Music is good for your head

I was reading a blog today and the author said “I listen to this album as medicine.” That made me pause for a moment.

I love music, but I rarely think of it as medicine. I decided to do a little research.

I popped “health benefits of music” into my Google machine, and clicked first on a link from Harvard Health.

It got a little more technical than my pay grade, but the science is clear: “music has major effects on many aspects of health, ranging from memory and mood to cardiovascular function and athletic performance.”

Harvard isn’t in the fake news camp as far as I’m concerned, so I was encouraged.

One of the most interesting findings to me confirmed a belief that I already held, but it was nice to see the science back up my intuition.

Music can reduce stress. The experiment took 74 people who were all going in for the same surgery and randomly assign them to a group with music and a group without music. Those volunteers that got to choose their own music before, during, and immediately after the surgery lowered their heart rate 17 beats per minute and also had lower blood pressure during the procedure. The only difference was the music. How crazy is that?

In another article from Time magazine an amazing detail jumped out to me about music as a mood enhancer. I think we all intuitively know that soothing music can calm us down. But is all soothing music the same? Not so much. In one experiment, some of the respondents told researchers that AC/DC is their go-to band for soothing music. This was perplexing until it was learned that these were mega fans of Swedish speed metal. To them, AC/DC is slow tempo and not very aggressive. For speed metal fans, AC/DC is the equivalent to Enya.

Finally, the one area I thought would be conclusive is not. I was sure that listening to “Lose Yourself” by Eminem while doing my workout increases my performance. But the studies just don’t support this yet. They don’t entirely disprove it, scientists just can prove it yet. So even though the Boston Marathon has tried to ban earbuds, most serious athletes will still swear by their go-to playlist to get their mind right.

There are mountains of more experiments out there, so let’s do a little one of our own. See if you can change your mood or boost your workout this weekend merely by switching up the music. I don’t think I’m ready to jump straight to Swedish speed metal, but I’ll take your suggestions on the best mood lifting tunes you use.

Take two songs and call me in the morning … doctor’s orders.

Just don’t do it between 3-7pm every weekday. Listen to KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don. “What Are We Talking About Here” can be heard every weekday at 4:50 p.m. and 6:50 p.m. on the Ron & Don Show on KIRO Radio 97.3 FM.