Music is well known to help with pain relief, but the reasons why are complex and not fully understood. Both formal studies and people’s experiences suggest that there is more than one way in which music can improve pain tolerance. A 2012 University of Oxford study at the Department of Experimental Psychology suggests that passively […]

Can music help you to be more efficient in the workplace? Several studies say that it can, but the studies tend to disagree on why. It seems to depend on the type of music and the type of task you do at your job. If your workplace is naturally noisy and stressful, music that you […]

Musical intelligence may sound pompous and intimidating, but it really isn’t. It comes from a theory by the psychologist Howard Gardner that suggests there are distinct and different types of intelligence. Gardner identified seven other forms of intelligence aside from the logical intelligence we normally associate with the term. One of those is musical intelligence […]

Let Music Help You Relax…and Heal If you have a typical medicine cabinet, it probably contains a variety of medications to take care of different ailments. You may have generic tablets to take care of headaches, creams to rub on sore muscles, and medicines to take care of chronic ailments such as high blood pressure. […]

Learning to read music and/or play an instrument has been connected to increased brain development, because these tasks activate different areas of the brain. However, for children that are too young to read music or play instruments, just listening to music may be able to improve brain development. Early exposure to music has been shown […]

Can music help you in crisis situations? It does have a place as a coping mechanism. Singing while your house burns down may not be very helpful, but music can help you deal with the loss afterward. The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) calls music therapy “second-wave” relief from traumatic events. Once the initial shock […]