Did you know that when you are listening to music, your reward center in your brain releases dopamine?!

Dopamine plays a role in how we feel pleasure. It’s a big part of our unique human ability to think and plan and it helps us strive, focus, and find things interesting. The right amount of dopamine usually goes along with a pretty good mood. It also explains why music has been around for so long. The intense pleasure we get from it is actually biologically reinforcing in the brain, and there is scientific proof for it.:

In a recent research it was proved that when people listen to happy, upbeat music (instead of emotionally scary or sad music), they can recall happy memories within a shorter amount of time.

Here is what the researchers did:

In the experiment, the participants had to listen to four different genres of original music they had never heard before: one was happy, one peaceful, another one scary and one was sad.

After listening to the piece of music, they had 30 seconds to think of a memory that personally involved them, that had a specific time and place and that didn’t last for longer than a day.

As soon as something came to mind, they had to press a key on the computer and type in the details of their memory.

The researchers took a look at how long it took the participants to remember an event from their past, how clear the memory was and what the emotions were, that they felt when experiencing it.

Results:

The researchers found that when the participants listened to happy, upbeat music, they had happy memories!

Not only did the positivity of the music help them recall a memory faster, but it also actually helped them remember more details.

So, instead of only remembering your first beach vacation, you would remember the weather, where your favorite restaurant was and how you found it.

And when they listened to emotionally scary or sad music, they experienced negative memories.

Conclusion:

This leads to the conclusion that when you get stuck in a cycle of negative thought, don’t listen to sad songs like Adele’s “Hello” or “When we were young” or Calum Scott’s version of “Dancing on My Own”, even if you love them.

Change your mood and put positive music on.

Listen to songs like “Happy” by Pharrell Williams or “Can’t Stop This Feeling” by Justin Timberlake.

Conclusion: It turns out, listening to happy music brings up positive memories, while listening to sad music brings up negative ones.

 

I definitely changed the tune in our house and my car. And it made an unbelievable difference!

Try it out yourself:

 

Get yourself my favorite list of happiness music here and let it run for approx. 20 minutes. Please let me know how you feel afterwards.