Listening to music
Difficulty Level:
Easy
Frequency:
While you are working
Duration:
For the duration of your task
How to do it
This will vary from person to person. However, there are some general guidelines to follow:
- Improve productivity and attention
- Listen to music you like (1, 2)
- Listen to background music without lyrics (3)
- Listen to bird sounds
- Improve your mood, productivity and attention
- Listening to nature sounds (4)
- Listen to positive valence music (feel-good music) (5)
- Listen to bird sounds
- Need to sustain your attention?
- Listen to bird sounds
- Listen to positive valence music (feel-good music) (5)
- Listen to slow tempo music (5)
Why you should try it?
Music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention
Listening to certain types of music can help sustain attention on demanding tasks (5)
Listening to bird sounds can have a positive effect on attention and stress recovery (6)
Nature sounds have a restorative effect on our cognitive system (4)
The research
The research on listening to music while working is widespread. There is a lot out there of what to do and what not to do depending on the task you are performing. All in all, listening to music you like is essential to keeping your focus and concentration strong. Studies have looked at the effect of listening to music participants preferred versus listening to music they are disinterested in and listening to no music at all. It was found that listening to music they liked, increased their level of attention (1). Other research has investigated the effects of tempo (fast and slow) and valence (positive and negative) on attention. It was found that positive valence and slow tempo music gave the highest degree of accuracy and attention (5).
There has also been research on the restorative effects of nature sounds on attention. If you remember from the restorative nature walk activity, being present in nature gives a restorative effect on the attentional system. One study compared the effects of office found muffled by nature sounds (flowing water), office sounds muffled by white noise and office sounds alone on attention. They discovered that when employees listened to the natural sounds, they not only performed better on the attention task, but also reported feeling more positive about their environment than they did in the other sessions (4).
How it works
When you listen to music, a part of your brain called the nucleus accumbens is activated. This triggers the release of the feel good neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is the same chemical that is released when you eat your favourite food, when you have a success at work, causing you to want more and more. This brain area is involved in forming expectations, which could be rewarding. Music is so emotionally powerful because it creates expectations. Activity in the nucleus accumbens indicates that expectations are met.
Have you ever wondered why listening to music with lyrics can affect your performance or attention on a task? The same model is used to explain why words spoken in the background impede learning visually presented information (8). When it comes to music, lyrics place an additional load on cognitive resources. This limits the space for learning visually presented material (7, 8).
Lastly, listening to nature sounds, birdsongs in particular, is reassuring because evolutionarily we have learned that when birds are singing, our environment is safe. As long as our previous experiences with nature are positive, this alone decreases blood pressure and allows us to think more clearly (9).
The evidence
- Mori, F., Naghsh, F., & Tezuka, T. (2014).
The Effect of Music on the Level of Mental Concentration and its Temporal Change.
CSEDU (1), 34-42 - Wilkins, R., Hodges, D., Laurienti, P., Steen, M., & Burdette, J. (2014).
Network Science and the Effects of Music Preference on Functional Brain Connectivity: From Beethoven to Eminem.
Scientific Reports, 4, 6130. - Shih, Y., Huang, R., & Chiang, H. (2012).
Background music: effects on attention performance.
Work., 42(4), 573-578. - DeLoach, A., Carter, J., & Braasch, J. (2015).
Tuning the cognitive environment: Sound masking with “natural” sounds in open-plan offices.
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 137(4), 2291-2291. - Jesso, M., Lewis, B., Tanangco, E., Drury, R., & Baldwin, C. (2015).
Music Interventions during a Sustained Attention Response Task.
In Proceedings 19th Triennial Congress of the IEA (Vol. 9, p. 14). - Ratcliffe, E, Gatersleben, B, & Sowden, P. (2013).
Bird sounds and their contributions to perceived attention restoration and stress recovery.
Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36, 221-228. - Salamé, P., & Baddeley, A. (1982).
Disruption of short-term-memory by unattended speech – implications for the structure of working memory.
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 21, 150-164. - Salamé, P., & Baddeley, A. (1989).
Effects of background music on phonological short-term memory.
Journal of Experimental Psychology Section-Human Experimental Psychology, 41, 107-122. - Haga, A., Halin, N., Holmgren, M., & Sörqvist, P. (2016).
Psychological Restoration Can Depend on Stimulus-Source Attribution: A Challenge for the Evolutionary Account?
Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1831.