By: Meghan Mahaffey
You may have a playlist carefully curated for an intense workout that mysteriously pushes you through the last set. Or maybe you have a go-to album you reach for when your brain is scattered, preventing you from finishing your work on time. These tangible experiences with music have scientific research to back the phenomenon many listeners and artists know well.
Music is widely acknowledged as a cultural stitch that has united groups of people through time. Its significance as an art form is likely due to the cognitive effects of streaming sessions. Listening to and learning music has been proven to enhance a person’s neurological development, concentration, and emotional intelligence. Music creators and enjoyers alike experience these psychological benefits.
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A study by The National Library of Medicine dives into the scientific ways that music “[evokes] a variety of emotions, feelings of pleasure/euphoria,” as it interacts with the brain’s neural pathways. The human brain engages in neuroplasticity everyday, forming and strengthening its neural makeup as a reaction to a person’s experiences. Music is a powerful stimuli capable of “[inducing] structural and functional changes in the brain.” The complex layering of lyrics, rhythms, and instruments has been used in clinical situations such as pain relief for patients and to alleviate damage caused by psychological trauma.
Ef ects of music streaming on a child’s brain development. (Picture: School of Rock)
Music’s ability to positively affect the brain’s activity has also been applied to childhood development. School of Rock offers a theory that “it’s one thing to hear music, but other to fully recognize the subtle changes in tone and patterns within music. This ability to recognize subtle complexity can carry over into other areas and improve cognitive performance.” Integrating music into a child’s upbringing from a young age has a medley of benefits, one of which is its association with developing an understanding of language. Young children are developing neural pathways constantly as they experience the world around them, so music can have even more formative effects at this stage of life.
Cognitive development is the opposite of a stagnant experience– meaning music’s formative impacts on the brain continue throughout life. Next time you hit play on your favorite playlist, you can think of the neural pathways forming and strengthening as you stream.