If you've been feeling bored, a happy tune can make lackluster tasks seem more appealing. Drowns out other noise: If you've ever worked in a coffee shop or an office with an open floor plan, you've probably been driven up the wall by the sounds of someone sniffling or shuffling their feet. Listening to music, particularly through a good pair of headphones , can drown out distracting noises.
Read more: Best music streaming: Spotify, Apple Music and more, compared. Research on music for productivity is inconclusive, to say the least. Some studies show that background music can improve your episodic memory and overall cognitive performance , yet other research suggests that background music can actually be a detriment to your ability to focus and learn.
Still others say that it has no effect one way or another. There are factors that affect whether background music works, too: Some research suggests that background music needs to be free of lyrics in order to promote productivity ; other studies say simply that whether music aids in concentrating depends on how much a worker likes or dislikes the music.
Note that the studies discussed in this section measure something different than the aforementioned Mozart Effect. While the Mozart Effect measures the ability of music to enhance intelligence after the music stops playing, research on music for productivity investigates background music, or music that plays while your attention is primarily on something else your work. With the fact that there's no real scientific consensus in mind, it's worth looking at the handful of research studies on different types of music and their ability to aid in concentration.
Despite the muting of the Mozart Effect, some research still suggests that classical music can help people learn and focus just not as impressively so as the s would have you believe. For example, one study found that college students who listened to classical music during lecture learned more than those who listened to the same lecture without classical music.
Some research suggests, however, that classical or any type of complex music is best when performing simple tasks , rather than complicated ones. Ambient music is a style of gentle, tone-based music that utilizes ambient sounds like the hum of an air conditioner or the buzz of TV static. Ambient music often lacks a true beat, usually doesn't have lyrics, and ends up blending into the preexisting background noise -- this is why ambient sounds like white noise are often used at sleep aids.
In terms of focus and productivity, one study found that white noise can help people with ADHD ignore noisy environments and perform tasks with more efficiency. There's still a lot of work to do, however, when it comes to understanding when ambient noise helps and when it doesn't , according to recent research from the University of Alberta. For starters, try the Bastion soundtrack, or one of the SimCity soundtracks, to name a few. If you're feeling stressed out at work, give ambient music a try.
As Brian Eno, creator of Music for Airports says, "Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting. There's a number of other types of music you can listen to during work, such as meditation music, blues, or jazz, to name a few.
If you just want to silence your chatty co-workers or the nearby printer, use "white noise" to cancel them out. Experiment and see what works. Soft and mellow may help you to focus on your work, while a high energy piece can keep you motivated. Top Stories. Top Videos. Getty Images. And of course, there are those times when silence is golden. Ever tried to write an email while someone is talking to you? In our experiment, we measured the response time and accuracy on a popular test used for measuring focus while playing different genres of music.
Interestingly, only two genres in our experiment were noticeably better than silence at improving focus; classical and ambient music. While subjects performed the test, we also recorded the change in gamma and alpha wave activity in the brain using EEG technology. Classical music and ambient music both displayed an increase in hz gamma wave activity and a reduction in hz alpha wave activity, which is associated with an increase in focus. I hate to be a party pooper, but this same report highlighted rock, metal, and pop to be the most popular genres of music to listen to at work, despite resulting in some of the biggest reductions in focus.
Sidenote: I was very upset to discover my favourite metal band, Children of Bodom, reduced my ability to focus by Of course, not all pieces of classical and ambient music are the same, so we dug deeper to explore how major happy music compared to minor sad music, and whether computer-generated music outperformed human created music.
A study from the University of Connecticut tested the effect of background music played in different modes e. As an interesting side note, this same study also found that people enjoyed a conversation more when background music in the major key was playing.
In addition, there was a 7. Once you have a clear task defined, focus music unlocks a higher level of focus and efficiency. But without it, focus music is just another distraction. Several studies have concluded that background music increases work productivity when the task at hand is clearly-defined and repetitive in nature but has negligible or adverse effects when the task is more complex or less defined.
An example of the latter is when the task requires absorbing or retaining new information, such as learning a new language. According to this research, music is no exception.
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