How to Use Music to Boost Motivation, Mood & Improve Learning

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2023

⏱️ 104 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, I describe how your brain and body are fundamentally wired to perceive and respond to music and how those responses can be leveraged to improve your mood, allow for processing sad emotions and enhance learning and performance. I explain the data showing how music can increase motivation for cognitive or physical work, what specific music has been shown to enhance cognitive performance, and whether silence or music is more effective in enhancing focus while studying. I also discuss how specific musical pieces can rapidly reduce anxiety, as well as certain prescription medications. I explain how listening to certain types of music can improve various health metrics (e.g., heart rate). Finally, I discuss how music helps to enhance neuroplasticity (rewiring of brain connections), thereby improving learning and memory. Whether you sing, play an instrument or enjoy listening to music, this episode provides numerous science-informed tools for using music to enhance productivity, mood, emotional states, and overall enjoyment of life. For the full show notes, including articles and other resources, visit hubermanlab.com. The Brain Body Contract Tickets: https://hubermanlab.com/tour Code: "Huberman" Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman ROKA: https://roka.com/huberman InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/huberman Momentous: https://livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Music & Your Brain (00:03:32) The Brain Body Contract (00:04:12) Sponsors: Eight Sleep & ROKA (00:07:09) Music & Emotions; Brain & Body Interpretation (00:13:03) Music & Intent; Babies, Music & Movement (00:19:19) Tool: Health Metrics & Music, Breathing & Heart Rate (00:29:54) Sponsor: AG1 (00:30:50) Music, Brain & Predictions (00:38:07) Music & Brain: Novelty, Arousal, Memories (00:44:22) Tool: Movement; Motivation & Faster Music (00:50:49) Tool: Cognitive Work & Binaural Beats (00:54:11) Silence or Music for Studying?, White Noise, Binaural Beats (00:58:47) Tool: Retain Information & Internal Dialogue (01:00:53) Tool: Focus, Work Breaks & Music (01:04:11) Physical Exercise, Performance & Music (01:07:37) Sponsor: InsideTracker (01:08:43) Music & Shifting Mood (01:14:41) “Happy” vs. “Sad” Music, “One-Hit Wonders” & Artificial Intelligence (01:19:30) “Bass Face”; Music, Movement & Facial Expressions (01:22:46) Tools: Shift to Happy Mood with Music; Sad Mood Catharsis (01:27:30) Tool: Music & Reducing Anxiety, “Weightless” (01:31:16) Playing Instruments, Singing & Brain Connectivity (01:39:58) Music & the Brain (01:42:14) Zero-Cost Support, Spotify & Apple Reviews, Sponsors, YouTube Feedback, Momentous, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:08.8	I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and
0:12.6	Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.
0:15.5	Today we are discussing music and your brain.
0:18.6	However, this episode could have just as easily been entitled, music is your brain, or your brain is music.
0:25.5	And that's because music, believe it or not, is a neurological phenomenon.
0:30.2	Most of us think of music as something that happens outside of us.
0:33.2	The sounds we hear, the lyrics we hear, their meaning, how they anchor us to pieces of our history, both emotional or social.
0:42.8	It turns out that when we listen to music, it activates nearly every piece of our brain.
0:48.2	Moreover, when we listen to music, it activates our brain in ways that our brain itself and indeed our body as well
0:56.1	help to create that music at the level of so-called neural ensembles, that is the firing of neurons.
1:02.9	In other words, when we listen to music, our brain and our body become part of the instrument
1:08.4	that contributes to our perception of that music.
1:11.0	Today I'm going to make clear how all of that happens.
1:13.5	We will also discuss how music can be leveraged towards shifting our brain states and our bodily states.
1:19.1	For instance, what sorts of music to listen to in order to make ourselves happy?
1:23.3	Yes, studies have been done on that.
1:25.3	As well as how long to listen to music in order to shift our mood or our overall bodily state,
1:30.7	including how to process feelings of sadness.
1:33.3	Many of you are probably familiar with particular songs that anchor us to particular times in our
1:38.6	history or people in our history.
1:40.7	And there's an age-old question really as to whether or not listening to sad music can help us
	...

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