mass I don't necessarily mean literally

a forward Center of mass

unless perhaps you're exercising like

running leaning slightly forward what

I'm talking about is using music as a

way to deliberately shift your state of

mind and body from one that is a

motivated not motivated to more

motivated and it's a very simple

protocol extracted from the

peer-reviewed literature you simply find

some faster music hopefully music that

you like it would be even better if it

was music that had lyrics that you find

motivating and listening to that for 10

to 15 minutes prior to engaging in

whatever that work may be physical or

cognitive on the topic of cognitive work

one of the most common questions I get

is what sorts of sounds or music should

I listen to in order to increase my

state of productivity motivation

concentration Etc on previous podcasts

related to focus and motivation I

touched on the use of so-called binaural

beats which are different frequencies of

Beats presented to one or the other ear

this is best accomplished with

headphones and there are a lot of

different frequencies of binaural beats

that you can get out there

um if you want to get detailed about

this binaural beats also involve the

differential between the frequency of

Beats between the two presented to the

two ears and then that difference then

is heard by higher order processing

centers in the brain in any event we

don't have to get too technical about it

we can simply say that yes there are

some decent peer-reviewed studies

demonstrating that when people listen to

so-called 40 Hertz it's a particular

frequency of sound 40 Hertz binaural

beats that it can enhance concentration

and focus however this is important

there are some recent studies that show

that binaural beats sometimes can impede

concentration and focus and thereby can

impede cognitive performance on various

tasks however the studies that show that

binaural beats can be detrimental to

performance on various cognitive tasks

did not use 40 Hertz binaural beats

specifically so we are still awaiting

more studies on binaural beats meanwhile

I'll just restate what I said before is

that there is some evidence that

listening to 40 Hertz binaural beats can

enhance concentration and focus there

are also data showing that other

frequencies of binaural beats might be

detrimental to concentration and

cognitive performance and previously

I've also discussed studies showing that

for instance if people listen to White

Noise in the background you could do

this on your computer or speakers in the

room or headphones or so-called Brown

noise which is essentially like white

noise all frequencies of sound or most

frequency of sound combined but with

particular frequencies of sounds that

are accentuated and others are notched

out as it's called so-called Brown noise

rather than understand all of this at a

technical level because I've covered

that before in previous podcasts suffice

to say if you go to YouTube and you just

put in White Noise background for

cognitive Focus or brown noise

background for cognitive Focus you can

just try those if you like during a

session in which you're trying to read

or learn or do mathematics or music or

any kind of cognitive work

if you don't like them if they don't

work for you then

um you know there's certainly no

obligation to use them likewise with 40

Hertz binaural beats and for binaural

beats you can also find those as zero

cost YouTube scripts there are a number

of zero cost apps that will allow you to

listen to binaural beats I've used the

app brainwave for some period of time

now to be honest I've never done this

strict control experiment on myself of

listening to the 40 Hertz binaural beats

or not listening to 40 Hertz binaural

beats doing the equivalent types of

tasks I can be fairly regimented with my

work and behavior but I haven't run a

detailed controlled study on myself

around this rather if I want to heighten

my level of focus or rule out

distractions what I will do is I will

listen to either white noise or brown

noise while I'll do work or I will

listen to 40 Hertz binaural beats while

I do certain types of work or sometimes

frankly I just work in silence other

times I will listen to classical music

in the background I'm a big fan of

listening to classical piano I

particularly like Glenn Gould the bach

very those are very pleasant to me but

and this is really important in

researching this episode about music in

the brain what I discovered was in the

controlled studies that have been

carried out as to whether or not people

perform better on cognitive tasks that

require a lot of focus especially

learning tasks that compared silence in

the background to purely instrumental

music in the background to music with

lyrics in the background to one's

favorite music with or without lyrics

the data are very clear it's very clear

that most people that means

statistically on average people perform

best on cognitive tasks or tasks that

require a lot of focus to perform

again these are mental tasks not

physical tasks when they are doing those

tasks in complete silence so that was

somewhat surprising to me

second best conditions are to do those

tasks in the presence of instrumental

music only and in that case there was a

lot of variation as to whether or not

people referred faster Cadence Music so

140 to 150 beats per minute or faster or

slower music 60 beats per minute or

slower I'll get back to those specific

numbers later because they represent

thresholds for inducing different types

of emotional states either happy or sad

but meanwhile

it's very clear when people work in

silence they perform better than when

they work with music instrumentals in

the background and they perform even

less well when they listen to music with

lyrics in the background we'll talk

about why that is the case in a moment

and then people perform especially

poorly relative to their performance in

silence or any of the other conditions I

mentioned when they listen to their

favorite music while doing cognitive

work and that to me was a bit surprising

especially since I spent a lot of my

University years studying while

listening to my favorite music in

different forms I'd listen to slower

music then faster music and go back and

forth and then sometimes turn it off

altogether and work in silence but the

center of mass of the literature around

this issue of whether or not to listen

to music while one studies or tries to

learn something the data are pretty

clear the data show that it's best to

study and learn either in silence or

with quiet instrumentals in the

background now I mentioned before that

previous studies compared the effects of

working in silence versus working with

40 Hertz binaural beats or white noise

or brown noise in the background and in

those studies it was found that the

white noise Brown noise and 40 Hertz

binaural beats background produced

better levels of focus I should say

heightened levels of focus and cognitive

performance and learning then working in

silence

but I've not yet seen a study that

compared 40 Hertz binaural beats

Brown Noise White Noise to music

directly and perhaps there's one out

there if there is please send it to me

I'd be very curious to learn what the

results of those are now that might seem

like a lot of information but the

takeaways from it are very clear and

it's always nice when things are clear

right

it's clear that if we want to focus and

learn that working in silence or with

white noise or brown noise or 40 Hertz

binaural beats is going to be preferable

to working while listening to music but

if you're going to listen to music while

you work that is do cognitive work then

you're going to want to listen to music

that is purely instrumental and ideally

the music would be somewhat faster than

140 to 150 beats per minute now I do not

expect you to go and measure the

frequency of beats per minute in the

music that you listen to and of course

the beats per minute are going to change

right that's an average 140 to 150 beats

per minute

I don't expect you to get super

technical break down the music that

you're listening to that is not my goal

nor is that really what this podcast is

about I think occasionally people think

that you know the the goal of a science

and science-based protocols podcast is

to optimize everything in fact I not

such a fan of the word optimize because

optimal really depends on the situation

that you happen to be in the point here

is simply this that many people out

there including myself have been

listening to some of our favorite music

while working but it's very clear as to

why that degrades cognitive performance

we know for instance that when we read

we are creating a semantic narrative in

our own head and when we listen to music

with lyrics especially music with lyrics

that we recognize the semantic content

of the song the lyrics

competes with our comprehension of the

narrative within our head from the

material that we're supposed to be

learning so now it should be sort of

obvious why listening to your favorite

music that includes lyrics while trying

to learn something else is going to

impede learning it's because you've got

multiple scripts multiple dialogues

happening in your head and in fact this

is an opportunity for me to take a

slight tangent but a relevant one which

is to say a lot of times people will ask

me how I can retain a lot of information

I confess I never use a teleprompter for

podcasting I do have a usually a short

stack of notes you know anywhere from

one to you know six or seven pages of

just

um bullet pointed notes that cue up

things that I want to talk about and

that I have researched in the literature

and then of course I'll refer to papers

from time to time but one of the things

that's been very useful for me which was

taught to me by the way by a professor

when I was in university to read and

retain information that I've read by

memory is that when I read I'm trying to

listen to the words being spoken in my

head typically my own voice although

sometimes in someone else's voice

doesn't really matter I find so when I'm

reading yes it's a process of visual

scanning but I'm also listening to the

words within my head as if they're being

spoken some of you may be familiar with

this because you do it others of you

perhaps might find this a bit more

foreign I'd be curious to know what your

process of reading and retaining that

information is whether or not it

includes an internal dialogue but

nonetheless

it should be very straightforward now to

see why if you're listening to words

that you're reading on a page maybe even

mumbling them you know a little bit

moving your lips a little bit while you

read which by the way if you heard our

episode on language and auditory

processing with Dr Eddie Chang who's

chair of neurosurgery at UCSF he talked

about the fact that when we read

any material that the brain is

generating pre-motor activity you now

know what pre-motor activity is

pre-motor activity down to the muscles

of the throat larynx pharynx

which would speak those words were those

signals to get above a certain level but

that when we read typically the signals

that are getting sent through those

pre-motor circuits are just below the

threshold of what would have us actually

speak those words put simply when we

read we are just shy of saying what we

are reading and so when I say that when

I read I'm listening to the words in my

head that's what I'm referring to so

we're starting to funnel in on some

general principles of music and how it

impacts the brain and how that can be

leveraged toward Better Learning and

better motivation both in the context of

physical and cognitive Endeavors okay so

if you want to get motivated listening

to music prior to doing something that

you're trying to motivate to do

is a good idea that's what the data say

if you're trying to learn something

that's cognitive then requires reading

focus and concentration silence 40 Hertz

binaural beats white noise or brown

noise is probably best and if you are

going to listen to music listening to

music

that includes instrumentals but not

lyrics would be best and listening to

music that includes lyrics that you're

very familiar with would be the worst

condition now with that said there are

nice studies and by the way I'm going to

link to a number of reviews and primary

studies in the show note captions that

refer back to this point I'm about to

tell you which is that listening to

music while trying to do cognitive tasks

can be detrimental toward learning that

material

turns out that if you listen to music in

the breaks between trying to learn

certain material you can actually

heighten your level of cognition and

focus and your ability to learn so I

find this particularly cool it's not

that music is bad for focus and

cognition and learning it's that

listening to music especially music that

you're familiar with that includes

lyrics at the same time as trying to

learn something else is not a good idea

but listening to music with lyrics

especially music with lyrics that you're

familiar with that you find particularly

uplifting and motivating is a cognitive

and performance enhancer when you go

back to doing that work in silence or

perhaps while listening to White Noise

Brown noise or 40 Hertz binaural beats

so like so many things the answer is not

black and white it's not that silence is

better than music or that music is bad

for learning it turns out that listening

to music even music with lyrics you're

very familiar with can be highly

beneficial for learning but that you

want to listen to that music in the

breaks be between these bouts of

cognitive work now I've done previous

podcasts that talk about how long about

of cognitive work can or should be

typically 90 minutes is going to be the

upper limit before you take a break some

people can't work for 90 minutes without

a break

by the way folks when I say without a

break I don't mean remaining in a deep

trench of focus for 90 minutes nobody

does that actually I suppose there are a

few folks that with neurochemical

Assistance or just by way of training

can get themselves into a deep deep

trench of focus for 90 minutes or more

but most people are going to focus on

something and then have their attention

flit out of focus and then they're going

to have to draw their focus back to

whatever it is they're doing that's not

just typical that's absolutely normal

and you shouldn't be concerned at all if

you try and focus for three minutes and

find your attention jumping around two

or three times during

that attempt but if you're somebody who

is going to do say a 90 minute or even

60 Minute or even 30 minute bout of work

and you are going to get up for a moment

and use the restroom or you're going to

take a break in between bouts of work so

maybe you work for 30 minutes take 10

minutes or five minutes off or 90

minutes take 30 minutes off listening to

music in those breaks

it seems can increase our ability to

focus and to learn new material once we

return to those bouts of cognitive Focus

now when it comes to physical exertion

cardiovascular exercise resistance

training of any kind many people

including myself like to listen to music

while performing

that physical exercise or that physical

exertion the data on whether or not

music improve physical performance is a

bit mixed

certainly you can find studies that show

that it improves physical output other

studies will say that it doesn't make a

difference other studies will say that

it reduces

physical output however this is a very

important however the type of physical

exercise is not very well matched

between those different studies so this

is something that I believe is going to

be highly individual in accordance with

the published data I mix it up there are

times when I will head out for a run or

I will do a resistance training session

and I will listen to music usually an

album all the way through or a playlist

all the way through that's because I

don't want to be going onto my phone

very often in fact these days I use an

older separate phone that doesn't have

any text messaging or communication to

the outside world but it has music

loaded into it

or onto it that allows me to just listen

to music so that I I don't run the risk

of getting distracted texting and doing

things like that I just want to focus on

my physical exercise I should say that

phone also has audio books podcasts

things I've downloaded to it

so it's a place where I can listen to

things but not communicate with the

outside world at least while exercising

some people do very well to listen to

music literally in between and during

their sets of resistance training

throughout their entire runs

it's going to be individual you have to

figure out what's best for you however

one of the most interesting things about

the scientific literature on this shows

that if people listen to music in

particular music that tends to be faster

more upbeat typically it's going to be

in these studies rock and roll music as

opposed to classical although there are

some studies that have explored

classical and other forms of music as it

relates to exercise listening to that

music in between bouts of exertion so in

the rest between sets of resistance

training or periodically during say a

run

or about a cycling

can indeed enhance performance in a way

that at least by my read of the data

exceeds that which is observed when

people just listen to music throughout

in other words if you find it useful to

listen to music before during and after

your workouts great be my guest however

what the data say is that switching up

between silence and listening to music

and in this case it would be listening

to music that you're very familiar with

and that can evoke a sense of motivation

and desired action in you for whatever

reason the music the beat the memories

that it draws you to

Etc

well then that's going to be useful so

there really isn't one protocol for how

to get the most out of music for sake of

physical exertion but if you're

interested in playing with some of these

variables as they've been examined

within the peer-reviewed literature I

find it interesting and indeed I found

it useful to for instance do a workout

where I only listen to music in between

sets of resistance training or to listen

to music prior to going out for a run

and then oftentimes when I do that the

song will or songs will be sort of on

Loop in my head although I confess that

a lot of times nowadays I listen to

podcasts while I run or while I hike and

when I'm in the gym and I'm doing

resistance training I like to listen to

music as opposed to content that

requires that I really focus very

heavily on that content such as a

podcast such as a book I'd like to take

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now I'd like to talk about the use of

music to shift our mood and indeed to

get us out of states of anxiety this is

a really interesting scientific

literature with some very specific

actionable takeaways that I think

everyone will find beneficial I

certainly did

however I want to point out that we

don't need a scientific study to

illustrate for us the way that music can

shift our mood and you already know why

it is that listening to a sad song can

sometimes make us feel sad listening to

happy music can make us feel happy it's

because when we listen to music there

are some fundamental components of that

music literally the mathematical

structure of that music including the

frequency of sounds the Cadence of those

sounds as well as the lyrics but even in

the absence of lyrics that are

activating brain circuits within us such

that the frequencies of sound that we're

hearing are evoking firing of neurons in

the brain of the same frequency in other

words your brain becomes a bit of a

piano playing the same

song that you're hearing inside your

head now that's sort of a duh right you

hear music in your head even if you're

listening to it from outside in the room

but when you understand that neurons

speak the language of electrochemical

communication what we're talking about

here is particular music evoking the

release of neurochemicals in your brain

at a particular frequency so just think

about that for a second we know that

neurochemicals such as dopamine

serotonin some of the so-called

endogenous opioids right these aren't

opioids that people take this isn't

related to the opioid crisis we're

talking about endogenous opioids that

are released in response to music things

like exercise different types of social

interactions those and other chemicals

are released according to the firing of

specific neurons and we know that when

you listen to music at particular

frequencies arranged in particular

motifs

Etc that the neurons that release those

neurochemicals are firing at those same

frequencies in other words that the

sound is causing a

sound-dependent pharmacologic concert

within your brain so that fact should

make it incredibly clear as to why

certain music even in the absence of

lyrics can evoke certain emotional

states certain sound frequencies are

transformed into the neural language

within your brain that releases certain

neurochemicals that create certain

emotional states of brain and body just

to drill in how incredible that really

is a little bit further

if you see a beautiful painting or the

picture or presence of somebody's face

in real life that evokes a particularly

strong positive or negative emotion

you can imagine that of course it

creates the release of certain

neurochemicals or perhaps in the case of

a negative face suppresses the release

of certain neurochemicals but we can't

say that a particular frequency of color

say Reds against oranges or the presence

of a rainbow evokes a sort of

rainbow-like cascade of neurochemicals

whereas with sound that's exactly what's

happening and this isn't to diminish the

value of vision in terms of its ability

to evoke emotional states within us

after all I'm foremost a neuroscientist

but under the umbrella of

neuroscientists I started off as and I

continue to be a vision neuroscientist

studying the visual system and its

ability to evoke emotional states within

us but I have to acknowledge that the

auditory system and in particular the

circuits in the brain that respond to

music have a remarkably potent ability

to evoke these emotional states which is

why when surveys have been done asking

people why they listen to music the

responses that have come back generally

resemble the following statistics

approximately 90 of people say they

listen to music to relax approximately

82 percent of people self-report that

they listen to music in order to make

themselves happy

approximately 46.5 percent of people say

that they listen to music in order to

process particular states of emotion

we'll get back to what process means in

a moment but more often than not when

these Studies have asked specific

questions about what particular types of

emotions people are listening to in

order to process their emotions better

it is the emotion of sadness

and 32.5 percent of people

report that they listen to music in

order to increase their sense of

concentration and we already talked

about the role of Music in concentration

or its ability in some cases to inhibit

concentration a few minutes ago now you

might be asking yourself how can 90 of

people listen to music for one thing and

82 percent of people for another thing

and so on and so forth were well over

100 of people ah well in this survey and

other surveys like it people have the

option to give multiple reasons for

listening to music because of course

most people have multiple reasons for

listening to music

now with that said if we are to examine

this one particular category nearly half

of people who report listening to music

on a regular basis listen to music in

order to process their emotions

we can ask what does the scientific

literature tell us about how certain

types of music evoke certain types of

emotions or help us process certain

emotions and we'll get back to what we

mean by process in a moment but

a number of Studies have been done on

this there's some meta-analyzes that

Converge on some general themes what I

refer to as the center of mass of data

right when there are a lot of studies in

a given area the outcomes of some of

those studies conflict with one another

generally in a good meta-analysis what

happens is different studies are

considered more powerful or less

powerful than others depending on how

many subjects were involved the

different control conditions or lack of

control conditions and so on and so

forth this is one of the great values of

meta-analyzes

is that they don't treat all studies

equally they separate it out studies

based on their level of rigor and

thoroughness well what we can say with

confidence is that

music that makes us quote unquote happy

or tends to shift People's State from

less happy to happier regardless of how

they enter the experiment tend to be

faster music meaning music that on

average contains

140 to 150 beats per minute or faster

okay and there's some other features to

quote unquote happy music if you will

that it tends to be in a major key that

if there are lyrics to that music that

the lyrics tend to report things that

are happy or get this total nonsense in

fact when the type of lyrics in this

happy music's I guess singing about

um great events in life and positive

things falling in love being in love

positive memories birth of children

connection to friends Great Adventures

those lyrics or I should say that music

containing those lyrics was no more

effective in creating states of

happiness than was music of equivalent

Cadence so again music that was 140 to

150 beats per minute or faster on

average

well even if the lyrics were complete

nonsense even if the vocalizations

weren't actual words

it still evoke the same increase in the

level of happiness in the subjects than

when compared to the music containing

coherent lyrics around happy events what

this means is that the Cadence of music

is no doubt the critical variable when

one is trying to shift one's mood from a

state of whatever could be depressed or

sad to non-depressed nonsad or neutral

to positive and so on and so forth

but what this also explains is one hit

wonders

rarely if ever by the way are one hit

wonders sad and depressing songs

sometimes almost always these one-hit

wonders are songs that are very

effective in shifting people's mood from

not so happy to happier or we could just

say happier regardless of where they

started out before listening to the song

they feel better while and after

listening to the song

and indeed more often than not the

lyrical content of those songs

is not particularly meaningful it's not

addressing a particularly meaningful

state or issue it's just what some

people call a party song or something

that's just uplifting not just to them

to but to many other people which

actually brings up an interesting and

future looking point which is that

nowadays we are seeing the emergence of

AI Artificial Intelligence being used to

generate new songs by capturing these

well-established rules gleaned from

Neuroscience of how music impacts the

brain such that in the future artificial

intelligence is going to be generating

hit songs for us as opposed to having

people generating hit songs I know this

evokes a state of concern and fear in

many people I think that um this is uh

fear that needs to be matched with

um I don't know perhaps a cautious

optimism I mean who knows maybe there

are patterns of music including lyrics

that human beings in their current

understanding of themselves and of Music

have not yet been able to tap into and

who knows maybe AI will be generating

the best music that we've ever heard or

perhaps music that can shift our States

from more depressed or sad to heightened

levels of happiness in ways that humans

have just not been able to accomplish so

I think it's important to balance any

pessimism about Ai and its ability to

generate music based on these rules of

how music impacts the brain with an

open-mindedness after all neuroscience

neuroimaging and neural recordings

directly with electrodes in the brain

while people are listening to music is

teaching us how the brain responds to

that music and is giving us information

that indeed human beings but also

computers can use in order to generate

stimuli music that can shift our brain

into more positive States and if that's

the case wouldn't that be wonderful

another established feature of happy

music is get this its ability to get

people to relax the furrow of their brow

and need to raise their eyebrows and to

be a bit wide-eyed and not just through

autonomic arousal but rather through

activation of the muscles in the face

conversely we know that sad music and

here we can Define sad music this has

actually been done in the literature sad

music tends to be slower than average

slower than 60 beats per minute or so

again on average and this again is

independent of the lyrics that might not

even be present in the song

sad music tends to activate the

corrugator muscles

of the forehead which are the muscles

that Furrow the brow and that lead to a

kind of serious look it's in an it's a

folding in of the face as opposed to a

widening up of the eyes and a relaxation

of the brow now given where we are in

the course of this discussion that

shouldn't be surprising we already

talked about how listening to particular

sounds evokes the release of particular

neurochemicals but in a more direct

fashion

listening to particular sounds activate

certain pre-motor and motor circuits

within the brain and body not just the

desire to move one's torso limbs or both

Bob one's head or move ahead side to

side but also the micro structures of

the face which because one of the main

roles of the face is to communicate

emotion

is going to cause either a relaxation of

the brow and a lifting of the eyebrows

or a furrowing or a activation of the

corrugator muscles of the eyebrow and if

that's not obvious and yet interesting

enough well get this

there seems to be a direct relationship

I'm chuckling because this still just

blows my mind because it's a total duh

obvious when you hear it but it's still

just so cool that there's a direct

relationship of the frequency of the

sound that you hear either low pitched

or high pitched and the Cadence of that

sound and here I realize I'm not using

technical music theory language but

whether or not the that particular tone

is played over and over close in time or

more spaced out in time and facial

expressions and indeed

when we listen to

bass tones low frequency tones set apart

from one another with some distance so

that they're not overlapping we get the

all too familiar

bass face so what I'm referring to here

is what neuroscientists would call a

labeled line literally a circuit of

neurons that goes from the periphery in

this case our ears into our brain

through several different stations and

then

Wicks out to impact all sorts of things

within US states of emotion states of

motivation our propensity to move but

also a labeled line circuit coming from

hearing low frequency sounds played

spaced apart from one another that

evokes a particular facial expression

and again this takes us back to the

earlier statement that I made which is

not an original statement frankly there

are people within the field

of auditory processing and understanding

how the brain processes music in fact

one of the world experts in this Dr Eric

Jarvis at the Rockefeller University was

a guest on this podcast where we talked

about the relationship between music

movement and singing and the fact that

music movement in particular dance and

singing likely preceded the evolution of

modern spoken language

well Eric Jarvis and others have argued

quite convincingly that these circuits

that I'm calling labeled lines to

particular facial expressions and states

of emotion are the most fundamental

components of communication and the ways

that humans have communicated about

their emotional state and literally

induced that same emotional state in

other members of our species dating back

tens of thousands if not more years one

of the fun things about researching this

episode on music in the brain is that

there are a lot of quality studies

exploring how music impacts the brain

neuroimaging neural recording data from

excellent Laboratories as well as a lot

of studies in fact a surprising number

of studies exploring how particular

types of music impacts mood States and

fortunately that allowed me to glean

some very specific recommendations as to

the minimum amounts of say happy music

that you need to listen to in order to

shift your mood into a happier State and

indeed the numbers exist in the

literature and it has been shown that

the threshold for significantly shifting

one's mood into a happier state by

listening to the sorts of Music we

talked about before that faster Cadence

Music even with nonsense lyrics although

it could include other lyrics instead is

nine minutes not ten not eight but nine

and I'm sort of joking when I say not

ten not eight but nine because of course

you could listen to music for 10 minutes

or 15 minutes or longer in fact earlier

we talked about the benefits of doing

that but

when one examines the various studies

that looked at how long subjects need to

listen to music in order to shift their

mood into a happier State the threshold

seems to be nine minutes so if you want

to feel happier than you currently feel

it seems that listening to happy music

for nine minutes or more is going to be

the effective approach okay so nine

minutes or more to shift one state to

happier what about to process somber or

sad feelings feelings of loss

well this raises an even bigger question

and it's a question that I also get very

often so you're noticing I get a lot of

questions often in any event

one of the common questions that I get

is when we are feeling sad

or experiencing a loss you know grieving

that the loss of a relationship by you

know by death or decision or by somebody

moving away or the loss of a pet Etc

is it better to go into that state in

other words to quote unquote feel one's

feelings or to counter those feelings

now historically that's been a very

difficult question for me to answer

because who am I to say whether or not

you should feel your feelings or whether

or not feeling those feelings will take

you down a trench of feeling much worse

or much better in fact there's an

emerging literature exactly about that

issue that is whether or not the

catharsis model is really vascotharsis

being the expression and feeling of

one's emotions as a way to extrude or

get rid of those emotions or whether or

not that simply drives us further down

the trench of those emotions that's

really something that we should address

in a separate podcast episode and I will

have experts from the fields of

Psychiatry and psychology to help us

address that question directly but

since we're talking about music in the

brain and the fact that music has a

tremendous capacity to evoke emotional

States including sad States

what has been shown in the peer-reviewed

literature is that when people who are

feeling sad for whatever reason

loss of relationship death who knows

doesn't really matter why they're

feeling sad after all

it's that they're feeling sad listening

to 13 minutes or more of sad music

that music can contain lyrics they are

familiar with or no lyrics regardless of

whether or not it contains lyrics it's

going to be on average 50 or 60 beats

per minute or less we established that

already

listening to that for 13 minutes or more

has been shown to be effective in

allowing people to quote unquote process

their somber feelings and to some extent

to move past their feelings of sadness

so

those studies support the idea that when

feeling sad feeling one's feelings and

perhaps even amplifying those feelings

of Sadness by listening to sad music for

13 minutes or more can help people

process those sad feelings and while

that point might seem overly

reductionist I actually think it's a

real value I'm certainly familiar with

feelings of loss feelings of grief and

I've often struggled with this question

of you know gosh do I try and just push

it aside or do I deal with those

feelings

again this is something that you really

need to determine for yourself but what

these studies show pretty conclusively

is that when we're feeling sad matching

that sadness or amplifying that Sadness

by listening to sad music for 13 minutes

or more can help us move through that

state of sadness and one could argue

this is more or less the use of

catharsis of amplifying emotional

expression or feeling

in order to try and move that feeling

out is a classic idea of originating in

Freudian psychology but probably before

then as well but in any event I think

these data support the idea that even

when feeling sad perhaps especially when

feeling sad

amplifying or matching those feelings

through the use of sad music for 13

minutes or more

again you don't need to set a timer for

13 minutes but giving yourself a period

of time to just listen to that music is

one way that can help you move through

that state of sadness and then be able

to lean back into other areas of life so

we've talked about the role of Music in

evoking or shifting states of happiness

and sadness

there are also interesting data that

support the use of music for shifting

one out of a state of heightened anxiety

and I find this especially interesting

because my laboratory for a long time

has worked on behavioral interventions

to reduce anxiety things like the

physiological Psy which if you're not

familiar with you can put physiological

PSI in my last name into YouTube and

there's a demonstration of that it's a

breathing technique of two inhales

through the nose and a long exhale

through the mouth the lungs empty that

at this point in time we understand to

be the fastest and most effective way to

reduce one's levels of anxiety in real

time so it's two inhales through the

nose long to lungs empty exhale through

the mouth

that's the physiological PSI

earlier we talked about the fact that

one of the main ways in which listening

to music shifts heart rate and increases

heart rate variability and thereby

positively shifts a number of different

Health metrics is through shifts in

breathing so I justify that brief

vignette about the physiological PSI as

within the general context of what we're

talking about today

in any event

there are data that have explored

whether or not specific musical stimuli

can be used to significantly reduce

anxiety in particular one published out

of the University of Pennsylvania and

I'll provide a link to the study in the

show note captions which shows that

people that listen to a particular song

that I'll describe in a moment

experience up to 65 percent reductions

in their anxiety and that's a

significant reduction in anxiety and I

should point out that

65 reduction in anxiety in this case was

accomplished with just three minutes of

listening to this one particular song

and get this that particular song was as

effective in reducing anxiety as one of

the most commonly prescribed

benzodiazepines so what is this magical

anxiety reducing song the title of the

song is weightless by Marconi Union

I hadn't heard of the song prior to

researching this episode I did indeed

look up the song on YouTube and listen

to the song I will provide a link to the

song in the show note captions I confess

that it is a very relaxing song I also

confessed that I was not experiencing

anxiety when I listened to the song but

it was successful in reducing my level

of overall autonomic arousal I found

myself more relaxed Etc now of course

what I'm describing in terms of my own

experience is not a peer-reviewed study

it's what I would call anik data meaning

I'm just describing my experience but

again there are peer-reviewed studies

exploring how this particular song

shifts one's autonomic State and I think

this three minutes of listening to this

one song should at least be Tried by

anyone that's trying to reduce their

anxiety Because unless you're listening

to the song in some way that I'm not

aware of like excessively loud or

something of that sort I can't imagine

how listening to the song would be

detrimental in any way and if you are

anything like the subjects in the study

that they explored it could very well be

beneficial and help you reduce your

anxiety it's also something that you

could keep queued up in your phone or on

any device such that if you think you

may experience anxiety you just put your

headphones in and listen to it you might

be wondering whether or not Marconi

Union's weightless is only three minutes

long well I don't know the answer to

that because when you go on YouTube what

you'll see is that clearly a number of

people are benefiting from listening to

the song to reduce their anxiety or at

least that a number of people have

listened to this song Because if you put

Marconi Union weightless into the search

function on YouTube what you'll quickly

discover is that the top video has get

this 47 million views and it's 10 hours

long now across today's episode it's

been in the back of my mind that some of

you out there perhaps are trained

musicians that you grew up playing an

instrument perhaps sang in choir or at

school perhaps you played multiple

instruments perhaps you even know music

theory whereas others such as myself

were encouraged to play an instrument

when we were younger but then abandoned

that instrument in fact I'll just tell

you a brief story when I was a kid every

kid in school was required to pick an

instrument my parents for whatever

reason clearly they didn't ask me what I

want to do they asked me to play the

violin in school and I got the violin

started playing the violin I took the

Suzuki method lessons this is where you

don't learn to read music directly you

there's a number assignment to the

different notes and that's initially how

you learn I was also supposed to listen

to the songs while I slept this idea

that some of the music and musical

learning could be encoded during sleep

an interesting topic because there's

actually some emerging evidence for that

now but at the time as far as I know

there were no peer-reviewed studies but

nonetheless it was thought that this

works and perhaps it does well I can

tell you one thing for sure it did not

work for me because I have one photo and

truly just one from a concert that I

played I must have been about eight or

nine years old and within this photo

what you'll notice is there's a gallery

of children all with violins all of

whom's bows are up

and my bow is down that in addition to

the fact that my fly was open in the

picture and the fact that every time I

played the violin either by practice or

with the teacher present when we would

go to these once a week

sessions with a individual teacher

people would cringe animals would cringe

literally dogs would howl such that my

parents

did not encourage me to continue playing

in fact they and many others encouraged

me to quit playing so I quit playing I

confess I don't know how to play any

instrument I've attempted a few other

instruments in my lifetime yes I believe

in neuroplasticity it is a Hallmark

feature of our brain our brain can learn

things even as adults but the point I've

tried to make here is that I am not of

the category of kids that played an

instrument

and understands music theory or how to

read music I simply don't and I realize

that those of you that are listening to

this or watching this out there are

probably in a mixed category of

proficiency all the way down to what I

would consider my own relationship to

music which is deficiency although I

greatly enjoy listening to music and I

do have a pretty good ability to

memorize lyrics

in any event

the reason I raise this is that there

are now dozens if not hundreds of

quality peer-reviewed studies using a

variety of technical approaches that

show that when children especially

children younger than eight

learn to play an instrument and even

better learn to play multiple

instruments

regardless of whether or not they learn

to read music that it leads to greatly

enhanced connectivity within their brain

that persists into adulthood and that it

facilitates other forms of

neuroplasticity and learning which is

basically to say that my brain very

likely does not include these enhanced

circuits which circuits am I referring

to well there are a number of different

circuits in the brain that have been

shown to expand when children learn how

to play an instrument as a child eight

or younger and again eight isn't a

strict cut off and I always have to

highlight this forgive the tangent but

when we say eight or younger I don't

want people with nine-year-old children

or a 10 year old kid or even 16 year old