Henry, a 94 year old man living in a nursing home, has suffered from dementia for the last ten years of his life. He sits in his chair with his head down and only speaks to others when he has to. One day, a pair of headphones was placed on his head playing his favorite from when he was younger, Cab Calloway, and after that, everything changed for Henry. The second the music started playing, he began to sway and sing along to the music. He reacted the same way to music ever since then and the power of music has had similar effects on many other Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.

Music’s effect on Alzheimer’s and dementia patients is just one of the many ways music can positively improve the human brain.

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What Does Music do to Your Brain?

Over the years, people have claimed that music and negatively and positively affect your brain. One negative impact is that music interferes with your short-term memory, which was proven in a study done by Nick Perham. Although there are few negative affects tied to listening to music, there many benefits from it. Music is very powerful in improving your brain in many aspects. It can motivate people with , help them cope with depression and other mental illnesses, produce certain emotions, and even help people concentrate and focus. Now, thanks to advances in neuroscience, scientists have proven that music has many positive impacts on your brain including mood improvement, stress and depression reduction, boosted learning and concentration, and can even help with dementia and Alzheimer’s patients.

Photo by OmarMedinaFilms

How Music Improves Mood

Music has proven to improve mood and help people with depression. According to a study done by researchers at The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, music, especially thrilling music, produces dopamine, which is a pleasure chemical in the brain that is linked to food, sex, and drugs. Listening to upbeat and exciting music can produce this “motivation molecule” and make you feel good. Also, listening to music lowers the stress hormone, cortisol, which causes your stress to be reduced and it also improves your health.

In another study that was done on the topic of music improving mood, scientists at Knox College and the University of Missouri did tests to see if attempting to boost your mood while listening to music made an impact on your mood. They discovered, through a test that consisted of participants who tried to improve their mood while listening to music and participants with no intent of altering their mood, that the participants who attempted to boost their mood reportedly had a higher positive mood.

Through these studies, music has been shown to improve your mood and overall health.

How Music Increases Intelligence

Intelligence improvement and increased concentration is another impact music has on your brain. Having music playing in the background can help you block out other outside noises and help you concentrate on the task you are doing whether it is working on homework, studying for a test, or even taking a test.In a study done at Middlesex University in Queensway, England, scientists took 30 students and had them take two tests, one in silence and one with background music. Students performed better and answered more questions on the test with music playing in the background. The study showed that students perform better academically with music playing rather than being in silence.

Another way that music can increase intelligence is learning how to read and play music, especially at a young age. Learning to play music at a young age can lead to doing better in school, better fine motor skills than other kids at their age, and it encourages brain plasticity. Brain plasticity is the brain’s ability to grow and change throughout life. Researchers at Harvard Medical School proved in a study that children with at least three years of musical training outperformed children that did not have any previous musical training. The children with musical training exceed the children without in vocabulary, nonverbal reasoning skills, and fine motor skills. Essentially, learning a musical instrument in childhood is associated with increased intelligence.

Overall, music has been proven to increase your intelligence, wether it be learning to use an instrument at an early age, or listening to music while studying or taking a test.

How Music Helps Dementia and Alzheimer’s Patients

Many people suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s have benefited with the use of music therapy. Music therapy is the use of strategically chosen music by music therapists to help restore and maintain, mental and physical health. To prove music therapy’s usefulness, scientists at Bar-llan University completed a study on whether music therapy had an affect on people with middle to late stage Alzheimer’s disease. They used a group of six participants and examined them as they attend music therapy sessions for one month. The scientists found that songs that related to the participants past, especially songs tied to their social and national identity, increased conversation between the group. Also, the group members expressed a sense of accomplishment, belonging, and positive feelings. In conclusion, music therapy had been proven to benefit people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Another example of music therapy doing great things is shown in a documentary, where music therapy has literally brought people suffering from severe memory loss illnesses back to life. “Music and Memory” is a moving documentary about the power of music therapy in restoring the lives of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients. One miracle that stood out in the documentary is the story of Henry, who is 94 and has been living with dementia for the last 10 years of his life. Here is an excerpt from the documentary.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlm0Qd4mP-I[/embedyt]

As you can see, this emotional scene from the documentary “Music and Memory” is just one of the many amazing results from the use of music therapy.

In Conclusion

Music can be very beneficial in helping many different aspects of our brains. Many effects such as improved mood, increased intelligence, and its ability to help dementia and Alzheimers patients are just some of the many positive perks of listening to music. Who would have thought that listening to your favorite tunes could give you an empire state of mind.

To read more on the positive benefits of music, visit these articles created by Be Brain Fit and Huffington Post, and to read more on the negative effects of music visit Edutopia.

Featured image by SplitShire