Imagine you’re sitting down to do a boring repetitive task and what to get it done as soon as possible. You know as soon as you finish this task you will be able to go outside and hang out with your friends. What's your strategy? How are you going to complete the task as fast as possible? You probably thought of a whole bunch of things: - Work in a distraction free environment - Motivate yourself with a reward - Gamify the task What about your choice of background music? This probably wasn't the first thing that came to your mind. Background music is a universal part of everyone's day. You hear it in the background of malls, the shitty music at the gym, and from random strangers cars throughout the day. You likely don't pay that much attention to it. Your habituated to it. It's just a part of life. But what if you could deliberately alter the music or sounds in the background of your environment for higher productivity, focus, and positive emotional experience? Research shows you can. Going back to the question of how to speed yourself up during that boring, repetitive task, there's studies to suggest that the faster the tempo of music listen to in the background, the faster we perform a given task. In contrast, the slower the tempo of music in the background, the slower we perform the given task. In one study by Connie Mayfield and colleagues people who listened to background rock music while completing a set of repetitive and easy percentage change math problems, completed more problems in the same compared to those who were in a heartbeat music and control condition. [^4] So if you wanted to complete those tasks as fast as possible in the beginning example, one option might be to listen to some fast paced music. Faster tempo doesn't just increase our speed at doing work tasks but it has also been shown to make us faster in all mundane tasks of our life like eating, drinking, and grocery shopping. [^3] So should we always listen to faster tempo music. No. This research only suggests we might be able to do mundane tasks faster not that we can magically do difficult cognitive tasks quicker with faster tempo music. Now that you know how the tempo of background music can effect our productivity, what are some other aspects of the background music or sound in our environment we can utilize for increased productivity, focus, and learning? Before we start however, it's important to note how hard it is to make general statements regarding the effect background music and sound have on people. The effect of music and sound on people effect people differently depending on the person. The memories and associations someone has with a sound or music as well as the context it's heard in profoundly alter how people react to it. It's incredibly hard to define exactly how background music effects us in the areas of our lives. But one meta analysis by Kampfe et al (2011) found that generally background music is positive for motoric behavior and emotional reactions, and negative for cognitive behavior.[^5] This suggests that background music, especially that which we like should be listened to while doing sports activities and trying to lighten one's emotional affect but not played while attempting to intense cognitive behavior. Let's dive in deeper into the research of how sounds and music effect these three things. ## Focus The more inconsistent a sound is, generally the more distracting it is. [[The brain has evolved to prioritize novel information]] because novel stimuli are more likely to harbor a danger response and [[Evolution tends to minimize waste]]. Your auditory system still subconsciously hears sounds even when you are not paying attention to them. The little hair cells in your ear continue to flutter and the eardrum beats in concert with the sound frequency. [^1] You can tell this is true when you have a sound that's going on in the background and all of a sudden it shuts off making you experience a huge peace from those brain stems associated with vigilance. This suggests that the sound of traffic will be much more distracting then something like the sound of a fan in the background. So don't think of working next to a construction site or busy dorm room. Unfortunately, this also means you shouldn't listen to music with vocals while trying to do a task that requires intense focus. [^6] Music with vocals is inconsistent and humans are social animals meaning we find it very hard to completely tune out the noises of other human voices while focusing on a cognitive task. However, background music might be helpful if you are in an environment where it would be too distracting to work without having background music to drown out all of the other noise. [^7] This could be especially helpful for children with ADHD or other attentional problems. The background music creates something soothing to focus on. [^7] Anytime a student becomes distracted they are more likely to listen to the background music for a bit rather than do some more destructive type of activity like talking to another student. [[Background music and sound affects you less the more habituated you are to them|It's important to note that the more habituated you are to the sounds or music in the background ]]the less of an effect they will have on you.[^7] Thus if you have been studying without background music and then suddenly start using it will probably be distracting at first. ### Fun/Emotion Of course, productivity isn't all that matters in the world. Having fun and experiencing positive emotion is also essential. How does background music/sound effect fun/emotion? [[Generally background music increases positive emotional affect|Generally background music seems to increase positive emotional]] affect but there is large variation across people.[^7] As said before, the effect of music and sound on people effect people differently depending on the person. The memories and associations someone has with a sound or music as well as the context it's heard in profoundly alter how people react to it. And the more habituated you are to a sound the less it will effect you. ### Binaural beats “Binaural beat is a phenomenon which occurs when two sinusoidal waves with different frequencies are introduced in both the ears simultaneously. The binaural beats can significantly alter the frequency of our brain towards the desired state. This state can either be the calm, relaxed state or conscious and alert state. The brain adjusts its own frequency to match it with that of the externally provided stimulus which is the binaural beat. Due to this, an individual's state of mind can be adjusted to fit the environment quickly and for longer periods of time (Sharma et al., 2017, p. 98).” [^8] Recent studies have found an increased propensity for focus in participants who listen to binaural beats of 40 hertz. You can find many examples of this in the literature where binaural beats of about 40 hertz somehow brought the brain into a state that made it optimal for learning for memory and for certain types of recall, including verbal recall, math learning etcetera.[^1] But you need to be careful not to become habituated to the binaural beats while using it for increased focus and learning because [[Background music and sound affects you less the more habituated you are to them]]. One way to get around this might be to use a combination of both short bursts and continuous stream of binaural beats rather than just using a single technique. This reduces the predictability of the binaural beats and decreases the habituation effect. # References [^1]: Andrew Huberman (2022, January 21st). Optimizing Workspace for Productivity, Focus, and Creativity | Episode 57 https://open.spotify.com/episode/4iv5HsKqxWQ0P3gkxQOtE4 [^3]: [[Fast Music Causes Fast Drinking]] [^4]: [[Effect of Music Tempo on Task Performance - Connie Mayfield, Sherry Moss, 1989]] [^5]: [[The impact of background music on adult listeners_ A meta-analysis]] [^6]: [[‪Background music Effects on attention Performance]] [^7]: [[Effects of Background Music on Student Productivity in the Elementary Classroom]] [^8]: [[Potential of binaural beats intervention for improving memory and attention_ Insights from meta-analysis and systematic review]]