It’s a universal fact that music affects people’s behaviour. Music is so powerful it’s even possible to become addicted to it. But how can music improve our lives? School of Popular Music lists 7 positive impacts music can have on our lives:

1. Angry music boosts performance

Generally, we tend to think of anger as something that’s universally bad. Yet the emotion can also have its positives. Anger concentrates its attention on rewards, intensifies tenacity, makes us feel in control and more optimistic about attaining our goals.

2. Music reduces pain

When ibuprofen isn’t doing the trick, it might be time to listen to your favourite song. Research shows it can diminish pain: preferred music was found to increase tolerance and perceived control over the painful stimulus substantially. Moreover, it was also linked to decreasing apprehension associated to both the visual distraction and silence conditions.

3. Music can help you find love

All you need is love! Right? Well, apparently… Want to get the interest of that special someone? Play some romantic tunes. It was found that women previously exposed to romantic lyrics complied with the request more readily than women exposed to the neutral ones.

4. Music can save a life

Do you know how to give CPR chest compressions? Turns out, it’s all about timing. And how can you best remember the proper timing during an emergency? Simple: sing “Stayin’ Alive” by the BeeGees!

Dr. John Hafner of the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria instructed 15 doctors and med students to perform the 100-compression procedure on mannequins, while listening to this Bee Gees classic, and as he reported in the Journal of Emergency Medicine, their mean compression rate was an excellent 109.1.

5. If you have ADHD, noise helps you focus

A study proved how noise exerted a positive effect on cognitive performance for a group of ADHD participants. This indicated that ADHD subjects need more noise than controls for optimum cognitive performance. And music with positive lyrics makes you more helpful and collaborative.

6. Music can make you smarter

There is a heap of evidence that music lessons improve IQ. But there’s even research claiming that listening to classical music might increase brainpower too:

Within 15 minutes of hearing the lecture, all the students took a multiple-choice quiz featuring questions based on the lecture material. The results: the students who heard the music-enhanced lecture scored substantially higher on the quiz than those who heard the music-free version.

7. Music can make you a better person

Need to soften someone’s heart? Perhaps your own? Playing music can make you more empathetic: In a year-long program focused on group music-making, 8- to 11-year old children became noticeably more compassionate. The finding suggests children who make music together aren’t just having fun, they’re even absorbing a significant constituent of emotional intelligence.

So, as you can see, music doesn’t only say a lot about you, it also provides a myriad of ways to improve your life considerably. We hope this blog has inspired you enough to include music in some way or other in your life. And if you’re looking to start music or singing lessons in Guernsey, then we suggest you contact the School of Popular Music today to find out more about the classes we offer.

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