Concentration can feel like an elusive mental stunt. Someday, you feel highly focused while doing your tasks, and other days you feel sluggish. Hoping for the day to end quickly. This is where music can help you to concentrate better with greater consistency.
How does music help you concentrate? Music helps you concentrate by blocking out distracting noise. It acts as a stimulus that engages the brain, which modify your mood and provides a rhythm that keeps you alert. This serves to make the task at hand more engaging, less dull, and easier to concentrate on.
Reaping the benefits of music will take some planning and musical choice selection. Below we will share different types of music that might help you concentrate better for studying. Additionally, we will highlight some common situational constraints to be aware of when trying to improve your ability to concentrate.
Best types of music for concentrating
There are many types of music, which may make choosing an ideal choice difficult. Here we list the most popular music types for your consideration.
Classical music
A genre with rich history that focuses on melodic tunes. Behind many classical music are famous composers, such as Mozart and Beethoven.
The music can be extremely rich with sounds or simple with just a single musical instrument. Musical rhythm can be slow or really fast.
A great music choice for enriching your inner emotions. For those who enjoys instrumental only music, without vocals, this genre has lots of options.
Some negatives are that the music can be extremely abstract and requires an acquired taste.
Of the music types, classical music is definitely the most talked about music type to help concentration. Many studies have been done on classical music. The findings show that the abstract melodic tunes have an effect on stimulating certain types of brain waves.
On a quirky note, plants exposed to classical music have been said to grow better.
A popular choice of music for concentrating and maintaining a calm mood. However, some people find that the slow rhythm of certain classical music makes them sleepy rather than mentally stimulated for improved concentration.
Epic music
Epic music can commonly be found in awe-striking action, adventure and fantasy movies. It makes us feel a sense of grandiose and other-worldly feelings. Imagine this sensation as a magical feeling or like the feeling of travelling through the cosmos. Something bigger than life emotion.
Epic music feels powerful, and can be empowering with mood-lifting effect. A great music type to listen for a motivation boost! Or use it to keep yourself excited about the project after receiving disappointing feedback.
Video game music
Ever felt excited when you are playing video games? This is an effect of the music crafted for video games. They are designed to excite you as you play the game.
Listening to video game music can help you focus and stay motivated. Through associating video game music with fun times during gaming, you will also generate positive feelings toward your tasks.
Blues & Jazz music
Blues and jazz are constantly moving and improvised music. It can help to bring about your creativity and alertness as the tunes changes unexpectedly.
Hearing blues and jazzing music during creative tasks can be helpful for both concentration and creativity boost.
Electronic dance music (EDM)
EDM music is a type of dance music that you can find at nightclubs, raves and festivals. It is a music type that inspires the feelings of movement, as they are designed to encourage dancing. Part of this effect is the hard beating percussive sounds of EDM.
Some might find the strong beats of EDM giving them a sense of rhythmic focus. Further, the sensation of forward movement and momentum of EDM can encourage more action. This music type can be used effectively in action focused tasks, such as physical workout.
In contrast, EDM might be a strong flavor of musical taste that might turn away some. They may find EDM to be too strong musically and distracting.
Pop music
There are many types of pop music from western to korean pop music. Each type of pop musics differ greatly in their musical style.
This is an extremely popular choice of modern music that many people enjoy. They are also lyrical focused music. Some may enjoy hearing lyrics, but this can be distracting for others.
The range of moods generated by pop music will depend on the type of pop song you choose. Uniquely, the moods invoking pop songs are varied. There can pop songs on romance, happiness, sadness and worldly perspective.
You will most probably find it easy to select a pop song of your liking. It is also easy to ask your peers for recommendation regarding this popular genre type.
In a nutshell, this is a broadly suitable music type for many people. If finding meaning in lyrics can help you elevate your mood easier, then this genre might be your perfect fit!
Preference of music is individualistic
As you can see above, there are many types of music you can choose to help your concentration. However, it is impossible to define a specific music type that suits every individual.
The preference of music depends on your musical taste. You may want to try different music types to find an ideal type that suits you. Try listening to the YouTube videos provided above for each music type.
For a quick start, a good starting point is to select music that you frequently listen. This should work in most cases, as these music that you’re familiar should be enjoyable and able to keep you concentrated.
It be helpful add variety to the music you listen. Try mixing up the music types during different sessions of concentration. Your mind will be kept stimulated by the variety. Combining different types of music within a session can be helpful too.
Other benefits of music
Besides improving your concentration, music have many other benefits. As described, most of the concentration benefit of music can be traced to its mood changing ability.
By modulating your mood, you can keep yourself happy.
You can use music to lower your stress.
If you’re working on an artistic project, requiring creativity. Listen to some music to give yourself a creativity booster. Perhaps with some Jazz and Blues as suggested above?
Situational limitations on your ability to concentrate
Trying to concentrate is an ability. It can be improved like any skill.
Music is indeed a way to improve concentration, but you should not rely just on it. Your concentration ability will depend on other situational limitations. Being aware of them can make help you improve your concentration ability.
Few common causes that reduce concentration are a lack of sleep, poor health, poor lighting, and non-conducive ambient temperature.
Lack of sleep
Lack of sleep will make you feel lethargy. While music can help to alleviate some of the lethargy, it will not fully energize you. You will still have reduced level of concentration. The best course of action would be to take a nap to refresh yourself.
Poor health
Poor health can contribute to tiredness. If you’re feeling ill, it might be hard to concentrate even with music. You should rest more and recover from the illness before spending large effort to concentrate.
Poor lighting
Poor lighting can make it harder to see things. The strain on your eyes might make it unpleasant and difficult to concentrate.
Your selection of light source can also have an impact. Choosing between warm orange light vs bright white light could affect your mood. Warm orange light is known to induce sleepy feeling, and is usually used during the night to help prepare the mind for sleeping. White light can increase your alertness. Simply, there is not best type of light to select. You might prefer a type of lighting source over the other.
Regardless, you should ensure that your lighting source is bright enough for your activity.
Inadequate brightness could make it hard to see and concentrate on the task. This is important if you’re trying to read a book, you will need a good amount of brightness to be able to read the words.
Ensure that you have an adequate ambient light for your task.
Non-conducive ambient temperature
Non-conducive ambient temperature can be an environment that is too warm or too cold. You will feel warm or cold, which will make you feel uncomfortable and distracted. Making it harder to concentrate.
Using a temperature controlling equipment like air-conditioner or heater can help correct the ambient temperature.
Being aware of these situational limitations, you can take measures to ensure an ideal condition to maximize your concentration. Coupled with music, you should be able to enhance your concentration greatly!
Related Questions
Other ways to use sound to help with concentration? You can use white noise to help you concentrate. White noise are sounds that help to block out background sounds. This can be recorded ambient sounds, such as that from nature. You can find sound applications that allow you to customize your own white noise to your liking.
Can concentration be improved? Yes, concentration can be improved. You can do different task to help you improve your concentration, such as writing your notes by hand. However, you should be aware that improving concentration takes time and persistence, as it can be tiring and mentally draining. Adequate pacing of your training to improve concentration will be important to not over exert your effort beyond helpful duration.
Places to find music for concentrating? You can find different types of music for concentrating based on your preference from different online resources. Some popular online music resources are YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud, and even radio stations on TuneIn. Commonly, if you do a quick search on YouTube, you will get a large collection of hours of various music compiled for different concentration purposes.
