How Listening to Music Affects Your Work

Since the invention of earphones–or, well, headphones–we can plug into music whenever we want to. Combine this with the nearly all-inclusive library online, from Youtube playlists to Spotify recommendations, and we have access to billions of songs at any moment of our waking lives–whether we’re commuting, jogging, or even studying.

Some companies ban earphones because they’re worried that music will be distracting; some don’t, explaining that it helps their employees focus. If it’s a habit of yours to tune into music when you’re working, does it actually make you more productive, or does it slow you down?

What science says

Music’s effects on the brain have been studied extensively. There’s an entire field devoted to it: neuromusicology, which examines how music stimulates the various areas of the brain.

However, it’s far from being a black-and-white science–people have different musical preferences, and so our brains’ reactions to different kinds of music can also vary.

What they’ve discovered, though, about music and its impact on work can be boiled down to this: music stimulates us, and that can be a good thing if we’re doing repetitive tasks, or distracting if we’re problem-solving or learning something new.

Overload for your brain

When you’re trying to process new information, if you must have music at all, go with quieter, subdued music, preferably without lyrics.

Listening to music is a passive activity–you probably won’t feel like you’re going on a mental workout–but it still counts as multitasking. Instead of your brain devoting 100% of its energy to, say, solving a tricky problem, music takes up additional space.

Not only does it slow you down, it can also distort what you’re learning. Try listening to a catchy pop song when you’re trying to memorize a speech–you’re bound to have a hard time.

Additionally, your brain, smart as it is, goes into prediction mode right away, anticipating the next tune. Your best bet here would be classical, ambient, or instrumental music–or at least go with old favorites or songs that you’ve heard before.

Good for repetition

Frustrated that your preferred genre doesn’t quite fit in with the recommendation above? Before you bum out, here’s the good news:  upbeat music (pop, hip-hop, rap, or even more emotional songs) is great for repetitive tasks like encoding data or sending the same email to lots of people. These still require concentration, but less cognitive load.

Even surgeons subscribe to this: surgeries are repetitive in the sense that a certain protocol has to be followed every time, and it’s an industry habit to have music playing in the operation room to bring down the stress.

In these cases, music serves as a pick-me-up. This is rooted in how it shifts our emotional states–music that we like triggers neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, naturally boosting our mood.

A feel-good hack would be to add an element of surprise by pressing shuffle or hunting for new songs. You can also select music meant to make you feel motivated and pumped-up. Daniel Levitin, a neuroscientist and musician, suggests doing this 10 to 15 minutes before you actually start working–so you can get the emotional high without the distraction factor.   

A welcome distraction

Beyond these two contexts, music-lovers have another reason to stick with their earphones–to cancel out noises outside. When it’s too loud around you–whether there are lots of cars honking in the background or your coworkers are having a particularly spirited conversation–your cortisol levels increase.

Cortisol corresponds to stress and leaves you more distracted and anxious. By drowning out the noises with music, the dominance shifts from cortisol to dopamine, and you’re good again.

Recommended music

Spotify’s Deep Focus Playlist

Spotify is chock-full of playlists meant to help you focus (but if you’d rather go for more energy, there are lots of choices for that, too). This playlist in particular is made up of soothing, instrumental music that can blend into the background, but also relax you when you hone in on it.

Noisli

It’s been said that people love hanging out in coffee shops because they get more work done–and this is usually attributed to ambient noise, from the gentle murmur of conversations to the gurgling of water from a stream. Check out this background noise generator, which lets you mix and match different sounds.

Brain.fm

For a fascinating intersection of neuroscience, music, and technology, head over to Brain.fm, which gives you music that alters your brainwaves on purpose. Results are supposed to show in 15 minutes tops, and you can take your pick from mental states such as focus, sleep, and calmness.

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