Singing makes you
run faster
I do not know about you, but to me working out can be pretty boring. I do it, but I dread it. Thanks to our modern world today we can all be running, skiing or mountain climbing while listening to music. In the early nineteen hundreds, Dr. Ayres discovered that people that exercise while listening to music performed better than those who worked out in silence. A simple explanation for this phenomenon is that our brains become occupied with a new task. This new task (listening to music) takes our attention from our other task: being fatigued. In the end, the brain is distracted with music and forgets that we are tired and it keeps going. A recent study takes it an extra step further. Dr Friz, from the Max Planck Institute, has shown that actually producing music enhances the physical activity even more when compared with people just listening to music. These subjects also reported feeling less fatigued than the ones not producing music. I guess if you want better workout results you should start singing while you run or just lift weights to the rhythm of the music. It will make you stronger!
Memory and Emotions
We have all experienced the effects of music and emotions at one time or another. Music can frighten us, it can bring us joy and it can make us sad. Our auditory cortex is closely linked with our emotional centers. Music can even cause intense physical response to our bodies which are a result from emotions themselves. People report “chills” and their skin gets covered with goose bumps, and some people feel stomach “butterflies” to the sound of music.
Our ability to perceive an emotional message from a musical piece, or a sound, starts early in life and it creates a context that will drive our experience every time we listen to those sounds. Children are capable of distinguishing a mood or a facial expression based on a musical piece at early stages of development. Research suggests that part of this development comes from their mothers singing to their infants. This in turn relays emotional messages to them. By the time children are 4 years old they can distinguish emotions in musical pieces just as adults can. People perceive music differently depending on their own personal experiences which can in turn affect their behavior in the future. These include social interactions, suggesting that music exposure can affect personality and emotions early in life.
Our emotional response to music is dependent on the piece we listen to. This all depends on our previous experiences of that music piece. Horror, suspense and mystery films all use a certain types of pieces that are vastly different from those in comedies or action flicks. This puts a music “type” into a particular context and provides us with a unique experience. This is then stored in our memory centers, which we can then retrieve based on that experience. The more a certain experience is linked to a type of music the more it will elicit an almost subconscious response to that particular piece. For instance, if we are in a happy place with happy people and somewhere we listen to a “horror” piece, our brains will automatically react by increasing our awareness and increasing our heart beat. This is a result of our experience and what we have stored in our memories.
As one can imagine, the complexity of music and our brains goes far beyond, and much more research is needed to be done in order to comprehend it all. Fortunately we know enough of it to take advantage of what is currently understood. I would say that it is imperative that we expose our young children to as much musical education as we can. There is no harm in over indulging children with music. Play music at the house, have them take piano lessons or even sing to them in the morning or when they go to bed. As you saw earlier, the more we expose them to music the more we can help them not only with speech and reading skills, but also to help them shape their own personalities and social environments. And do not forget that music can shape our brains with a limitless amount of joyful experiences whether you are a children or an adult.
REFERENCES:
Gaser and Shlaug. 2003. Brain Structures differ between musicians and non-muscicians. Journal of Neuroscience.
Kraus N et. al. 2012. Musical training during early childhood enhances the neural encoding of speech in noise. Brain & Language.
Fritz, T., et al. 2013. Musical agency reduces perceived exertion during strenuous physical performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
German Garcia-Fresco, PhD.
In his case studies he conducted interviews with major celebrities including Andrew Carnegie, The Rockefellers and Thomas Edison. He realized that they all had one thing in common: they were able to transform their sexual driving force to increase their success and potential.
It is not an easy task by any means, but those who are able tend to be very successful. You might be asking how this can be achieved. One of the most effective steps towards transferring sexual energy is to establish a stable monogamous relationship. Your spouse/partner will be the best driving force to help you control the power of sex and deviate it to better use. I am not saying that you should not have sexual relations with your spouse by all means. Having one partner, as I mentioned above, allows you to focus and having relations with your spouse greatly increases happiness and your financial success.
References:
Hill, Napoleon. 1937. Think and Grow Rich. The Ralston Society.
Fisher, Hellen. 2004. Why we Love. New York: Owl Books.
German Garcia-Fresco, PhD.
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