#25. Use Brain.fm for background noise

A lot of people have trained themselves to listen to music while they work. But almost all research says that performance is poorer in the presence of a background sound.

One obvious benefit, though, of music is social. You put on your headphones and people know not to bother you. I often wear headphones with no sound just to indicate to my coworkers that I’m busy.

The research, however, on music as a background noise is that it’s tricky — there are occasional benefits to productivity but also many, many pitfalls. There is another approach: an emerging field of auditory science used to boost focus and reduce mind-wandering.

Brain.fm is the best of these brain music options.

Download the Brain.fm app.

It’s free for a week and then $49.99 per year.

Use their focus music while you work if you’re suffering from lack of focus or procrastination.

Since I come from the world of coaching, I spend most of my time helping people apply behavior changes. As a result, I often end up in a place where I think I see certain advice working, but I don’t necessarily understand or trust the scientific explanation for why that advice works. That’s the case with Brain.fm.

My experience with Brain.fm is that it’s amazing and works exactly as advertised. Sometimes, without sound, my brain will have a tendency to wander. With the Brain.fm focus music, it some how shuts down that wandering during any dead spots in my work (like if I’m waiting for an app to load). As a result, I have more sustained periods of focus.

However, I find their explanation of the science to be inscrutable. It sounds exactly like the type of pop-culture brain science that lots of people spout. This doesn’t bother me, as long as it works.

The music is designed to have effects on neurophysiology via unique acoustic features woven into the music (Brain.fm holds patents for key aspects of this process). Examples include modulations optimized to evoke entrainment of neural oscillations, filtering to exclude distracting sound events, or smooth movement in virtual space to direct attention or avoid habituation.

However, Brain.fm have run studies funded by the National Science Foundation that back up my experience, which is that Brain.fm is better than silence and silence is better than music.

I need to emphasize that this is a corporate-run study that magically ended up with a self-serving result. So, more than the science, I just want you to take my word for it enough to try it out for yourself (remember, there’s a free trial).