Your mental health will improve
Research has shown that listening to music can positively affect neurotransmitters like dopamine and oxycontin, which impact feelings like pleasure and love. It can also reduce the stress hormone cortisol. Pair this with the natural instinct the body has to move to music and all the positive effects of dancing, and music becomes a cocktail for mental health.
You learn more about your music taste
Daily listening will require you to search out new music as your usual catalog becomes more repetitive. This will lead to you discovering more bands and artists that differ in small ways from what you’re used to. Look for some that blend genres you know with those you want to get into and pay attention to how they incorporate each.
It can improve your cognitive performance
Listening to music while focusing on other tasks is easier than ever thanks to streaming, wireless earphones and the invention of lo-fi beats to study and relax to. Background music has been shown to improve your memory and processing speed, especially for older adults. Instrumental music is better, as lyrics tend to distract the brain.
You may start losing weight
A lot of research has been done to understand human eating habits, especially as more of us try to squeeze extra activities into our lunch breaks to maximize enjoyment. Experiments have shown that relaxing music and low lights made people eat less, possibly because the comfort makes you more aware of when you are full.
You might feel less pain
A study into music’s effects on fibromyalgia management reported a significant decrease in pain for those who listened to music every day. It has also been shown that listening to music at any point before, during, or after surgery works to reduce pain and anxiety, with researchers looking into how music can help treat chronic pain conditions.
You will feel more motivated
Our physiology is heavily affected by the music we listen to. Foot tapping, head bobbing, and hip swaying can all be as instinctual as removing your hand from a hot surface. This is why workout playlists exist. It’s proven that listening to high-energy, quick-tempo tracks increases motivation during exercise, making you work harder.
You might sleep better
Relaxing music can help you nod off quicker by easing most of the common causes of sleepless nights. Stress, anxiety, depression and physical pain can all keep you awake at night, and are all eased by gentle, familiar music. By giving the brain something external to focus on, you distract the thought patterns that can keep you agitated.
It can keep you stable as you age
Older people who are at risk of falling due to physical ailments are shown to become much more dexterous and nimble when exercising to music. The act of repeating actions to music enhances muscle memory development by associating it with a rhythm, which can help with everything from walking, to reaching or climbing stairs as the body weakens.
It could make you better at math
The brain processes music as the sequence of frequencies and ratios that it is, doing complex, lightning-fast calculations that break down the sounds and how you hear them. The neural pathways that light up when listening to music are in the upper right hemisphere, the part responsible for higher functions like math, which seems to ‘warm up’ the brain cells, helping them act quicker.
It could make your hearing worse
An obvious drawback of repeated and prolonged exposure to loud noise is damage to one’s hearing. This is easy to remedy, but often seems counter-intuitive as so many of us use loud music help drown out the chaos whilst on on the street or taking public transport. Just turn it down a little, and your eardrums will thank you for it in the long run.