6 Ways Listening To Music Improves Both Your Physical And Mental Health

If you thought the reason you love music was just for entertainment, you were wrong.

Music is a natural medicine. The ancient civilizations knew that music can be used in therapeutic ways. Take it from Aristotle and Plato.

We already know that music can trigger memories and can alter one's mood, but scientific research showed that music can alter human brain and body in other ways.

Listening to music comes with tons of personal benefits. These can range from easing your anxiety to improving your memory.

1. Playing music improves your learning abilities.

A study revealed that kids who took music lessons performed better in school and had a higher IQ.

The study shows that music changes how brain works. It does this by improving the activity in the areas linked to communication and academic performance. The catch here is that the subject needs to be involved in the music.

In other words, you need to listen to it and play it to reap this benefit.

2. It improves recovery after a workout.

After a hard workout you should be listening to music to speed up the body's recovery. A study found that listening to any music improves the recovery rate of the body. This helps you regain your strength after a hard workout.

Listening to music before the workout is also advisable, as music enhances physical strength and leads to better endurance. When you want to really shed those extra pounds, turn the speakers on and focus on the songs.

You'll burn calories much faster than you would without music.

3. Music lowers stress levels. 

Listening to music decreases the stress level which reduces the levels of cortisol, the main stress hormone.

Music can save you from a wide range of diseases, as stress is the main cause of more than 60 percent of all health issues.

There was a study conducted on people who played various instruments. It showed the immune systems of people who did play music were stronger than that of people who didn't play any instruments.

4. It is an alternative painkiller.

Researchers found that music can reduce pain. In certain cases it was more effective than traditional painkillers.

Cancer patients and intensive care patients benefited from listening to certain kinds of music. Classical and meditative genres are at the top of this list.

One of the scientific reasons why these genres soothed pain is because it promotes the release of dopamine and endorphins.

These are called “happiness hormones” and induce a feeling of good, which helps ease pain.

5. Music boosts memory power.

There are multiple studies which prove that music boosts memory power. One of them was conducted on musicians and non-musicians. Participants were asked to remember characters while listening to music.

Musicians were able to remember better with pleasurable music. Non-musicians performed better with neutral music.

Researchers also looked at people with Alzheimer's disease. They wanted to find out if music can help them improve their memory and postpone the impairment.

During the study, the patients were listening to meaningful songs for them, which helped them remember certain events from the past.

6. It relieves insomnia.

Music can also be used to get better sleep. As we normally use headphones for listening music, you can use headphones specifically designed for sleeping.

Studies found that listening to music cut down the amount of time needed to fall asleep. It also reduces the number of times one might wake up during the night. This improves overall sleep quality, which is always a positive thing.

As insomnia affects a large amount of people all around the world, this is really great news.