As concert season fills the calendars, with porches galore humming with music, it’s a fitting time to celebrate the happy truth that hearing clearly and listening to music both contribute to a healthy, sharp mind.
Enjoying music to your ears is a healthy choice for your brain. Turns out, being Happy to Hear is smart living.
While Ears Collect the notes, rhythms and harmonies around us, our Brains Connect them into something we recognize, remember and feel. In that process, music activates brain networks involved in memory, emotion, and pleasure, which makes listening to a favorite song a melodically healthy choice.
Here’s what’s happening at once:
- The hippocampus helps support memory and recall.
- The amygdala contributes to emotional response.
- Pleasure pathways are activated, including the release of dopamine, linked to motivation.
Just as exercising the body keeps muscles strong, engaging with music helps keep the brain stimulated and there’s real science behind that therapeutic idea, whether you’re listening or playing.
Listening
- Music helps create new neural connections and supports neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to adapt throughout life. 1
- Music activates so many brain regions at once that people with Alzheimer’s can still recall and sing a familiar song. 1
- Music-based approaches offer some of the strongest evidence of brain benefit for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and stroke. 2
Playing
- Playing an instrument brings even greater cognitive advantages than singing, particularly for processing speed. 3
- Even short-term musical training started in your 60s, 70s, or 80s has been shown to improve reasoning and mental flexibility. 3
- Lifelong musical practice has also been linked to a lower risk of dementia and mild cognitive impairment. 3
A little more music each day is a vital step that can help keep your mind healthier, so you will capture more notes of what matters most.
Especially with our growing population of active seniors, it’s worth building small brain-healthy habits into everyday life and music is a wonderfully simple place to start. Whatever moves you, whether it’s an old favorite or something new, may it bring you a little more joy and a little more sharpness each day.
1 https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-does-music-affect-the-brain
2 https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000206797
3 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0207957