305. The psychology of music

This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite, on humor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman helped make you funnier. This week my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeters Side L, helped an Aka Pella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to superhuman on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. My mother-in-law spent years sabotaging our relationship until Karma made her pay for it. She moved in for two weeks, lasted five days, left a mess, and then pressed her ear against their bedroom door and burst in screaming. When kicked out to a hotel, she called her SNL's workplace, pretending his partner had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance. She picked a medical emergency! And spoiler, that was just the beginning. To find out how it ends, listen to the okay story time podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On the look back at the podcast. In 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sanjay and I'm Alex Egrish. Each episode, we pick you here, unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians and favorite artists. Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. It was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to Look Back Added on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s. The podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s. And what they mean for our psychology. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we, of course, break down the very exciting, very unique psychology of our 20s. Before we begin, I wanted to give a quick shout out to my other podcast, mantra. You heard that correctly. You may not know, but I have not one but two podcasts. And mantra, how I explain it is basically the philosophical, spiritual, meditative sidekick or sister of the psychology of your 20s. Every Monday, I give you a mantra to guide your week, something like, "I'm a magnetic person. I know that love won't pass me. I let my work speak louder than my doubt. I cultivate peace within." A mantra to essentially be your mental anchor for the week ahead. Episodes go for around 30 minutes and they include evidence-backed mental exercises for really powerful mindset shifts, general prompts and a dive into wisdom from great thinkers. Plus just some personal stories that I've never spoken about here. Stories of heartbreak, stories of grief, of friendship breakups, of major failures that have really defined me in some ways. So this is my ask of you. If you love the psychology of your 20s, give mantra a listen. Just try one episode, see what you think. It's very much a passion project for me right now. So if you have feedback, mantras that you think I should do, if you have a deep thought or a dilemma that has been sitting heavy on your heart, on your soul, I would love to hear it. I'll leave a link in the episode description, but again, thank you so much for giving it a listen. Let's get back to the show and what we're talking about today. Today we're going to talk about music. Life's soundtrack, I guess. I was listening to Good Hang with Amy Pola and Rashida Jones the other day. And in their episode, Rashida Jones said something really powerful. She essentially said, "Music is a way that the universe shows us love." And it really inspired this episode and a bit of an investigation into why music is so transcendent, why it shows up in every single culture, what it does to our brains, what it does to our lives, what it does to our bodies, to our emotions. You might think, you know, what's so psychological about music. You know, what's so important about the songs that I listened to in my morning commute or what plays in the grocery store. I think music feels so ubiquitous and it's everywhere. Sometimes it can just feel like background noise, but it is incredibly psychologically powerful. It is honestly a spiritual experience at times. Music has the ability to connect us, transport us, to shape our emotions, to ignite memories, even to influence our perception of reality. It is actually a fundamental part of our human experience. It is a profound psychological force. Some people would even call it the universal language because of how it speaks to our nervous system. So if you've ever had that magical feeling of goose bumps of suddenly being able to smell the first time you heard a song of being transported back to your first heartbreak of finding that one song can completely change your day. And why do we explain that today? We're going to pull apart why music hits us so hard, why we like the music that we do, where your music preference came from. Also the neuroscience behind the emotional surges that it creates. I also want to talk about the link between music and memory, between music and personality, between music and intelligence. And I also want to get into how different frequencies, different BPMs, different kinds of music can actually change your thinking style and can actually put you into certain, I guess, I don't want to say like spaces, like mental spaces, certain types of music can actually activate different kinds of brainwaves that will help you when you're studying, that will help you when you're suffering, that will help you when you're running, whatever it is, I want to give you the formula for what music to listen to, when and so much more. I'm so excited for this episode, a little fun fact for you guys. As a child, I actually always thought I was going to be a musician. I played trombone, I played piano, I used to write songs, I sang constantly, I came from such a musical family. And so this episode was particularly fascinating to me to be able to investigate a little bit further for you guys. So without further ado, let's tune into the psychology of music. Let's concentrate to the chase. What the heck is going on in our heads when we play a certain song, when we press play. It is not just sound waves hitting our ear drums. It is a full on neurological concert, like a symphony of brain activity that is going to explain to us why music feels so fricking vital. So when a melody, when a rhythm, a harmony reaches your brain, it doesn't just stay confined to the parts that process sound. So there's been a whole team of neuroscientists who've been trying to figure out where is music actually processed, including a big team at McGill University and they've shown through FMRI scans that music actually lights up a whole network of brain regions. It lights up the amygdala, our brain's basically emotional powerhouse. It lights up the hippocampus, which is critical for memory formation. And even areas involved in motor control, which is why you might involuntarily start tapping your foot or bobbing your head even if you're trying to stay still. I think a lot of us have had that experience where we're like, "Oh my gosh, we just can't stop moving to a song involuntarily because of how music touches different parts of our brains." Very interestingly, what they found is that this full brain, full mind, full neurological explosion is very similar to when we fall in love. It's very similar to when we experience fear. It's very similar to when we experience deep sadness. So music is infiltrating all of these different emotional cortexes and emotional systems. It also elicits feelings on its own. It's responsible for creating certain emotional states, happiness, joyfulness, loneliness, calm, pain. How does this happen? A huge part of it comes down to dopamine. And you have probably heard of dopamine. Everyone thinks of it as our brains. Reward chemical. It's the one that's associated with pleasure, motivation. And also what you may not know is it's associated with anticipation. And this is critical. So this beautiful author, his name is Daniel Levitan, and he has this book called This Is Your Brain on Music. And he explains how the reason that music makes us feel so good is because it creates anticipation. Think about like a build up in a dance track or like a gradual crescendo and like a classical musical piece or like a verse leading into a chorus. Your brain almost unconsciously starts predicting what's coming and that prediction, that like that feeling of waiting. That's where the dopamine really starts flowing. And so when the musical payoff arrives, when you hit the high note, when the chorus drops, when the harmony resolves, like you get that satisfying hit. So this is the same neuro pathway that gets activated when you're waiting for a really delicious meal and you take the first bite or when you achieve a goal or you even get like a text from someone that you really really like. Music is tapping into our fundamental reward system and it's inherently pleasurable because of anticipation. It's not just that pleasure principle even music can also profoundly alter your physiological arousal. Basically how awake alert or calm your body feels and this is thanks to something called entrainment. Entrainment is this phenomenon where your internal biological rhythms, your heart rate, your breathing, even your brain waves actually synchronize with external rhythms like those in music. I find it so fascinating that our bodies can do this. It's like this beautiful like piece of evidence to me of the miracle of existence that our brains sync up to rhythm and sync up to song and sound. If you put on a slow ambient calm piece of music, your heart rate will start to subtly decrease. Your breathing starts to deepen. You literally physically relax and sync up to the music. Conversely, if you are listening to like techno or house, your heart rate will pick up your breathing becomes quicker and you will feel that surge of energy. That's why when you're running, we really enjoy listening to songs with a higher tempo because it matches the activity that we're doing making us feel more tuned in. So this isn't just about feeling good. It is actually about music acting as a direct, unconscious regulator of your body's internal states. We use this idea, well our bodies take advantage of entrainment to manage how we feel often without even realizing that we're doing it. Let's talk about the role of music in significant emotional periods of our lives as well and how it can emotionally regulate us. Particularly let's focus it on breakups. I feel like music and breakups are symbiotic, like they feed off each other in a weird way. Every single artist in the history of this planet has had some kind of break up song or some song that is motivated by heartache because it is music's probably greatest fuel. And then on the flip side, music also tends to make heartbreak feel almost a little bit more bearable in a way. I have a few break up playlists that I made during past heartaches and heartbreaks and I was listening back to them when I was writing this episode and it really transported me back to that time. What I remember is how songs that were intended to feel sad and devastating did make me feel sad and devastated but they actually also provided me with this really intense catharsis. And I remember listening to this one song in particular. It's called "Is It Just Me" by Emily Burns. And I was listening to it in my car near the beach, maybe a month after I broke up with my first boyfriend and just sobbing and sobbing so much that this old man came over to check that I was okay. And I also remember feeling a lot better afterwards. It pushed me to a really low point but then allowed me to dwell in that feeling and then move on. The power of a break up song is that it provides an opportunity to feel the feeling as deeply as possible, the many feelings as deeply as possible to get in sync with that feeling, let it wash over you and then feel it lessen as you get it all out. What is the best break up song according to psychology? Now this was something that I really wanted to find out. I couldn't give you a specific answer but there do seem to be a few critical things that a good break up song has to contain. The best break up song has to have attention and release. Something that builds up and builds up and builds up to like an explosion point and then goes down. Be it has to have emotional vulnerability of some sort, say, relatability and specificity. So the more detail the better. Think about like Taylor Swift's classic break up song all too well. There's so much detail in that that feels specific but is actually quite general so people can relate to it. They see themselves in those feelings and in those circumstances that transported to that time and day it has to have a hook, a really good line, a really good harmony that you can kind of crew over again and again and again. All of which provides the emotional catharsis and the closure almost even if it's just in that moment that our heart really really wants. According to a 2014 study break up music sad music is more about nostalgia. It's more about reminiscing that it is actually about grief or sadness which actually means that listening to sad music makes it almost a positive experience. So the other thing that break up songs really do is that they kind of transport us through time. They unlock the resurrect memories. They let us relive memories that maybe we've forgotten. Music in general has this amazing capability. You know, you're living your life, you're just going along and then suddenly you'll hear a song from when you're a kid or from some significant period and you are like immediately transferred back there. And it's not just that your memories are being played in your head. It's almost a sensory experience. You can smell your childhood home. You can feel the tension and the energy between you and that situation. You feel that distinct bittersweet A. You can taste certain things. It is a full body time machine for your brain. So why is music so intrinsically linked to memory? So psychologists who study autobiographical memory. So that's basically memory that contains your personal history, your lived experiences. They have a few powerful theories. First, music is often deeply intertwined with highly emotional events. Our brains, particularly the hippocampus, which is the memory formation center and the amygdala, they work hand in hand to code what they see as significant experiences. So the more intense an emotion or experiences is at the time, the more information is taken in from the environment to ensure that that memory is really locked into our brain. If a memory for a moment is highly emotionally salient. Basically our brain is like, this is something we want to be able to reflect on because it may be able to help us in future experiences. Something this intense is something that we can't forget. So instead of just remembering one element of the scene or one element of the event, it will start to code the smells, the sounds, the feelings, the taste, the lightness, the brightness, all of those things. And so music becomes attached to these really hard moments. When you hear that song again, you're not just retrieving the musical information, all the other rich emotional sensory details that were encoded with it will come along. It's a phenomenon known as the Proust Effect, actually whereby a sensory experience brings up intense memories it was initially tied to. And music is one of those powerful sensory experiences. Secondly, music is often tied and associated with specific context, specifically because songs tend to be played and repeated for short periods of time, if that makes sense. So hit songs will play for a summer over the radio, meaning that, and then you might not hear it for a while, meaning that it really is stuck to that moment or a certain playlist or song you really like is something that you're going to play over and over and over again. So it becomes associated with the time and also with the feeling of that time. So whether it's an album, whether it's a playlist, whether it is a hit song. This all creates a really strong context dependent memory. The music becomes the environmental cue. So when you re-encounter that cue, your brain has a direct pathway back to that specific time and place. It's like musical time travel. What's even more fascinating is actually how resilient your eyes musical memory can be. Researchers who are currently working with individuals who have severe memory impairments. So they've had brain damage, they have dementia, they often find. that musical memories are among the last memories to fade. Isn't that just like wonderful? Obviously not the memory loss part but wow like I find that really special to think that the songs that I'm listening to now will might be one of the last things that I remember if I go through if I go through memory loss. People can struggle to recall their own names. They don't know what their children's names are but they can sing along to songs from their childhood. They can even learn new harmonies. They can tune into new songs and this really suggests that musical memories are processed and stored in slightly different perhaps more distributed brain regions meaning that they're very very robust. So whilst people are still trying to figure out where exactly certain memories are stored what they do know is that certain memories are stored in different places because they'll find that certain types of memories will fade almost all at the same time. And so what this is saying is that music is stored in so many different places that even as all these structures of the brain deteriorate it remains. So I just think it's such a testament to how vital music is for our for the life. Like I know I'm sounding very dramatic here but it is life giving. It is memory given. Like it is it makes us so human and connected. There is a slight problem with that though. The fact that music can transport off so powerfully means that sometimes it can also be a source of deep pain of deep nostalgia and it can be kind of like a self punishing tool where we listen to songs that we know they're going to make us feel terrible time and time again as a way to pull us back into that time rather than move forward. It means that a lot of music from your past can sometimes bring up emotions and feelings that are less resolved than they should be like they're just they're still buzzing in the background and you haven't had a chance to address them but you're using music as a way to stay tuned into that time. So whilst it is a really powerful magical bridge it's also worth noting whether music is allowing you to pity yourself and to linger and to stay stuck in a period of time or whether it is just a nice place to visit. If you're constantly listening to music that is making it hard for you to move on from a chapter in your life perhaps it's becoming a bit of a problem in some ways. I will say I do think that music is also really beautiful in that way and that it gives you a marker for how much you've grown. So I was telling you guys that I was listening to some of these break up playlists that I used to have from significant breakups in my life and the interesting thing was listening back to them. I used to obviously listen to them to bring up painful feelings and to hopefully resolve them. And now when I listen to them I feel really bittersweet. I feel it's not happiness it's just like comfort almost. I listen to them and I feel like I'm giving the past version of me like a really big warm hug because I knew how much those songs affected her at the time and they just no longer do. So it is like a really beautiful way to see how far you've grown. Okay we're gonna take a short break but when we return I want to tell you what music has to say about your personality. Specifically how your music preference is formed what it might say about you but also how to really utilize the incredible psychological power of music to elevate your life, elevate your work, elevate your concentration. So stick around and stay with us. Either way the podcast superhuman documented it all embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Listen to superhuman on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double tap little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do a little camp? Well you can find out on the look back at the podcast. I'm Sam J and I'm Alex English. Each episode we pick you here unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about cracking the eighties. To be clear 84 is big to me not just because of crack. I'm down with talking about crack old David. Yeah yeah literally put just so you're not. I mean at this point Mark this is the second episode where we've discussed crack so I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have eight on the table right now so. Are you finishing that sentence? Yes. Really? Yeah. For me it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast. Learn the hard way with me. Yo, and your favorite therapist. Cure Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental whole field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking trip fontain Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing and we're still chasing it and we don't know when we done enough because people scoreboard wise life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns Dustin Ross because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth. Are you a good person because you're free? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me. Cure Games is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure and purpose on my new podcast. Learn the hard way. Open your free heart radio app. Search learn the hard way and listen now. Wait a minute Dakota. How bad did it get? Well, it got bad enough that her son-in-law had to eventually arrest her himself. Oh, she moved in for two weeks, lasted for five. She left nail clippings in the bathtub, candy stuck to the furniture, and then she pressed her ear against the bedroom door and burst in screaming. She did not burst in while they were. She did. They kicked her out and paid for hotel and they thought, "It's finally over." Days later she called her son-in-law at work claiming that his partner had been in some kind of freak accident and had been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. He called every hospital in the city and his partner was making coffee the entire time. She faked a medical emergency just to test whether or not he loved her son. Yeah. And she sat in the hospital parking lot waiting for him to see if he would show up. When that didn't work, she walked into the son-in-law's police station and filed a kidnapping report against him. She filed a kidnapping report against him in his own police station. Spoilers. Karma's going to show up in the best way possible. So if you want to hear how this story ends, search OK Storytime on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to podcasts. Music obviously has many many functions, but it can actually be a tool to really discover your personality and that might sound bizarre, but the research on the links between personality and music taste is incredibly expansive and honestly so spot on at times. I'm going to talk about the findings from a few studies here to give you an oversight about what kind of music says what about what kind of person. So the first study that I want to talk about is this one from 2014 and this study looked at 772 participants and found that people who enjoy sad music have greater empathy but also greater emotional sensitivity. Hence why they get so much pleasure from really sinking into a song that is quite vulnerable and intense. So if you find that the majority of your playlists are quite sad and fallen and you know low dark moody, it might be that actually you're going to perform higher on tests of empathy and of emotional sensitivity. A second study using Spotify listening history which I think is such a great database if you obviously give them permission to use it. The study was published in 2020 and it had a 44 item questionnaire for personality and then it also compared and matched those personality scores with what people were listening to and it found over 50 correlations between how many playlists you had, your favorite artist, your genre of choice and all these things and what kind of person that you may be. For example they found that people who listen to more folk music are more open to new experiences. They're also more open to new experiences the more artists they follow. So if someone's following more artists the more likely they're going to want to travel and they're going to want to see things and taste new foods. People who were high in conscientiousness were less likely to listen to things like emo and punk and they were more likely to listen to soul and country and not just country, old country. The most extroverted people in the study tended to listen more to other people's playlists and they listened to R&B, Caribbean, funk, and country the most. It's just so fascinating how much this has to tell us about ourselves. I would really recommend checking out all these results. This is a study that I. think Spotify actually did or they lent their data to you. If you just look up Spotify, music, personality, school, whatever it is, I'm sure you'll find it. Finally, another really fun fact around the link between personality and music that I found was from a worldwide 2015 study that found that people who empathize more with other people's emotions tend to prefer genres like soft rock, R&B, and folk. But people who are more logical, what we call systemizers, prefer heavy metal, classical, and complex music. It also turns out that we generally actually form our music taste between the ages of 13 and 16. The music that we listen to and that we like during that period tends to stick with us for a very, very, very long time. I think when you find an artist who really, or a genre that really articulates how you feel during those formative years, during your teen years, and that perfectly captures your internal turmoil and your joy, it is very, very validating. It's like being able to feel like there's someone else in this world who gets you and someone gets it and you're not alone. And that act of recognition, that feeling of being understood through art is fundamental to solidifying what you tell yourself about yourself. It tells you in a way, music is able to confirm to you. This is who I am. This is what resonates with me. These are the kind of people that I'm like. Beyond individual expression, I think, also music is a really beautiful way to make friends. It's incredibly socially connective. It's such a powerful engine for group affiliation. We all know this feeling intuitively, right? You know, you meet someone new. One of the things you may talk about is what kind of music you like. And there, if there is a shared love there, boom, it's like an instant connection. If someone likes the same artist and the same music, you almost assume they're a very similar person to you on factors that grow a lot deeper than musical preference. So this really taps into something called social identity theory. Core concept and social psychology, it suggests that a significant part of our self-concept comes from the groups we belong to and we are constantly trying to find our way, or a way to connect to those groups. Liking the same music doesn't feel superficial. It often signals shared values, similar cultural experiences, even common emotional landscapes, similar chapters and periods of your life. I always think about going to a Taylor Swift concept, going to the eras to a last year and looking around and being like, oh yeah, I could probably be friends with every single person here, not because we might have a lot in common, but because I know that we definitely have a few things shared if we've been able to resonate with this music. Concepts as well, it's just like, if music brings us happiness and joy and pleasure, concepts like, dial that up by a thousand a million a billion. The shared energy, singing along, the feeling of unity in a crowd of thousands. That is a very powerful psychological phenomenon. It's why people scream and cry and go crazy at concerts and festivals. It's this release of oxytocin, the bonding hormone that is being shared and creating this synchronized experience. It's a sense of belonging. It's a sense of being part of something bigger than you, which we all want to be part of. And in our 20s, in particular, in our teens, like loneliness is such a silent struggle during that time, being able to find your musical tribe feels like a lifeline. It's a shorthand to connection. It's a way to build community. You know, I think about all my friends who have these internet friends from when they were on Tumblr and like listening to one direction or like five seconds of summer, it just creates such a unique, connective experience. Here's a subtle but important nuance as well. The music we listen to doesn't just reflect who we are. It also shapes who we are becoming. If you consistently listen to empowering, confident music, it can actually subtly influence your self perception and your behavior. Thanks to this concept called effective priming. Exposure to certain stimuli like music can influence our subsequent thoughts and actions. In fact, in a 2023 study from the University of Notre Dame, they found that listening to upbeat, happy music for a certain amount of time, every day can actually shift your mood. It made people more optimistic and it actually increased how many positive thoughts they were having every single day. Similarly, if you are constantly immersed in music that is angry or melancholic, it can in some states in some ways reinforce those emotions and reinforce that feeling. It shapes your outlook. Music and you have a very complex relationship. Like, hopefully that's coming through how I'm explaining this. It's this dynamic reciprocal relationship. I guess it's similar to repeating mantras. It's similar to words of affirmation. If you are screaming at the top of your lungs that you are incredible, you're going to feel fucking incredible. If you're listening to sad songs that talk about how terrible life is, you're going to feel like life is terrible. So music isn't just a backdrop. It is an active participant in how we see ourselves and how we see the world. So I want to talk about how music functions as a coping mechanism because for many of us, especially in our 20s, music isn't just about enjoyment. It is a very vital tool for navigating life's ups and downs. The moment of overwhelm at work, the surge of anxiety before a meeting, the feeling of loneliness, music can shift those feelings. It is an act of emotional regulation. Interestingly, it's not just calming music, ambient music, low-fi music that can do this, the same thing occurs for familiar songs. Songs that we know are comforting because they are predictable and the emotions they enlist, elicit, have been ones that we've encountered before and we've managed. It's why listening to music from your childhood, listening to like early 2000s pop music, listening to like old Taylor Swift albums or old albums that you loved makes you feel at home in a weird way. Makes you just feel so comforted. It's like this is a place that I've been before. This is a soundtrack that I'm familiar with. People have obviously started to recognize this, I think, Western medicine has started to recognize this. A lot of cultures have understood this for many, many, many, many decades, we're just kind of catching up as we are with many, many things. Clinical musical therapy is now becoming a much more prevalent therapy. It's a recognized field that uses these very principles that we have been discussing, these neurological principles of music's psychological effects to help people manage anxiety, to help them reduce pain, to help them cope with trauma. Researchers have really demonstrated time and time again how structured musical interventions can lead to significant improvements in emotional well-being. And beyond pure stress relief, making music, making sound, creating things can also be a fantastic distraction and it can also be an incredible way to unlock creativity and we know creativity being frequently creative, links to high life satisfaction, links to greater well-being, even increases immune response and increases a sense of emotional safety. I think we're gonna see offerings of music therapy obviously in conjunction with other therapy as well, like CBT or DBT, really increase because we're starting to realize that only treating things in a very clinical way, in a very structured way that has to do with you and another person interacting and solving things and thinking about things doesn't always work for people. And finding like music is like this key that unlocks whole new dimensions of someone's ability to cope and of their memories and of the trauma and their personhood that it's crazy that we aren't using it more. It's crazy that Western medicine is only just working up to how powerful it can be. Let's talk about another element of this though because music can be therapeutic, it can be a distraction, it can be emotionally powerful, it can be a memory joker. Is there a point where we listen to too much music? Is there a value in music? Does the value of music diminish beyond a certain point? Yes, music is an incredible mental distraction to a verse of stimuli like pain or boredom and whilst distraction is valid, sometimes healthy coping strategy, there is a fine line between distraction and avoidance. Is silence really all that terrible? Is it really that bad for you? I was on a run with my friend the other day and we have a running group where we live, never thought I would be someone who's in a running group but that's for another time. Anyways, we were like preparing to run and I looked over at home, she didn't have a head friend's in and I was like okay, well, Wait, she have your head friends in and then she was like, "Oh no, I'm not gonna wear them." And I was like, "Oh, did you forget them?" Like, you can borrow mine. And she was like, "Oh no, no, like I have been, my mom has been talking to me about, and I've been reading about how when we constantly have music on or we have sounds distracting us, it can actually pull us away from the present. It can even make us irritated. It can actually make it harder for us to focus." So she did this whole "Have them any kilometer run with nothing in their ears." And I was like, "That is, I could not do that." But it really got me thinking, like, "Can we listen to too much music?" One research I did say that no more than eight hours a day is best, because at that point you can actually start to damage certain auditory systems, but also you essentially blunt the emotional effect of music on your mood and motivation. Like, you become less sensitized to it. There is value in actually being present in the moment and listening to the natural sounds around you, tapping into your senses, listening to your surroundings, and then using music when you really need it, rather than just to something that is always playing in the background. You know, as incredible and invaluable as music is, sometimes it actually gets in the way of being truly where your feet are. I guess it relates to an episode I did on my Adaptive Daydreaming, right? Daydreaming is beautiful. It's fun. It's magical. If we're constantly doing it, if we're constantly trying to escape the present to be in some kind of fantasy, then it can actually become very unhelpful. To think about this for a second, are you using music to process your sadness? Or are you using it to numb you off or to distract you? The difference can be subtle, but it's very crucial. Some studies suggest that, yes, listening to sad music can help explore melancholy, constantly listening to sad music can induce really heavy rumination. It actually might make you feel worse than you would be without it. It's worth considering. So the big question that we have and that I think we've been kind of coming to is if music is this incredible tool, how do we use it for good? How do we use it to elevate our life, to boost our mood, to make us more focused, make us more creative? The key I believe is intentionality. Instead of just letting music happen to you, try and engage with it consciously. Ask yourself, what music makes me feel what and when can I use it intentionally for those moments? So let me explain this a little bit further. One study found that different kinds of music are best for different moments in your life and different kinds of work that you need to do. So slow, instrumental music is best for deep work. It's less likely to interfere with your reading comprehension. It's less likely to interrupt problem solving. It's best to do hard, deep work when you are listening to slow instrumental music. Soft, fast music has a positive impact on learning. So when you're engaging in something new, having music that is a little bit more upbeat, maybe has a few lyrics is better. Very upbeat music with a higher tempo helps you when you're doing something that requires movement or motivation, like you're exercising, you're cleaning your room. But in a very difficult task, when you're doing a very difficult task, you're memorizing material, you are problem solving, like doing in-depth problem solving, maybe like advanced calculus, I don't know. The more likely music is actually distancing and distracting you and that's when you need to turn it off. So I actually think it's important to curate your own playlist for different contexts instead of just having a random collection of liked songs that you play whenever and that you kind of get bored of, think strategically. Based on what we've discussed about music's impact on mood and arousal, create or find playlists that have the following vibes. So we're going to make five playlists. The first playlists are going to be a focus zone playlist. So this is your playlist for deep work, think instrumental, low fire, ambient, classical music designed to keep your mind engaged but not distracted. Then I want you to have the energy surge playlist. So you'll go to four workouts before a big presentation or when you need to like shake off a slump. High tempo driving beats, empowering lyrics, this is when you can consciously tap into that door-to-peer main hit and that entrainment that we mentioned before as well to boost your physiological arousal. Then we want the calm down and center playlist. So gentle acoustics, nature sounds, classical pieces, slow jazz, designed to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, bring you back into your body, not necessarily the same as your deep work playlist. Then we want the process my feelings playlist. So this one is you know a playlist that has really deep cuts in it. It might even be like genuinely quite sad but music that validates your emotions that provides catharsis makes you feel hopeful. Maybe we kind of divide this playlist into two. We have the process my feelings playlist. So this is like you're really really sad, somber playlist and then you have your like every day background thinking fun lyric playlist. So music that like you can think about, music that you can sing along to, that is interesting to you and keeps you inquisitive and keeps you yeah curious I guess. So leverage that. I want you to have those playlists so that you're not getting irritated by music. You're not finding that it's like slipping into context and it doesn't need to be in. I also think it's important to leverage music as a contextual cue for new habits and this is that's why the previous step is required that you have those playlists. This is a really cool trick from behavioral psychology. If you're trying to build a new habit say meditating, journaling, getting ready for bed earlier, running, associate a specific type of music with that habit. Play the same coming instrumental piece every time you want to go to bed, every time you want to meditate, every time you wake up in the morning and you want to get up feeling excited. Over time, that music will become a conditioned stimulus so it automatically signals to your brain to enter the specific state that you want to be in. It's creating a mental shortcut. I also think that given music's power, but also it's power to be a distraction like we were talking about before. You do cord and off time in your day for silence, but you're not listening to a podcast, you're not listening to your music, you're not immediately putting your headphones on, you're just embracing the sensory experience of the noises around you. Constantly playing music is actually probably interrupting your brain's ability to concentrate. And music will feel more special if you don't constantly have it in the background. Have you ever had this experience where you've been in meetings all day, you've been running around all day, or like all wake and then you finally get to sit down and like put on your favorite album and you're like, wow, this actually, this this stuff is good. Like this feels really nice. Sometimes we actually do need to kind of let us have a break from it or engage with music like beyond the headphones. You know, listen to it not through headphones, listen to it in your car, listen to it on your speaker system, go to a concert, go do karaoke, go to a dance class. So you experience what it's really meant to do for you, which is to connect you to others, connect you to your body, connect you to your environment as well rather than just keep you quiet. Intila, I guess, just practice mindful listening, really listen to a song, really engage in it, really notice what it does for you, and really notice when perhaps it's frustrating you when you need silence. I think ultimately music is one of humanity's most profound gifts. Really, it is a gift. I'm feeling very spiritual about this episode, but I truly believe it is. Like music is one of, I think a lot of people's reasons for being, like a world without music would just be so terrible and it's just so incredible how much it does for our emotions, for our healing, for entertainment, it's vital, it's powerful, it's a psychological companion, but understand its nuances, engage with it mindfully and harness its incredible mental power. So I think that's all I have time for today. I feel like we've covered a lot of bases, there's still things I probably didn't talk about, but what I really want from you if you have listened to this far is to drop a comment below of your favorite song so I can make a playlist companion to this episode of the listener's favorite songs. If you are listening to this episode before let's say the 1st of July 2025, please leave a song down below. I want to make a little collaborative playlist of all our favorite songs. Also because I'm in kind of like a musical right right now, I want to listen to some new stuff. Like I need to stop listening to the same like Kelsey Bellarini and like Vera Blue albums that I had been listening to on repeat. So put some songs suggestions down below. I want to make this playlist happen. Thank you for listening this far. It will be a sign that you were able to concentrate and that you are a loyal listener. And also don't forget to follow me on Instagram @thatpsychologypodcast. Don't forget to listen to mantra. If you want to break from your playlist, from your current albums on repeat. mantra is a really beautiful place to land. It is such a meditative podcast for me. It's such a great way to start your week. I will also have a link in the description as well. Make sure you are following along. Make sure to give us a five star review and share this episode with a friend and love to hear your thoughts, feelings, qualms, favorite songs in the comments or on Instagram. But until next time, stay safe. Be kind, be gentle to yourself. Happy listening. And we will talk very, very soon. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. Within probably 10 days I'd put on 10 pounds. Listen to superhuman on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-taped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? What the hell does George Bush got to do a Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill waxing all about crack in the '80s. To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just because of crack. [LAUGHTER] I'm down with Taco Bell crack all day, but-- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Literally, put it just so you all know. At this point, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now, so-- [LAUGHTER] Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to Look Back at it on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way With Me, Your Host, and your favorite therapists, Kier Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field. And conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking trip fontain, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we done enough, because people scoreboard-wide. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you're here on Earth, are you a good person because you're afraid? Absolutely. Join me, Kier Games, is we have real conversations of all healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way. Open your free, I heart radio app, search, Learn the Hard Way, and listen now. Wait a minute, Dakota. How bad did it get? She moved in for two weeks, lasted for five. She left nail clippings in the bathtub, candy stuck to the furniture, and then she pressed her irions to bedroom door and burst in screaming. She did not burst in while they were-- She did. --they kicked her out and paid for hotel. And they thought, it's finally over. Days later, she called her son-in-law at work, claiming that his partner had been in some kind of freak accident and had been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. He called every hospital in the city, and his partner was making coffee the entire time. Yeah. And she sat in the hospital parking lot, waiting for him to see if he would show up. And spoilers, karma's going to show up in the best way possible. So if you want to hear how this story ends, search OK Story Time on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to podcasts. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odin Kirk to David Letterman helped make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Side L, helped an acapella band with their between songs banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so if you'd tell me about how we started this story. She's fake to medical emergency. To find out how it ends, listen to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the look back at a podcast. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex Egrish. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite artists, like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild-- I mean, it was a wild year. Listen to Look Back at it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.