7 Insane Ways Music Affects The Body (According to Science)
The world is chock full of ear hurt that some people willingly refer to as music. The Jonas Brothers, Lady Gaga, Conway Twitty; they all produce high quality records and 8-tracks for our enjoyment whether we like it or not.
But music--even terrible music--has a stunning amount of power over our bodies. For instance science says music can...
#7.
Repair Brain Damage
Slapping neuroscience right across the face, music is able to take stroke, lesion or other brain-damaged patients who have lost the partial ability to see or speak and return it to them. The Kenny Rogers Effect--not named because it deals with gorging yourself on chicken or replacing your old, grandfatherly face with a shiny new rubber one--takes patients with visual neglect, the inability to recognize half of what they see, and lightens the effects of the damage. Patients who only shave half their face or grab for the right boob at a strip club can now put that dollar bill in the left or right side of her thong. The Gambler never stops being awesome.
As long as she's dancing to Kenny Rogers...
Patients with left-side brain damage who can no longer speak can find they are able to sing words, often without trouble or training. After that, it's just a matter of time before they're able to speak simple sentences with practice. That may not sound like much, but if you've ever tried to order a side of fries with left-hand only charades you'll understand what a blessing this can be.
How Does it Work?
Melodic intonation therapy, or singing until you can talk, takes advantage of the fact that language functions are located in the left brain, but music lives over on the right side of the brain. So, when that asshole stroke robs you of your ability to speak, you can train your brain to move those functions to the other side by associating music with language. This essentially rewires a lifetime of growth and an entire history of evolution into meaninglessness interpretations of random head noises from a guy who hasn't shaved his beard since the 70s.
Listening to actual non-terrible music has an additional effect, since pleasurable music releases dopamine that simply makes certain parts of your brain function better (particularly if they were damaged before).
Dopamine is your brain's natural crack
In a nutshell, music gives your brain a massage and fills it with happy chemicals, turning you from a one-eyed mute into an Island in the Stream.
#6.
Kick an Addiction
As it turns out, performing music can be relaxing and can create a distraction from withdrawal symptoms; songwriting can help patients confront impulse control and self-deception and allows an output for negative emotions; hence the entire songbook of Raffi.
It has even been found that listening to music can help aid the detox stage of recovery from drug addiction, and if applied frequently could cut down on the number of pain-killers patients need. Indeed, it turns out GWAR may be just as helpful as Percocet.
How Does it Work?
Music directly affects chemicals called neurotransmitters which relay information in our head. Drugs work in a similar way, except they make your brain lazy and convince it to stop making its own chemicals, because why do work when sweet China White is there to making everything all better? But when you stop taking drugs, your brain isn't making enough chemicals and it doesn't know why because it relies on those drugs to get enough, so your body fails to function correctly and you turn into Joaquin Phoenix.
Introducing music can increase levels of some chemicals associated with heavy addictions, like dopamine and norepinephrine, but significantly cuts back on suzziness and the willingness to give blowjobs for your next fix. In addition, certain music lowers things like heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, etc., that make you feel like killing everybody around you.
Apparently the fact that half of the world's rock stars still wind up dead from overdoses despite music's addiction-breaking qualities is a testament to just how much those guys fucking love doing drugs.
#5.
Boost Your Immune System
It may come as no surprise to all the Cracked readers who are also neuroscientists that music helps boost your immune system. For the rest of you, word is that intangible plinking noises can create a noticeable increase in recovery from a wide range of conditions, including heart disease, lung ailments and even the common cold. While the field of study is still young compared to fancy "real medicine" like "pharmaceuticals" and "penis phrenology" it turns out that sometimes all you need to overcome your horribly debilitating illness is AC/DC.
How Does it Work?
Music, like Jurassic Park's raptors, doesn't just attack from one side. That shit brings out a multi-pronged assault. To start, music reduces stress by reducing cortisol levels, a chemical in your brain that causes you to feel stress in the first place. Jazz, bluegrass and soft rock have been found to be especially effective at reducing stress and increasing health because of their similar musical qualities (that quality being that you don't listen to any of them).
If you're wondering if your favorite music is helping your health, a good question to ask is, "Does this music make me want to riot?" If you answered yes, it's not an optimal medicine. Likewise, if your favorite musician's last name is Cyrus you're probably dooming yourself to a life of erectile dysfunction and diabetes.
In addition to simply lowering stress levels, music also raises immune markers in your system, creating more antibodies to fight disease. Ironically, listening to Amy Winehouse could make you immune to all the potential diseases you'd be exposed to if you met Amy Winehouse. This effect is compounding: Over time, the body can learn to recognize certain types of music (particularly choir or classical music) as immune boosting, continuing the improvement of the immune system. As an added bonus, if you listen to choir music on a regular basis you're almost guaranteed to be immune to STDs as the odds of you ever having sex are quite slim.
#4.
Prevent Seizures
Good news: If you're not one of those 150 suckers who get seizures from music, you may be one of the luckier ones who benefit from decreased seizure activity as a result of listening to music. This effect has even been observed in coma patients. Bet you feel better about being in a coma now.
It's been shown that music by Mozart played on the piano reduces seizure-causing activity in the brain within five minutes of exposure, with many cases showing immediate results in what scientists should called Seizure Wolfgang-banging. Experimentation with other forms of music has been minimal, but for some reason there appears to be a connection between our brains and piano music.
How Does it Work?
It's theorized that "the superorganization of the cerebral cortex . . . may resonate with the superior architecture of Mozart's music" which is a sciencey way of saying that probably Mozart gets all up in your brain in ways the Hamburger Helper jingle only wishes it could. Really though, this is another one of those medical shrug moments, as scientists really haven't figured it out yet. Kind of unfulfilling, isn't it?
"Mozart music hits a certain part of... There's a connection between the structure and a brain's...
You see, with brain music... Oh fuck you, it just works OK?"
#3: Aw, come on, choral music has a clear positive correlation with heart attacks. Ask Yoshihisa Hirano.
ReplyI'm not too sure about music boosting the immune system. Seems that half the time when I'm sardined on a floor with a thousand other people I catch rave plague. As for all the interesting affects of piano, I wonder if that extends to synthesizers? For example if you played Mozart on a Moog, would it render the same effect as on a traditional acoustic piano? If the effect works with all synthesized music, I wonder why I don't have superpowers by now cause all I ever listen to is anything in the range between Kraftwerk and Tiga.
ReplyMaybe the "rave plague" has a certain connection to being sardined with a thousand other people???
This article sucks. The topic was interesting but it was badly written. I should've known after the opening paragraph (which makes no sense) that the rest of the article would be bad. It reeks of "try-hard".
Replyhmmmm, wonder what dubstep does. now there would be an interesting study.
ReplyIt probably causes seizures. That really the only way to dance to dubstep music anyway.
Some of my friends are majoring in music therapy, and they like to tell the story of how Congress was debating some piece of legislation that could make or break music therapy (It's still a rather new field), the music therapists piped in classical music during the discussions and then pointed out that half an hour later, absolutely all of the congressmen had smiles on their faces.
ReplyI'm sure this is a very sweet story in real life but I hope you realise that written down it sounds godawful cheesy.
I found that listening to "Weird Al" Yankovic's polka music as I ran on a treadmill kept my back from hurting.
ReplyHmm...seems I've found a cracked article that actually sucks. Research was loose at best, and it reads like a teenagers blog. Boo.
ReplyI have a seizure disorder and have really adored Mozart's music for over 25 years...I really wonder if this is the connection. I mean, I really REALLY like Mozart at the exclusion of just about ALL other classical music. I just thought it was from reading Amadeus and then seeing the movie.....wow
ReplyInteresting. I've run into some of these before but not all of them. One thing rang true this time.
ReplyMusic affects both sides of the brain and stimulates intelligence in several ways. When I work on writing novels or stories, I want music on in background chosen to fit the theme of the story. When I'm painting, I like having familiar video in background that isn't musical but narration - people around that I can ignore, a sense of being around people.
Writing as an artistic task demands both sides of the brain. Art generally demands focus in the right side of the brain, so the story on the video keeps the left side out of the way while I paint. So this just made a couple of habits I developed over the years, both of which help me get started even if I don't feel like doing anything creative, make a lot of sense.
"Ironically, listening to Amy Winehouse could make you immune to all the potential diseases you'd be exposed to if you met Amy Winehouse."
ReplyI know this was made BEFORE Winehouse's death, but still...DUDE.
No, dumbass. There's no "YOU'RE SO INSENSITIVE BECAUSE YOU CAN'T PREDICT THE FUTURE!" bullshit. If you write about someone before they die, and then they die, boo hoo.
And either way does it matter? She drugged herself to death so why should we care? It's her own fault
"Cure Parkinson's" *Cue Michael J. Fox pic. LOL
ReplyI don't know you guys...My favourite song is Lacrimosa by Mozart and I listen to his music every day. However, I am still pretty stupid. I thought that listening to Mozart to make you smart was a myth? Or maybe I am just so dumb it has no effect on me.
ReplyDefine stupid, as there are different kinds of "smart". Mozart according to this article increases Spatial reasoning, that's just one function the brain can do. IQ is a pretty bad measurement of intelligence as it mostly deals with mathematical intelligence, not linguistic, problem solving (meaning critical thinking type problem solving, in other words, when there is no correct answer) artistic and visual. Knowing math isn't a measure of intelligence in an all encompassing sense, it's just one variance of it that not everyone even has. Conversely, if you're trolling, try harder.
the whole idea of listening to classical music to increase intelligence was found to be marginally successful in adults. unscrupulous people have used the gimmick of playing it to babies to increase intelligence to make money, but there is absolutely no science to back up their claims. I still think it's better then playing Raffi or the Wiggles, but don't expect genius kids cause you shelled out $20 to Disney.
For the record...a large part of the scientific content includes literature and data I've recently read because it's largely my research proposal for my MSc...so with great confidence: with the exception of "5 minutes of Mozart decreases seizure activity (I've no idea, never looked it up) I'll vouch for the scientific accuracy of everything else here. A bit more referencing would be nice, though.
ReplyNever again can my friends say that listening to AC/DC is bad for my health! XD
ReplyI don't know about the authenticity of the science in this article but the seemingly inexplicable inclusion of Matt Damon without even a caption was hilarious. Of course everybody has seen those movies, so no explanation required, props for realizing that though.
ReplySome say listening to Slipknot for an hour makes you temporarily invincible.
ReplyI guess good metal makes you permanently invincible, then.
I was listening to Slipknot when I read your comment.
I'm kind of tired of the over-generalization of "right and left brain." Music activates parts of the brain on the left and right side, and so does math, reading, jumping jacks, you name it.
Reply"How many times have you thrown your hands in the air? When that happened, did you just not care? Science says that's because *you had no control*."
Reply...That sounded kinda like song lyrics.
See OutKast's ATLiens
And before there was Outkast throwing hands in the air& just not caring,there was Dougie Fresh in "6 minutes"Tis QUITE an old skool rhyme:)
Language function is not merely in the left brain as this article states. MOTOR function is found in Broca's area in the left brain, but other language functions, such as prosody, sentence structure, and language meaning, are in Wernicke's area in the right brain. So in summation, both hemispheres have equally important functions when it comes to speech.
ReplySadly, the "Mozart raises IQ" thing has been repeatedly discredited since the initial study. It just won't go away, though, since it plays to exactly what people want to think: that Mozart is innately better than that noise the kids listen to today, and people who listen to it are just plain smarter.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesMore likely, listening to Mozart just fosters a lot of thoughts like: "How can I build a time machine to go back in time and kill Mozart before he made all this crappy music?"
More likely, Mozart is just horrible and any reported increase in IQ is due to people thinking up ways to build a time machine and kill him before he can make the music in the first place. The IQ was always there. It just needed the proper motivation to show itself.
Aw, Vlad give him a chance. Yes he was a creten in real life, but his Requiem is the most beautiful thing you will ever hear. I listen to it every night before bed. Give it a try! I reccomend Lacrimosa