Most people will agree that there are plenty of songs that improve your mood and make you feel better, but is there any psychological proof that you can be more motivated and empowered by listening to the right music?
Research suggests that music with a good rhythm or beat can change your heart rate, either raising it for sport or slowing it to help you calm down. This is useful as increasing your pulse can help you to focus on a dull task and keep your mind awake. Repetitive beats can keep you motivated and help you to continue to push forward through a difficult exercise. Music can also engage the body’s sympathetic nervous system which is primarily responsible for the ‘fight-or-flight’ response; it opens airways, accelerates the heart rate and primes the muscles to move. This means that many athletes train listening to music and it is often banned during competitions to prevent athletes from gaining an unfair advantage because of its capacity to energise and increase endurance. Listening to a favourite song can help you to forget the negative aspects of a task by reminding you of positive memories which are often associated with a piece of music. You can be empowered by a good set of lyrics and listening or even singing along to a song can improve your mood. When combined with the fact that music also increases the release of norepinephrine, a hormone that brings about happiness and elation, it is definitely possible for music to motivate you.
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Music can have a positive effect on your motivation, however it can only be really effective if you are in the right frame of mind before listening to a song. If you are feeling sad and depressed, a very cheerful song won’t be able to completely lift your spirits. You have to be in the right mindset for a song to really increase your motivation levels. Music has to be combined with positive thoughts about doing an activity, you cannot rely solely on music to make you do the work.
To help you start creating your own personal motivational playlist the Indiependent contributors have put together a “get psyched” playlist with some of their favourites. These 20 songs are great to work or exercise to and we hope you enjoy them.
Words by Lizzie Wood