Listening to music while you work: Is it good?

Listening to music while you work: Is it good? Learn all about the influence of music on job performance. Everyone has a different way of working and optimizing their work performance. However, it has been shown that many people have the habit of working or studying while listening to music. Scientists around the world have hard studied these kinds of behaviors to verify their effectiveness.

In this article, you will learn about the influence of music on job performance.

What effect does music have on the human body?

Listening to music is one of the most enjoyable activities we can do. Music can make us feel emotions, revive others, think, dream, have fun, do catharsis, create and connect with others, and many other benefits.

Slow music helps slow your breathing and heart rate, reducing stress. It can reduce the chronic pain of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. For this reason, music therapy is part of treatment programs for this type of patient. It usually helps those with migraines. It helps to combat chronic headaches and reduce the intensity and duration of chronic headaches.

In this sense, we can summarize the effects of music in:

1. It makes you happier.

2. Improve performance.

3. Reduce stress and improve health.

4. It helps you sleep better.

5. Reduces depression.

6. Elevates your mood.

7. Strengthens Learning and Memory.

8. Relaxes patients before and after surgery.

9. Reduces pain.

10. Helps Alzheimer’s patients.

11. Improves recovery in stroke patients.

12. Raises IQ and academic performance.

13. Keeps your brain healthy in old age.

Can music improve work performance?

Listening to music while you work: Is it good? Some people improve their performance when they listen to the music they like while doing a task at work. When you listen to music, your body generates a dopamine substance, which helps eliminate stress and associate work with something that you value positively.

It does not always work. There are exceptions, and it is not worth playing music in any way, but according to work carried out by this research team, music can help achieve better results in professional settings.

According to the study, not all people react the same to music, so there are cases in which it can affect in the opposite direction. Some people are not more productive in an environment where music is playing. Age seems to also influence worker performance, with the youngest being those who improve the most when there is music while performing a task, while the older ones have the least impact.

On the other hand, not all jobs are created equal, and it cannot be extended to any profession or any task. For example, people who perform certain risky professions should not listen to music at work, in which they also need to be concentrated and have a full ear to avoid accidents.

What kind of music is best to work with?

Music and work often go hand in hand. Facing cognitive or physical challenges is usually more enjoyable and simple with the company of music. It helps us keep up the pace and, above all, to avoid that loneliness and fatigue that often appears at work.

But choosing the right music to work with is not as simple as hitting one of our playlists – not if we want the company to affect us positively. And it is that music affects the functioning of our brain. It can make it difficult or easier to perform a task. Or it can also become a demotivating factor rather than a motivator. Therefore, we must follow a series of guidelines and tips before pressing the play button.

• Songs without lyrics are better, Listening to music while you work: Is it good?

If the tasks you face relate to words (the case of a journalist, for example), try to avoid the music with lyrics. Music with lyrics hinders the brain’s syntactic and grammatical production. It is as if, on a highway where only cars should circulate (which would be the words related to our work), heavy vehicles also circulate (the words corresponding to the lyrics of the song). Traffic gets congested, and arrival times decrease. Something similar happens in our brain.

• Unknown songs are better too, Listening to music while you work: Is it good?

If the task you are faced with involves an effort on your brain, try turning to unfamiliar songs. Surely on more than one occasion, you have been working, one of your favorite songs has started to sound and, immediately afterward, you have started singing it, right? If the exercise you are going to do is physical instead of mental, you can use well-known songs.

• Distribute and choose sound sources appropriately

Listening to music from in-ear headphones is not as comfortable as listening to it from speakers surrounding the room you are in. In the same way, it is not the same that the audio comes from your laptop as if it comes from a speaker on the top shelf. Direct sound sources can negatively affect your productivity, so always try to choose the most comfortable setup.

• Consider instrumental versions, Listening to music while you work: Is it good?

Many of the most famous songs have instrumental versions. These can be of great help because, by eliminating the lyrics, we gain a plus in concentration, but we maintain a very pleasant rhythm to work.

• Progressive lists are ideal to start the day

Many studies show that the human brain needs a little “push” to perform a task. The first few minutes are always the hardest to deal with. For this reason, choose playlists that first reproduce more lively, more motivating themes or that appeal to certain positive feelings. After these, the ideal is songs that maintain the rhythm but are calmer and “passive.”

• Soundtracks can be our best friends, Listening to music while you work: Is it good?

Movie and video game soundtracks are often wonderful solutions to work with. There are exceptions (“The Lion King” OST does not have the same effect as the “Chariots of Fire” OST), but generally, they help with greater concentration and productivity.

• Be careful with feelings and emotions

Music intensely affects the emotional part. Therefore, before playing a playlist, we must consider how each song affects the various brain regions. Imagine a great topic to work on (in terms of rhythm and genre) but whose lyrics only remind us of a sad moment in our lives. Or that song we usually listen to before we sleep. It completely breaks our scheme and will prevent us from executing the task we face.

• Randomness may be the key, Listening to music while you work: Is it good?

A varied playlist can be a great help to work with, as each song will keep a different part of the brain stimulated, which will help us be more productive and efficient. But these changes should not be sudden or constant because, if so, our brain will use more “resources” than we would like to pay attention to what reaches our ears.

• Sometimes you have to give up music, Listening to music while you work: Is it good?

Music is a wonderful companion, but sometimes its presence hinders our productivity. When we get mentally blocked, for example. Or when we have several hours of intense and continuous work. In addition, many studies show that the benefits of music disappear when it plays constantly for hours.

Conclusions

After you know the influence of music on work performance, you can choose the best playlist to guarantee your best performance at work.