How music affects human physiology

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

From the first days of life, we are surrounded by an unthinkable number of sounds and various noises. Music has a huge impact on consciousness, subconsciousness and unconscious processes of human perception. Let's consider the main ways of the influence of music on the human body.

The power of the influence of music on human physiology has been known since ancient times. People have studied the effective effects of sounds and vibrations on the human body, trying to intelligently apply their knowledge.

The healers of ancient Egypt did an excellent job of coping with insomnia using the method of choral singing. The inhabitants of Ancient China used musical motives to restore bone and cardiovascular systems. Philosophers of Antiquity created whole treatises on the topic of various methods of music therapy. Let's consider several ways of the influence of music on the human body.

Music makes us stronger

Expanding physical capacity and endurance is a well-researched fact. In the course of many years of research, scientists have found out how musical influence on a person improves muscle performance during physical exertion.

When listening to music, there is an improvement in the results of athletes and the activities of people whose work is associated with hard physical labor. This is due to the presence of a predetermined musical tempo, as a result of which there is a synchronicity of body movements and the rhythm of the melody. A person performing a physical action with music spends less effort than when performing the same action without music.

About 2,500 people involved in the Olympic reserves and taking part in the research noted that they were able to perform exercises more efficiently and complete more sets to the music.

Thus, a person achieves greater results with less expenditure of his physical resources.

In these cases, the effect of the frequency of the stream of states also works. Simply put, the frequency of the mental state rises akin to the meditative trance process, during which the person acts automatically and correctly, which leads to good performance.

Background music evokes the illusion of time compression

Every day we come across music that is in the background. We hear it in hypermarkets, train stations and airports, banks and other places of mass gathering of people. Background music serves to "squeeze" the temporary sensation. A person subconsciously slows down his body movements, completely immersing himself in the present moment without extraneous thoughts.

Often this is slow music with a pleasant motive: lounge, blues or other melody not loaded with text and tempo. At the moments of listening to such music, the brain is subject to dispersal of attention, decreased irritability, and mental relaxation.

The sense of real time is lost. A person is able to forget about time for an hour or more. At the same time, he will not experience boredom or increased anxiety. It should be remembered that a mental process is involved in the perception of the melodic background, which limits the assimilation of information, which affects the ability of oral counting and clear thinking.

Sounds have anesthetic effect

Music has the property of lidocaine and can not only increase the pain threshold, but completely dissolve the sensation of pain by its effect on human nerve cells.

In some medical institutions, following modern trends, often during surgery or childbirth, they play music that is comfortable for the patient.

During the use of music therapy, the person responds more quickly to anesthetic drugs, and the patient's muscles reach a relaxed state more quickly. In addition, blood circulation improves, which helps doctors perform surgical procedures.

Tonality and rhythm increase human immunity

Researchers have found that music of a certain key and rhythm (for example, the ringing of bells or the vibration of Tibetan singing bowls) enhances the body's immunity.

This happens due to the absorption of vibrations that can kill pathogenic microbes and pathogenic flora, as well as through the influence of positive emotions from listening to music on human health in general.

The euphony promotes the recovery of the body

The positive effect of music was also noticed during the postoperative recovery of the body. People recovered faster after anesthesia and were more successful on the mend.

The method of music therapy is often used by cardiologists and endocrinologists as an additional treatment for diseases.

Music is able to reduce blood pressure and heart rate for a short period of time, relieve mental stress.

Music therapy activates memory

Perception of musical compositions affects the work of an area of the brain called the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is an area of the brain that is responsible for long-term storage of information.

Doctors use this knowledge to help patients suffering from dementia and memory loss. Music is able to "extract" and restore fragments of lost memories without the use of psychological conversations, even in the most recent stages of mental illness.

Playing music develops a person's hearing aid

Another sound phenomenon is that listening to music can develop and restore hearing. We are talking about the absence of congenital fine (musical) hearing or about its loss during life.

Polyglots and professional linguists are often inveterate music lovers, which once again confirms the influence of music on the development of human hearing and memory.

It has been proven that 80-year-old musicians have a sharper hearing and are able to hear even whispers on public transport than young people who have nothing to do with music.

Musical consonance improves adaptation and increases stress resistance

Music undoubtedly has a beneficial effect on a person's adaptation to stressful or difficult situations. It is easier for a person to perceive the environment if tracks from a favorite playlist sound in their ears. Music increases resistance to stress and helps you concentrate on tasks faster.

Astronauts have such a tradition: before the launch of manned spacecraft, each of the cosmonauts of the active crew loads two or three favorite tracks. In the future, the tracks serve as the basis for the background playlist during the launch of the ship.

Music genres can influence gastronomic tastes

Restaurant and grocery store workers have noticed that music has the ability to change tastes. However, what is news for the buyer, it has long and successfully served for the benefit of marketing and the restaurant business.

Trade and restaurant workers can effortlessly persuade a person to buy expensive wine or brandy by influencing the background of classical or jazz music.

Listening to jazz or classical music is perceived in the subconscious of a person as a sign of adherence to the ruling class. Such music gives a feeling of belonging to successful and rich people.

Under the influence of this kind of music, people make purchases worth more than they do when they listen to pop or rock songs.

An experiment with ethnic folk music showed an interesting tendency to choose one or another drink. In the days of German music, the majority of buyers opted for quality beer and ciders. French motives encouraged people to buy different types of wines, and on the days when the Irish bagpipes sounded, they bought mostly whiskey. In the process of questioning customers, it turned out that they did not attach any importance to music at the time of shopping.

Each ear hears in its own way

From a school bench, it is known that the two hemispheres of the human brain, cooperating with each other, are responsible for opposite methods of perceiving this world.

If we talk about the ability to hear, the fact is revealed that the right and left ears hear and perceive surrounding sounds in their own way.

Our ears are presenting different codes to neural networks, as a result of which it turns out that each ear transmits to the central nervous system its "version" of what it heard. The right ear decodes speech, the left is responsible for the perception of music and timbre.

To enjoy the masterpieces of the classics, one earpiece and the left ear are enough; for radio news, you can use only the right one. All the same, the information will be fully perceived and processed by its hemisphere.

Be attentive to yourself and to the background music that accompanies you at every step.