Does Music Really Benefit The Brain?

It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

So, no question/request too big or small 😎

❝Is it actually beneficial for the brain to listen to music, or is it just in line with any relaxing activity? And what kind of music is most beneficial❞

The short answer, first of all, is that it is indeed beneficial.

One reason for this without having to get very deep into it, is that a very important thing for general brain health is using it, and that means lighting up all areas of your brain.

Now, we all lead different lives and thus different parts of our brains will get relatively more resources than others depending on what we do with them, and that’s ok.

For example, if you were to scan this writer’s polyglot brain, you’d surely find overdevelopment in areas associated with language use and verbal memory, but if you were to scan a taxi-driver’s brain, then it’d be spatial reasoning and spatial memory that’s overpowered, and for a visual artist, it may be visual processing and creativity that’s enhanced. A musician’s brain? Fine motor skills, auditory processing, auditory memory.

Now, for those of us who aren’t musicians, how then can we light up areas associated with music? By listening to music, of course. It won’t give us the fine motor skills of a concert violinist, but the other areas we mentioned will get a boost.

See also: How To Engage Your Whole Brain ← this covers music too, but it’s about (as the title suggests) the whole brain, so check it out and see if there are any areas you’ve been neglecting!

There are other benefits too, though, including engaging our parasympathetic nervous system, which is good for our heart, gut, brain, and general health—especially if we sing or hum along to the music:

The Science Of Sounds ← this also covers the science (yes, science) of mantra meditation vs music

As for “and what kind of music is most beneficial”, we’d hypothesize that a variety is best, just like with food!

However, there are some considerations to bear in mind, with science to support them. For example…

About tempo:

❝EEG analysis revealed significant changes in brainwave signals across different frequency bands under different tempi.

For instance, slow tempo induced higher Theta and Alpha power in the frontal region, while fast tempo increased Beta and Gamma band power.

Moreover, fast tempo enhanced the average connectivity strength in the frontal, temporal, and occipital regions, and increased phase synchrony value (PLV) between the frontal and parietal regions.❞

Read in full: Music tempo modulates emotional states as revealed through EEG insights

And if you’re wondering about those different brainwave bands, check out:

• How to get many benefits of sleep, while awake! Non-Sleep Deep Rest: A Neurobiologist’s Take ← although it’s not in the title, this does also cover the different brain wave bands
• Alpha, beta, theta: what are brain states and brain waves? And can we control them?

Additionally, if you just want science-backed relaxation, the following 8-minute soundscape was developed by sound technicians working with a team of psychologists and neurologists.

It’s been clinically tested, and found to have a much more relaxing effect (in objective measures of lowering heart rate and lowering cortisol levels, as well as in subjective self-reports) than merely “relaxing music”.

Try it and see for yourself:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

For much deeper dive into the effect of music on the brain, check out this book we reviewed a while back, by an accomplished musician and neuroscientist (that’s one person, who is both things):

This Is Your Brain on Music – by Dr. Daniel Levitin

Enjoy!

And now for a bonus item…

As a bit of reader feedback prompted some interesting thoughts:

❝You erred on the which is better section. Read this carefully :Looking at minerals, grapes have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc, while grapes have more potassium and manganese. A clear win for strawberries here.❞

You’re quite right; thank you for pointing it out, and kindly pardon the typo, which has now been corrected!

The reason for the mistake was because when I (writer responsible for it here, hi) was writing this, I had the information for both fruits in front of me, but the information for grapes was on the right in my field of vision, so I errantly put it on the right on the page, too, while also accidentally crediting strawberries’ minerals to grapes, since strawberries’ data was on the left in my field a vision.

The reason for explaining this: it’s a quirky, very human way to err, in an era when a lot of web content is AI-generated with very different kinds of mistakes (usually because AI is very bad at checking sources, so will confidently state something as true despite the fact that the source was The Onion, or Clickhole, or someone’s facetiously joking answer on Quora, for example).

All in all, while we try to not make typos, we’d rather such human errors than doing like an AI and confidently telling you that Amanita phalloides mushrooms are a rich source of magnesium, and also delicious (they are, reportedly, but they are also the most deadly mushroom on the face of the Earth, also known as the Death Cap mushroom).

In any case, here’s the corrected version of the grapes vs strawberries showdown:

Grapes vs Strawberries – Which is Healthier?

Enjoy!