We love listening to music;

Can you imagine NOT having music in your life? It would be like seeing without color. There’s a different style of music for everyone, but no matter what that style is, it always make you feel great.

Ever wondered what some of the scientifically backed benefits of listening to music are? How about why music actually makes you feel good?

I was curious, so I did a little research into the advantages of music, most of which we are unaware to, and how we can benefit from these…

13 Proven Benefits of Listening to Music

Below are some of biggest benefits that come from listening to music. Benefits that you’re likely to be experiencing already without even realizing it!

After reading this, just imagine how much your daily life would change if you stopped playing music everywhere you went.

1. Improves Your Cognitive Performance

Performing cognitive tasks whilst having music played in the background can boost your performance. It’s been proven that the ability to improve cognitive performance comes down to the emotional state of the individual.

As listening to your favorite music helps elevate your mood, it can therefore improve your performance at work, whilst studying and so on.

2. Helps Boost Your Mood

As I mentioned above, listening to your favorite music can help elevate your mood. We all know this to be true. How often do you find yourself to be feeling sad or angry, then you throw on some music, and all of a sudden it’s fine?

The study in which this benefit was proven can be found here.

3. Promotes Weight Loss

Listening to music whilst eating can potentially promote weight loss. The study showed that when music was played to people eating a meal, the pace of which they ate the meal slowed down.

In turn, this made them full earlier on than usual, due to their stomach sending signals to the brain. Usually you’d be eating faster than these signals could be sent, causing you to be full before your brain could really tell you that you are.

Therefore eating less helps you to lose weight.

4. Relieves Depression

These benefits are like a chain reaction!

The fact that music helps boost your mood, in-turn, means that it can also alleviate depression. There’s a catch though. The study explains that only certain types of music, such as the likes of classical, can help relieve depression.

Music such as techno and heavy metal are a big NO! And can reverse the effect of music, worsening depression.

5. Increases Your Workout Endurance

Having a playlist packed out with all the best workout music can help increase your workout performance, going the extra mile you probably wouldn’t have gone otherwise.

The reason for this is that music distracts our brain from our surroundings, the exercise that we’re doing, and so on. Shifting our focus onto the music, which we love, therefore we end up doing more work without even realizing.

6. Speeds up Post Workout Recovery

This one was actually quite surprising. The study show that listening to music post-workout can help speed up the recovery time for your muscles.

Most of us will play music during exercise, but playing it post exercise is news to me! It works by making us more relaxed, so it’s better to play relaxing music, a nothing heavy and upbeat.

7. Helps Ease Pain

Music has been shown to reduce the intensity in which we perceive pain. In other words, it can help reduce the amount of pain we feel.

To find out more info on this, here is the research.

8. Improves Motivation to Exercise

We all saw this benefit on the list, surely?

If you all go to the gym, go for runs or bike-rides, you listen to music. There’s no question here. You’d be crazy not to!

Studies have shown music to help people run faster, and work harder in many exercise scenarios. Think about that next time you go to the gym!

9. Higher Quality of Sleep

Whether this benefit applies with every type of music, I’m not entirely sure.

However the study that was performed, showed higher quality of sleep was proven for those who regularly listen to classical music. This study was performed on college students who suffer with Insomnia.

Regardless, this can be a great and natural way to cure insomnia and improve the general quality of your sleep.

10. Induces A Meditative State

According to research, listening to music that’s slow tempo can alter brainwave speed. The effect results in brainwaves similar to what one would expect from being in a state of meditation.

This has a rather therapeutic effect, and can resolve behavior issues, migraines, and other related problems. It’s a good alternative to meditation, although you should definitely consider adding meditation to your daily routine, for the serious benefits.

11. Reduces Anxiety

Reducing anxiety is another key benefit of listening to music. In fact the effect has been compared to that of getting a massage. So if you don’t have time to go out and get a massage, why not throw on some relaxing music instead?

12. Relaxes Patients Before & After Surgery

Listening to music has been proven to help surgery patients relax before surgery, and reduce their stress levels afterwards.

This is a simple, yet powerful benefit for the millions of people that get some form of surgery every year. If it was made more known, and introduced to surgeries around the world, this could prove very helpful.

13. Elevates Your Mood Whilst Driving

How many of you sing along to the music playing in your car, every time you drive to work and back?

Putting on some of your favorite tunes in the car can seriously boost your mood. This is particularly the case for when you’re driving to work in the morning. It’s likely that those who do this are in a better mood for the work day.

Summary

Once again, the 13 proven benefits of listening to music:

Improves your cognitive performance Helps boost your mood Promotes weight loss Relieves depression Increases your workout endurance Speeds up post workout recovery Helps ease pain Improves motivation to exercise Higher quality of sleep Induces a meditative state Reduces anxiety Relaxes patients before & after surgery Elevates your mood whilst driving

Music has so many more benefits attached to it than we would think. Since most of us listen to music anyway, the advice here is to either listen to it more, or to make sure you keep listening!

Imagine how many of these benefits we’ll lose on a daily basis if we stop listening to music!

Are you listening to music everyday? How does it make you feel? Leave a comment below.