Positive Effects of Music on the Brain Essay Example

Music has been around for more than 35,000 years. It was originally used to imitate the sounds of nature for pleasure or religious reasons. Once a written language was created, people started to compose music, and the first found artifact of composed music was written in cuneiform dating back to 3,400 years ago. Why does music still continue to prosper till this day? Studies have shown that music has many positive effects on the brain like emotion and how you act. 

Emotion is something that all living things have. “It is a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others” (Jain 1). Emotion is also expressed through music; it synchronizes with the brain to portray the same emotion. According to the book NeuroImage by Matthew E. Sachs, “Neuroimaging studies that evaluate brain activity associated with music-evoked emotions have shown a high degree of overlap between the regions that respond to musical emotions and those that respond to everyday emotions” (3). This shows that the emotion of music connects with the brain’s emotions. Depending on the type of music, emotion can change the mood of a person. For example, when playing upbeat music, the emotion of the song is happy and excited. This creates an individual's mood to be active and happy. 

Because music changes the mood of an individual, that same mood can affect the way the body feels. When a calm song is played, the person’s mood becomes relaxed, which then causes their body to feel relaxed. Johns Hopkins Medicine states, “Research has shown that listening to music can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, and pain as well as improve sleep quality, mood, mental alertness, and memory” (3). Music is the start of a chain reaction. The emotion or mood of the music affects an individual's mood, and the individual’s mood is displayed through their actions. One action that everyone has to do is school. It is proven that people who listen to music while studying or taking a test improve their scores. Dr Gordon Shaw, a faculty member from the University of California, developed a theory called the “Mozart Effect”. Shaw created an experiment to see if IQ scores would go up when listening to Mozart. The test results showed that the group of students who listened to Mozart increased their IQ scores by 9. Although still a theory because other scientists did not get similar results, “listening to Mozart - or similar sounds won’t make you less intelligent and it’s likely to do the opposite” (Fountain 9). 

Music has evolved over many decades and never gets old. It has been clear that music has tremendous positive effects on the brain. No matter the type of music, it can affect emotions, mood, and actions. So whenever you want to feel calm, whenever you want to feel pumped, whenever you want to get an A on your next exam, listen to some music.