We exercise our body to keep healthy and fit…but what about our brain? Leave it alone and it may get lazy and lacklustre. . . but what on earth can we do to keep the most precious part of our body in tip top condition? Feed your brain with music is the answer. Music is an uber powerful force , not only does it evoke emotions and memories – it also wakens the brain.
Every time we listen to music our brain has to work hard to make sense of it, work out what noises to prioritise and when to anticipate change, so the sound is not one giant mess. Listening to music is so much more than hearing a sound, it’s how we process it before we accept it and enjoy it. How the brain does this is now even being harnessed by new hearing aid technologies like these which improve hearing by working out how the brain sorts the sound rather than just amplifying it. So, it sounds (excuse the pun) like music can help give our brain a good workout, here’s some other training ideas….
Play an instrument
Playing an instrument is an excellent way to exercise your brain – it take things to another level, using what’s known as a motor action plan. The Telegraph looks at why it is thought playing an instrument can actually make you more brainy!
Variety is the Spice of Life
Listen to different music. You know that feeling when you turn a new song on and you think you don’t like it and then it grows on you? Well, that’s because your brain is struggling to get used to it.
Music activates your memory bank
Do you often hear a song that encapsulates a particular time in your life or does a piece of music take you back like a time machine to an exact point where you can see everything again like a photograph? Give your memory bank a spring clean and listen to some old songs… you may need tissues!
Music affects you physically
Physical exercise is always going to be good for your brain, Belle Beth Cooper from Buffer Central tells us more about how it affects our bodies: “Dancing to rhythms makes your brain predict what’s coming next, it becomes alert and releases endorphins that make you feel happy – it’s also good for your motor skills. Socially, it is great to dance, we have done this for billions of years. Music is a powerful group tool and will evoke mass emotion. Armies march to a beat to show solidarity, tribes dance to tribal music to celebrate or express emotion as a group, and football fans sing to get their team going.”
A,B,C is easy as 1,2,3
When you need to remember something, use a rhythm. Remember Sesame Street? It hammered home so many new sounds through song and Maria in The Sound of Music taught us all our scales.
Above all, never stop listening to music, your brain really does need it to do all those amazing things it does every day, never take it for granted, it is a true gift.
