#298 How Music Shapes Memory Mood And Motion

Music is a direct line into memory, emotion, movement, and focus because the brain encodes sound alongside our life experiences. We connect the research to real life tools, from rhythm for rehab to playlists and nature sounds for nervous system regulation. 

• How the hippocampus links songs to autobiographical memories and strong emotions 
• What research suggests about music and memory recall in Alzheimer’s and dementia 
• Why rhythm activates motor networks and supports social bonding 
• How rhythmic auditory stimulation can help movement after stroke and in Parkinson’s 
• How music listening can boost creative thinking and cognitive flexibility 
• How music therapy supports mood, anxiety reduction, and emotional awareness 
• How tempo and sound frequencies can shift arousal, sleepiness, and attention 
• Simple self care playlist ideas for breathwork, journaling, comfort, and workouts 
• Why playing instruments supports executive control and neuroplasticity 
• How nature sounds and ASMR can reduce stress and restore attention 
 

Stay up to date with our podcasts on our socials at the Universal Radio and stream us wherever you get your podcasts. 

IG: @theuniversalradio

Transcript

Welcome And Why Music Hits

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Good evening, turn listeners. This is Silgan. Welcome back to Well Being Wednesdays with Silgan. Tonight we'll be discussing the influence that music has on us from a neuroscience and psychological perspective. Did you know that music impacts us emotionally? Maybe so. You probably experienced the influence of music when you hear a song after a long time. One that takes you back to a sweeter time, a more nostalgic time, a more simple time. This is also true of music that takes us back to less pleasant times. Perhaps you've expanded this whilst cut out across the salain or varozio baton, but you had people in your life that were never meant to be there forever, or unfortunately are no longer with us now. Music provocates with us through tempo, rhythm, lyricism, etc. Fascinating conversation we have for you tonight. Stay with us.

Memory And The Hippocampus

SPEAKER_00 1:14

This is called the hypocampus. I know that science may not be everyone's fourth day. One way that I've been able to remember this part of the brain is that it's called the hypocampus. Notice the word campus. So you have memories usually from campuses, right? Whether you have been to post-secondary or you've worked at campuses. Yeah. So I hope that helps when I talk about this part of the brain. I hope it really. Anyways, this hypocampus is the reason why music is linked to personal experiences. That's why songs can bring us back to specific events, smells, sights, emotions, and situations. Memories are encoded together with emotional and sensory information. A brilliant research article that I found depicting this is work done by Al Hajj, Fisoti, and Alain in 2012. The finding here is that those who were studied had Alzheimer's, and when they listened to specific types of music, they were able to recall autobiographical memories that were retrieved quicker and were emotional, and in some instances carried more positivity than the other participants who experienced memories and silence. Al-Hajj and others also did another study in 2015 furthering these findings. Those who are being able to be looked at also had Alzheimer's. They were able to generate self-defining memories while listening to music as well. In 2020, Baird and others found that not only did music evoke autobiographical memories with Alzheimer's, but those memories actually remained accessible over a six-month period. Lastly, work by Gomez and Romero and others shows us that even with those who have dementia, music sparks reminiscence and communication. So the next time a song takes you back to a memory and you get those feels, now you know why.

Rhythm That Moves The Body

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Have you ever noticed that listening to music can help you or inspire you to move? Tap your feet, dance to the beat, sway from side to side. Why is that? Well, the science shows us that music activates movement-related regions, such as the basal ganglia, the cerebellum, and motor cortex areas. It also promotes social bonding, hence, there's often music present at social gatherings, ceremonies, weddings, and even funerals. Neuroscientists believe the synchronization of music and musical activity, be it singing together, dancing together, rituals or celebrations, the music strengthens social cohesion by connecting us with our attention, movement, and emotional states. To add to this fascination, and the fascination I have with this, there's research actually supporting this phenomenon, that music and rhythm can help some of us regain movement despite severe motor impairments that we might have. Such as these research articles that I'm about to share with you, looking at folks after a stroke, particularly those who are recovering after a stroke. In Frontiers in Neurology, Manca and others in 2018 examined stroke survivors who had impaired walking ability. They found that those who paired rhythmic auditory stimulation, so music-related and music-based rhythmic cues, showed greater improvements in walking performance than conventional training alone. In 2022, a study called The Effect of Music-Based Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation on Balance and Functional Outcomes After Stroke found that music improved balance and functional motor outcomes for those who had strokes as well. The rhythm facilitated movement recovery is also something that has been explored by engaging auditory motor brain networks. For those with Parkinson's, a 1996 finding by Tot and others used musical rhythm to enhance walking speed, stride length, and movement patterns. So the next time the beat gets you going, motivates you to get up and move. You can remember this segment of Well Being Wednesdays with Silgand. Yay!

Music And Creative Thinking

SPEAKER_00 5:53

One of my favorite genres of music is rap. I love the ciphering lyrics, looking at metaphors that we are used to hearing, listening to what the artist is really trying to say, the similes they're using. I think some artists have incredible pen game. Mananda lyrical ability is astonishing to me. But I was 10 years old when I found out that Mozak can also enhance the listener's abstract thinking. Yeah, you heard that correctly. Mozak can improve our cognitive flexibility, divergent theakin, semantic association, and the ability to coop with new ideas. As you may recall in previous segments of Wellbeing Wednesdays with Silgan, we've covered this. The brain likes new experiences, the brain enjoys novelty, neuroplasticity benefits from this too. So if this is new information to you, you can definitely find our previous segments on Spotify or on our website. But yes, MUSIC has been shown to increase mental arousal in a 2017 research project called Emotional Reactions Mediate the Effect of Music Listening on Creative Thinking. In another experiment conducted in 2020 called Effects of Music on Creative Cognition and Semantic Memory Retrieval, researchers found that music affected the ability to access and combine conceptual knowledge in new ways. In 2021, Gade and Shelmer produced work that demonstrated how music was associated with cognitive flexibility, Desman's the ability to switch perspectives, adapt to changing rules, and think beyond concrete singular interpretations.

Music Therapy And Reward Pathways

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Have you ever heard of music therapy? Yes, it really is a thing. Therapists may use music to reduce anxiety, improve mood, process difficult emotions, and increase emotional awareness. It's been shown that music has the power to provide a pathway to emotions that are difficult to express through words alone. That's why sometimes you'll see people use musical lyrics on their captions on social media. Folks will also create playlists for each other as an act of love, wedding, collecting, and this is to express fuels and experiences that are sometimes rare-felt in a musical sense. Research shows us that music stimulates reward-related brain circuits too. This is why it can increase motivation and arrangement. Have you ever been at a work event where there's music playing during the intervals or in the breaks? Have you noticed that music was present at a high school graduation or post-secondary ceremony? You can even hear music at grocery stores, spas. There's music during massages. If you're getting a petty hero that I hear there's music. Even at dentists' offices, I had to get a tooth pulled last year, and I had done some research on the types of hurts and frequencies that help with anxiety, and I had the dentist put it on while he was pulling my tooth out. We're gonna get to that. But yeah, music can be really effective. And it's understandable given these findings that music plays a major role in our lives, whether it's intentional or it's indirect. And now you know exactly why.

Frequencies And The Nervous System

SPEAKER_00 9:23

So Magic also has an impact on our nervous system. I bet you didn't know that. All music is consisted of different sound frequencies. Different frequencies equals different neurological influences, and they're all processed differently by various auditory nervous system regulatories. Music thus influences our auditory cortex, limbic system, which is emotions, autonomic nervous system, like heart rate and motor networks, as we've already covered. This also means that music is able to alter our heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol levels, mud and attention. Slow rhythms can promote relaxation, faster rhythms can increase alertness. These have also been demonstrated in fMRI and EEG studies. So, remember what I said about the dentist and how I had my dentist put on Hertz music? So, Xenop.5 to 4 Hz frequency range is called delta, and this is what people frequently listen to when they're gonna go to sleep. 4 to 8 hertz frequency range is called theta, and this actually enhances drowsiness. 8 to 12 hertz frequency is called alpha and it can evoke relaxed waitfulness, and 13 to 30 hertz frequency range is called beta and it can make you more alert. And there are resources reflecting this on YouTube if you'd like to test this out for yourself. I've listened to them before while I was working, studying, or meditating. Gamma frequency is the highest and it's approximately 30 to 100 hertz, and it can aid in cognition, learning, and memory. Exact frequencies that you might see on YouTube, like 432 and 528, are currently being researched, but it's worth mentioning that you could try it out for yourself. It might work for you to help you achieve a more relaxed state or more alert state, depending on what you you need it for. But yeah, you can try it out, see how it makes you feel, and you can incorporate it as a part of your self-care. I definitely have incorporated it for years, and it does, when it's done consistently, it does have an impact on you and your nervous system.

Building Playlists For Self Care

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Let's talk about how we can add music to our self-care now that we know the research, shall we? You can consider using music to help you with emotions and emotional regulation. You can, for example, make a common playlist to inspire you to do breath work in your days. Or you can look for playlists that have already been created. You can do the same for journeying and brain-dump purposes. Creation of a reflection playlist could also help you with researching and reaching a flow state while you're writing down things that you're grateful for or things that are just weighing heavy on your heart and on your mind. You could also create a comfort playlist that has music that perhaps gives you feel-good vibes like childhood memories. I, for example, love the early 2000s. That's that's my feel-good music. Remember how so many of us would have posters of our favorite artists and put them all over our walls and have them in our school planners. If you're a millennial, I can just feel you nodding. But yeah, you can consider that an energy playlist. Or you could enhance your workout regimen and your yoga practice and make it more intentional, or even when you're wanting to feel that pump when you're lifting weights or using your body weight to do exercises or even stretch around the house. Research shows that pan music with the emotional states can improve our duration, endurance, and our effort.

Playing Instruments And Neuroplasticity

SPEAKER_00 13:18

But what about playing instruments? Are those effective too? Absolutely. And don't worry, if you're like me and you haven't picked up an instrument since junior high, or you feel like you're just not musically inclined, the science can still be beneficial for you and relatable for you. So you might think to yourself, Sogand, I'm just not particularly scared, skilled enough to benefit from playing instruments. But the science says that you would be wrong. A 2005 study by Schlag and others demonstrates that playing musical instruments can help with our executive control through the brain's prefrontal cortext. Prefrontal cortex by responsible for our judgment, our reason, and our decision making. So, this shows that engaging in music assists with our working memoi, our attentional control, our listening skills, and our error correction. 2009 study by Biolistock and the Pape. I'm sorry if I pronounce any of these names wrong, by the way, if you just happen to know who these researchers are. They found that playing instruments can also enhance task switching activities, also. This is possible through the auditory working memory via sound patterns and procedural memory through repetition and associative memory also is linked while you are listening to it out or planar symbols and movements. Remember how we spoke about the hypocampus earlier? Well, Herholtz and his attorney in 2012 showed that mimesical training actually enhances memory networks and the hypocampus too. De White and others in 2020 conducted a systematic review. I always get that word mixed up. You'd think after all these years of me doing these studies, I'd get these words right. Systematic review and health psychological reviews found that musical interventions are reduced and they reduce stress-related outcomes. This means that playing instruments can actually reduce stress because it activates your reward pathways, it reduces your cortisol levels, it reduces your anxiety, improves your mood stability, and it increases emotional awareness. On top of this, musicians and those who play musical instruments, they actually show that their neuroplastic changes take place in the brain. This is so cool to me because they actually have enlarged parts of the brain. They have enlarged corpus collisums, which means that they have better communication between their hemispheres. They have enhanced auditory cortex responses and motor cortex expansion for finger controls in if they're using their fingers, like in case of a guitar. These are based on the work of Geyser and Schlag in 2003, in which brain differences were examined between those who played instruments and those who did not. I think this is super fascinating. So the next time you see an affordable music class, maybe you should consider going to it. If you get invited to play an instrument, maybe don't say no. Maybe consider doing it. The science says that this could be really helpful for you. I also recognize that instruments may not be in your financial budget. However, secondhand stores often have them at discounted prices. I've personally seen many on Facebook Marketplace for free. There's always pianos, sometimes there's violins and guitars. The focus here is less on perfecting the art of playing the instrument and more so on the benefits that playing the instrument can have for you. And this impact with this research demonstrates that if done for some time, this musical training is going to be associated with slower cognitive aging as well and better verbal memory in older adults. So you can consider this an anti-aging regimen too. This is found by the work of Sko and Cross in 2012. I really hope you're enjoying this segment of Wellbeing Wednesdays with Sogan as much as we are, because after this, I fully intend to jam out to some 2000s music while looking for some musical classes to attend.

Nature Sounds And Calm Focus

SPEAKER_00 17:31

I'd love to now speak to you about nature ASMR and nature music. I myself have created some nature ASMR videos and it'll bring me so much peace. The creation, the curation, it's so much fun. I love listening to them as well. In 2013, Anne Arsted and others looked at why this is the case. Why are these types of videos so calming? They found that listening to nature sounds reduces the body's response to stress. They also found that it improves recovery after stressful tasks. Nature sounds like bods, water, improve emotional states faster than other masses like traffic or mechanical sounds. This was also concluded in a study by Alverson, Warren, and Mausen in 2016. Nitro sounds have also been linked to ART, which stands for Attention Restoration Theory. Here, it's been shown that Nitro sounds allows for the restoration of your attention following mental fatigue. It also directs your attention towards focus and concentration. It can hold your attention and improve your cognitive performance after stress as well. These are findings by Van Hedger and others in 2019. Neuroimaging echoes the sentiment. It shows that nature sounds affect brain regions involved in the reduction of threat responses, i.e. the amygdala. Hunter and others look at these research findings as well, and they state that nature sound exposure reduces stress-related brain activity and it actually increases your positive affect. So if you're overstimulated, don't feel like putting on music per se, look up nature sounds. They're on every app, they are so easy to find. And even better, see if you can add a little nature walk or a nature drive with your windows down, especially now that the weather is so good. Neuroscientist Dr. Tara Sports says that nature is so effective on our well-being. And I hope that you're able to engage with nature and its music and incorporate this into your life.

Final Takeaways And Good Night

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Alrighty, listeners, thank you so much for tuning into this sweet segment of Wellbeing Wednesday with Sogand. I hope you had a lot of music as much as I did. This was ominous to me as well, honestly. It's never gonna feel how much impact the music can have on us. And I feel like when the no better, you can do better, so you can imply this into your life in ways that just serve you, you know? I hope that you're able to do that, and I hope that you're able to find these fun laws and science facts in our area that are applicable to your life. I'm rather grateful to have spent this evening with you. I hope the neuroscience, the psychology, the sociology, and the birology was helpful. And I really hope you have a wonderful evening. Good night for me and the incredible team here at 97.9 FM.