The Science-Backed Ways Music Affects Your Brain and Productivity
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The Science-Backed Ways Music Affects Your Brain and Productivity

Why tunes help you focus, tunes to help you focus, and news you’ll want to tune into.

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” ― Aldous Huxley

Dear Reader,

There you sit again: browser open in front of you, the hum of your office in the background, your to-do list sprawled out on your notepad.

And… you don’t feel like doing anything.

Faced with this lack of motivation, you start to experiment:

You try working offline. You try the pomodoro method. You take that walk around the block, as suggested by everyone. No major improvements. You’re not being as productive as you should, and you need to fix that… fast.

So you put on your headphones, pull up your favorite pop song or ambient rain mix and listen. Instantly, you can focus on those boring tasks on your to-do list (looking at you, email).

And now you got one of them done. Then another. Now you’re bobbing your head and in the zone.

When nothing else seems to help make us productive, the right music can supercharge us. But in terms of our brain and work, what does music do and why does it help us?

Over the next few newsletters, we will share why music affects our brains, explain how it boosts our thinking, and link up some of our favorite tunes that help us focus. We hope you enjoy!

(Continue the conversation. Share your favorite jams by replying to this email or hitting us up on social @TheMissionHQ.) 🎶🎶

Science, Music, and Your Brain

Studies about how music affects our brains and emotions have been ongoing since the 1950s, when physicians began to notice the benefits of music therapy in European and U.S. hospital patients. However, humans have been using music to communicate thoughts and feelings to one another for centuries.

Today, research suggests that music can help relieve negative emotions like stress, anxiety, and depression. It can even decrease instances of confusion and delirium in elderly medical patients recovering from surgery. Furthermore, research says that listening to happy or sad music can make us perceive others as being happy or sad, respectively. All of these findings make it clear that, for better or worse, music’s impact on our emotions is very real.

In terms of how music affects the brain, we can turn to a specific niche of research called neuromusicology, which explores how our nervous systems react to music. Basically, music enters the inner ear and engages many different areas of our brains, some of which are used for other cognitive functions, as well. (If you want to know the specifics of this detailed process, Dawn Kent explains it neatly in her thesis.)

Somewhat surprisingly, the number of brain areas activated by music varies from person to person, depending on your musical training and your personal experiences with music. Therefore, how music impacts your ability to concentrate or feel a certain emotion can be expected to vary from person to person, too.

However, there are some general brain and mood patterns that modern music research reveals, and these can help us decide what kinds of music to listen to at work. In tomorrow’s letter, we will explain exactly what those are and share more of the science behind music. Stay tuned!