Music and Studying – Which Music is the Best for Learning

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We all can agree that listening to a certain style of music can help you learn faster, improve your memorization skills and even help you retain more information while you study. Of course, there are some people that need their peace and quiet in order to learn, but on the other hand, listening to a specific type of music while studying can help you boost your performance.

Choosing a right music for studying is unbelievably important, and people tend to underestimate it.  Even though it is said that to study it is absolutely necessary to be in a quite environment without any possibility of a distraction. This choice can easily backfire and leave you sleeping at your desk.

Effect of music on the brain

Effect of music on the brain

You’ve all probably heard of “Mozart Effect”, that is a result of a set of research that indicated that listening to Mozart’s music can create a short-term improvement on the performance of certain types of mental tasks called  “spatial-temporal reasoning”.  In short, the common opinion was that by listening to Mozart, you will become smarter.  This ended up being a half-true story.

However, scientists proved that the right connection between music and the brain can really affect and improve certain cognitive skill, but only for the short period of time, up to 10 minutes. This doesn’t mean you have to listen to only Mozart in order to achieve this effect, but to the kind of music, you prefer listening to.  Of course, there are some specifics when it comes to that.

First if all, it is very important that the music you are listening to doesn’t have any lyrics. Listening to songs that have familiar lyrics can be very disruptive during any task that involves reading.  You’ve probably already noticed that if you ever tried studying while listening to your favorite songs.  This leads us to classical music, as it is a music without lyrics. It doesn’t mean that all classical music is the best or it can, in fact, improve your retention.

Music can help you achieve a perfect state of mind, which will lead you to the place between the excitement and relaxation. This also means that if you listen to your favorite music 3-5 minutes before placing your mind in books can help you to study better, even if silence is your choice. Those couple of minutes will make your brain more receptive to learning new information.

After you start reading, your brain goes into active learning stage, which leads to absorbing the new information you read for the first time. This is when some of the scientists say it is the best to listen to a piece of classical music. It will help you absorb that information even faster.

Once you’ve finish studying, you will enter the memory consolidation stage, where you retain the information you’ve just learned and make a short review of all the material read. In this phase, the best choice would be some soothing passive classical peace that will help you sorter the information in your head.

Types of music you can listen while studying

Types of music you can listen while studyingAs we already concluded, the best music for studying is the classical music. You can find a load of music on the internet and not just a single composition, there are whole classical concerts that last for hours, and are available to you for free. Classical music is peaceful and very harmonious, making it one of the best options to listen while studying. If you are not that into classical music, you can also listen to ambient instrumental music.  This kind of music is more modern, but it provokes a similar effect. Even listening to movie soundtracks can help you achieve the wanted result.

Besides those two options, you can also listen to sounds of nature that aspire that soothing feeling, such as rain, ocean waves, animals or jungles. It sounds a little bit weird, but it can help you form another world, where you can concentrate in order to study.

Be careful, and avoid searching for new songs every 5 minutes. It will additionally distract you from your study and create a loop for more procrastination. Create a playlist in advance, and save you time by helping yourself create a constant level of concentration while you study. This doesn’t mean you should listen to the radio while studying, in the opposite, the dialogue of the radio anchors can and probably will distract you also.  Think also about the quantity of time you are going to spend studying. Music can be a good break time announcer.

Give yourself the right vibe for studying

In overall, listening to music while studying is like controlling your future learning. You fist need to know the right type of music you need in order to work best in that state of mind. As we all know, emotions are a big factor in every aspect of our lives, and certain music can provoke certain feelings. This means that not all of your studying playlists should be the same. There are some subject that you like studying, while there are others that you would like to physically kill if you would be given a chance.  Select your study playlist based on the emotions you need to create.

Create the tempo

Same as for the emotions, studying demands different approaches.  Sometimes you need to concentrate more, sometimes it is very important to feel relaxed, and sometimes it is urgent to learn the material need by heart.  Even though people connect classical music with soothing and slow notes, it has also some very thrilling and exciting compositions that will help you raise your heart beat. Choose well, by deciding what you need in order to achieve the best results.

We can debate forever about should or shouldn’t we listen to music, but one thing is for sure, listening to a right kind of music can help you study better and more efficiently.  The real challenge is in the selection of the right music for studying. The wrong type of study music can just end up distracting you from your learning.