In his book, The Lost Art of Thinking, respected psychologist Dr Neil Nedley passionately advocates for the profound value of music, highlighting its remarkable healing properties within the realm of health and well-being.
Nedley underscores not only music’s ability to uplift and soothe the mind but also emphasises its scientifically supported role in promoting emotional balance, reducing stress, and even aiding in the recovery from various illnesses.
Through comprehensive research and compelling examples, he illustrates how integrating music into daily life can serve as a powerful tool for improving both mental and physical health.
“Optimising your musical diet leads to health, just as optimising your dietary habits does,” he says.
Mood and memory
Last week, the Society for Neuroscience published a paper, which not only recognises how music can improve mood and memory but also delves more deeply into the ‘how’ of it.
After study participants viewed images of everyday experiences, the researchers played music and manipulated its features. Some features—like whether songs were happy or sad, or song familiarity—had no bearing on how well participants remembered the images.
However, individual differences in the strength of emotional responses elicited from music were found to impact memory recall. Notably, this memory-boosting effect was specific to different aspects of memory.
“The more emotional that people became from the music, the more they remembered the gist of a previous event,” says researcher Kayla Clark from Rice University. “But people who had more moderate emotional responses to music remembered more details of previous events.”
The study was authored by Clark and Stephanie Leal from the University of California.
They say their work highlights the specificity with which music enhances aspects of memory. They emphasise that musical interventions for improving memory in patients may need to be personalised since music does not uniformly enhance memory.
There’s a curious connection here.
Nedley also recognises the various emotional responses that music elicits; in fact, he devotes a whole chapter to it in his book. He says certain musical styles don’t work well with the mentally troubled and warns against making “sweeping assumptions” when it comes to choosing music.
“Some people prefer to simplify the question of ‘what is good music?’ by classifying all religious music or classical music as the best. It is not safe to make assumptions, however. There are many uplifting religious praise songs, but much of the music under the ‘religious’ label is filled with hypnotic, frontal-lobe suppressive, repetitive rhythms. The fact that a song purports to be religious does not automatically mean that it will be good music for your brain,” Nedley says.
Divided by categories
He concludes that just as food can be divided into four basic categories – clearly bad, somewhat bad, somewhat good, and optimal, so too can music be divided in a similar way.
“Some music is obviously bad for your brain, in the same way deep-fried lard chips would be clearly bad for the health of your body. The lyrics are degrading, the lives of the performers and composers are twisted, and the elements of the music itself fight against the natural rhythms of the body.”
As with so many things, it seems, the devil is in the detail.
When it comes to selecting music, Nedley suggests considering several questions. Here are some of them:
- Is there a healthy balance between the melody, harmony, and rhythm of the music? Or is one element (such as rhythm) overshadowing the rest?
- Is this music primarily harmonious or clashing and discordant?
- Does it move along without being hysterically fast or laboriously draggy?
- Are the words of the music ennobling or uplifting, or is it focused on the dark side of life?
- What is the intended and frequently achieved effect of this type of music? War or peace? Hate or love? Tranquillity or agitation? Fidelity or sexual looseness?
Some of the good music recommendations he makes cover areas such as boredom, clear thinking, relaxation, energy, learning and more.
A few of these are:
- Energy: Beethoven’s Turkish March. Trumpet Voluntary, Clarke
- Relaxation: Scottish Fantasy, Bruch. Appalachian Spring, Copeland.
- Clear thinking: Violin Concerto, Brahms. Brandenburg Concertos, Bach.
- For learning: Winter from The Four Seasons, Vivaldi. Concerto No. 1 in F, Handel.
If you’re seeking a little light entertainment, you may enjoy Andre Rieu’s recent concert in Malta. Warning: this music can sometimes be a little ‘frontal lobe’ and could occasionally cause excitement – let yourself go, I say!
