does listening to music while studying
improve your exam grades will listening
to mozart make you a genius should you
study in silence or with lo-fi hip-hop
in the background it seems like there
are so many conflicting opinions about
what music is best to listen to when
studying but should you even listen to
music and if you do then what music
should you listen to
[Music]
what is up guys karma medic here and
welcome back to another dose one of the
most common questions i get from my
viewers on my long study with me videos
is if i listen to music when i'm
studying what music i listen to and if i
think it helps me be more productive i'm
always asked this in my q a videos and
there's even an entire channel on my
patreon discord server dedicated to
chatting about music subscribe down
below
it seems like everyone just like me is
looking to find the connection between
music and studying so i did a whole
bunch of research and here's what i
found let's start with one of the things
that always comes up when talking about
music and studying the supposed fact
that listening to mozart makes you more
intelligent this is also called the
mozart effect i found out that this
conversation started in 1993 when a
psychologist called francis rauscher i
hope i'm pronouncing that right played
10 minutes of mozart to 36 college
students and then immediately followed
up that music with a test the students
were also tested in the same way after
listening to 10 minutes of someone
speaking or after a period of 10 minutes
of silence once they tested the students
with a spatial reasoning test they found
that those who listened to mozart scored
significantly higher on the spatial
temporal task so does this mean that
listening to mozart makes you smarter
well no we can't draw any conclusions
about general intelligence and the
effects seen from the study were small
gains and they didn't last very long but
what the research did find is that
listening to mozart improved spatial
reasoning for about 10 minutes as you
can imagine the findings from this study
absolutely blew up
it was everywhere on the news and this
even led to expectant mothers playing
mozart for their babies inside the womb
francis rosher even said that they found
an entire aisle of mozart's music in
virgin records with quotes from the
paper on the adverts this thing was big
and people believed it it turns out that
the study was misinterpreted by the
media quite a bit and people falsely
believed that you would essentially
become smarter just by listening to
mozart the reality is that this is
almost definitely not true and we can
pretty much call this one a myth right
off the bat but it did get me thinking
are there optimal types of music that we
can listen to when we study or should we
just be studying in silence so the
research seems to suggest that studying
in silence is a preference and that this
might be a good thing to do for tasks
that require a particularly high level
of focus but i want to make the argument
that music can actually be beneficial if
it's something you feel like will work
for you during a particular type of
study session or something that you just
find enjoyable and has worked for you in
the past if you're doing regular
revision or going over content then
music can actually help reduce stress at
times when the pressure is high a
meta-analysis of 51 studies found that
music can help to release biochemical
stress reducing effects if you're doing
repetitive tasks like organizing your
files or creating a revision timetable
or anything that doesn't really require
that much laser focus then music can
give you a boost of energy to keep you
going you can get a productivity boost
from music when you're doing less
demanding tasks especially if you choose
songs with no lyrics or something that's
less likely to stimulate you outside of
what it is that you're focusing on this
could be a song you already know or
something that you don't immediately
want to get up and dance to when it
comes to cognitively demanding tasks
it's not always the right call to sit in
silence and work this can be a good
strategy if you're trying to really
focus and you know that you're the type
of person that gets easily distracted by
music especially when you're doing a
task that becomes intense on the other
hand if studying in silence sounds awful
to you or you can only study when
there's music playing then maybe
choosing something that's without lyrics
or something that's a bit more
repetitive can be the good choice lyrics
can be really distracting especially if
you're reading words for your studying
it might not be as distracting if you're
doing something like solving math
equations or physics equations or
something like that but definitely at
least personally if i'm trying to read
words and i'm listening to music that
has words then i find it very very
distracting soft classical music has
shown some promise for demanding tasks
in some studies but i think it really
depends on what you like and what works
for you personally this is the key with
all of this research the only way of
knowing if these studies will actually
be beneficial to you is if you tailor
the information that you're getting from
them to yourself if you hate classical
music or you hate mozart then just don't
listen to it no amount of research is
going to make that more beneficial for
you and it's just not going to be as
good as listening to something that you
like you're not going to get some
version of that famous mozart effect if
you just hate mozart if you love
listening to drake then listen to drake
if you love listening to ariana grande
then listen to ariana grande you might
just want to change the songs that
you're listening to or the genre of
music that you're listening to based on
what kind of activity you're doing
another nice tip is to listen to a song
or two before you start work that gets
you pumped up for the study session make
a playlist of all the songs that get you
really motivated and throw that on
before starting your work some studies
have shown that music can even improve
cognitive performance when it comes to
doing creative tasks the point is that
you need to be self-aware enough about
what works for you if music is
incredibly distracting to you and you
find yourself getting nothing done then
you probably want to stay away from it
and keep your high focus tasks for
silent studying or playing something
like white noise or brown noise or
instrumental music in the background
whether music actually helps you study
is entirely down to the task that you're
doing and what music you like and how
you work with music from my personal
experience as a brief overview this is
what i would recommend if you need to be
in extreme concentration like you're
trying to understand a very complex
concept or you're doing research for an
essay and it involves a lot of thinking
then for me personally i just prefer to
be in silence or with a pair of
noise-canceling headphones over my ears
if you've got a high concentration task
like maybe you're reviewing your notes
or you're studying for an upcoming exam
you're going through difficult past
paper questions then for me i like
listening to repetitive music without
lyrics or low-fi beats rainforest sounds
fireplace crackling or rain things like
that once i enter the medium
concentration category like reading over
lecture slides or going over flashcards
doing past paper questions really
quickly then this is where i feel
comfortable listening to music that has
lyrics in it i go somewhere in between
nothing too crazy full of rap lyrics and
hype but nothing that's too simple
either and then for low concentration
tasks things like writing emails or
organizing things in my room cleaning up
cooking showering whatever i just throw
on spotify on shuffle and listen to
anything that's engaging and stimulating
to my brain i've mentioned that you need
to tailor the evidence from the studies
to yourself and your personality and
what i mean by this is that if the
alternative is to not study at all or do
very little studying because the silence
is boring to you then just put music on
it's a no-brainer if you're making a
choice between studying at 75 percent of
your maximum efficiency with music or
not studying at all then just choose to
study with music at 75 percent getting
something done is always going to be
better than nothing especially if the
work is piling up i want to go over a
couple of points that i've discovered
over my many many years of studying
which have seemed to help me quite a bit
one matching the task to the tempo of
the music sometimes if you're working to
a close deadline it's nice to have a
slightly more upbeat music selection in
the background so that it feels like the
music and yourself are moving at a
similar speed this can be motivating and
as long as the music isn't too
distracting i find that it helps
encourage me to stick to the pace that i
need to do to reach my deadline two i
personally find lo-fi beats or
rainforest sounds fireplace crackling or
rain anything like that i find it very
very useful when i'm not in the mood to
study i find that it really helps put me
in the zone and increases my
productivity and focus i think the
reason for that is that they're quite
repetitive sounds and they don't involve
any lyrics they don't involve any words
and so it's just kind of there in the
background and helps me focus but i
prefer it to things like white noise or
brown noise because that's just like
doesn't work for me but if it works for
you go for it and number three is
getting your playlists organized there's
nothing worse than trying to study or
trying to get into the zone and every
couple of minutes having to skip a bunch
of songs because you just don't want to
listen to them or you hate them it's the
worst it's also really really
distracting especially if you have to
use your phone to change that music then
it's really tempting to have a quick
look on instagram or youtube and you
know before you know it you've been
distracted for 20 minutes so get your
playlists organized and if you have any
playlists that you'd like to recommend
please do share them in the comments
down below it turns out that the answer
to the question of what you should be
listening to when studying is a bit more
complicated than i thought but i'm glad
that what already works for me seems to
match up with the evidence if music is
not too distracting to you then tailor
the music to the task that you're doing
and if not ask yourself if working in
silence is better for you instead
there's nothing wrong with either ways
of studying you've just got to do what
works for you we've all probably found
specific ways of studying that work for
us better through trial and error but i
hope this video can help some of you
fine-tune your studying sessions to make
them as productive as possible and
hopefully after this no one will ask me
again if i'm listening to music or not
when studying and what i'm listening to
i'll catch you guys in the next one
check out my patreon in the description
down below if you haven't already we do
some pretty cool stuff over there peace