Everyone has heard music once in their life, whether it is a recorded song or a live performance, but not many people know what music really does for the brain and the body. In the world today, people listen to music daily, and it affects them in every way. Music is a way for people to forget, for people to let go, for people to find themselves, and for people to just have fun. Listening to music can positively impact one’s life physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

To begin, people that listen to music are impacted physically. There are millions of songs in the world today, all different than the next. They are grouped into many different music genres: blues, classical, country, dance, hip-hop, or pop, one that fits each person. The tempo or beat of each song motivates people positively: faster songs encourage exercisers to work out faster while slower songs drive people to exercise at a slower pace (Cooper). When one listens to different song beats, it physically changes the speed of their work out. This can make people stronger and creates a better and more effective workout for them. Similarly, listening to music can decrease pain tolerance at a faster speed. According to Jill Suttie, who has experienced giving birth herself, many studies have shown that mothers giving birth and patients after surgeries have had a decreased pain tolerance when listening to music. This can result in a faster recovery.When someone is experiencing pain: injuries or depression, it is helpful for them to listen to music they enjoy to take their minds off the pain and make them in a better mood. If they are less miserable and they are not thinking about the pain as much, the recovery goes by faster. Moreover, physically listening to music can help to relieve stress. Physically singing a song will increase stress relief for both the singer and the listener more than listening to recorded music (Suttie). For example, seeing a concert of a singer or band live is more effective on stress relief on the singer and listener, compared to listening to a song through a device. Either being physically at a concert or physically singing to an audience, both will create increased stress relief. But many people see music as a distraction. It is true that drivers that listen to the music they enjoy can be distracted; “drivers [make] more [physical] mistakes and [drive] more aggressively” when they are listening to music (Cooper). Though many people may see listening to music as a distraction, especially when driving, music that is “unfamiliar, or uninteresting” to a driver is more beneficial to safe driving than no music at all (Cooper). Silence could make the driver think about other things and forget about driving which could cause accidents. But, music that a driver has never heard can make them concentrate harder on the road because they do not know the words or the beat of the song. In result, listening to music can physically impact one’s life.

Likewise, people that listen to music are impacted mentally. People who exercise do not only benefit from listening to music physically but mentally as well. People who exercise do better mentally when listening to music because they are more motivated to do it (Cooper). Music mentally forces one to push themselves to go further and harder when exercising. Music makes one want to keep going to finish the song or track. Also, after serious injuries that hurt the brain, people in rehab that listen to music will increase their memory (Suttie). People who suffer from memory loss after an accident can increase the chance of getting their full mental memory back by listening to music. Just as it makes a faster pain recovery, it brings one’s memory back faster as well. According to a study by Massachusetts General Hospital, “listening to [music] helps relax critically ill patients by lowering stress hormone levels” (Suttie). Relaxation that music provides can mentally lower stress levels of not only ill patients but anyone who has high-stress hormone levels. Though studies have shown how greatly impactful music is for the brain, many people think infants should not listen to music. They are “not developmentally ready to process the intensity of the sound stimulus” (Moore). But, it can actually help with their development. According to Diane Bales, Ph.D., associate professor of human development and family science at the University of Georgia, “Infants’ hearing is well developed soon after birth, so they can respond to music very early on” (Miller). Infants listening to music can increase language skills, make for a better mood, and can strengthen relationships. Overall, all people, even infants, can improve mentally from listening to music.

Lastly, listening to music can impact one’s life emotionally. Different beats and types of songs make people in different kinds of moods (Abebe). Depending on what moods music puts one in, they will emotionally react differently; upbeat songs will create excitement and enthusiasm while slower songs will create people to feel teary and heartfelt. Also, music can change how emotional a person is. For music listeners, “one of the great tricks of pop music is that no matter how much [people] like to imagine it is about musicians expressing themselves, it tends to be more useful as a way for listeners to figure out their own identities” (Abebe). When music changes one's identity, it can change the person’s emotions as well. It can make a non-emotionally person emotional, and an emotional person not emotional. Also, music can bring back the memory of fantastic times which could make one happy and in a better mood (Moore). When in a time of depression or one’s natural state, listening to an old song can bring back happy memories which can create emotions to put a person in a better mood. It might seem that music can also bring back memories of terrible situations, which could make one depressed or in a poor mood (Moore). Still, one can maintain that songs that remind people of harder times in their life can also show one the growth they had made since then, which could positively impact their emotions. Staying positive when anything reminds someone of a hard time is always best. To summarize, listening to music can change one’s emotions in a better way.
As aforementioned, listening to music can physically, mentally, and emotionally impact one’s life in a positive way. Music can motivate, strengthen, and control the listener. Also, the brain mentally recoveries and develops with the help of music. It makes people feel a hundred different ways. If both children and adults were to listen to music daily, it can more effectively impact them. Music just gives people a positive feeling and puts them in a better mood, which can in the long term create a better community of happier people. Life without music would be like life without food; it is needed to survive and makes people happy.

Works Cited
"5 Problems Music Can Create." Psychology Today. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
"8 Surprising Ways Music Affects the Brain." Buffer Social. N.p., 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
"25 Songs That Tell Us Where Music Is Going." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Mar. 2016. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
"The Benefits of Introducing Baby to Music." Parents.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.
Holmes, Lindsay. "5 Ways Music Improves Our Health." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2016.