How Music Can Change Your Life -- by Pedro Dietrich

Music has existed since the era of the men in caves. In the past years, music has created new forms and shapes where people can create art and express their feelings. Music is so powerful in our lives that it can change our behavior every time—when we are sad, we listen to sad songs where we start to feel sadder then before; when we are in the gym, we listen to heavy songs that motivate us to do our best in every exercise. Music will always be there to connect people together, this is what the research from Fast Company has to say about music.

 In 2018, every single person has their own smartphone and, because of that, people start to get more anti-social, but to make up for this problem, they have their own personal playlist on their smartphone. With music, people can get closer to their families, friends and partners. Research by Sonos in partnership with Apple Music and other streaming apps has shown in an experiment that in one week, 30 couples will only listen to music not out loud and in the next week, they will listen to music out loud and the families could include any kind of music that they want. 

 The experiment was made inside the families’ houses and then, after 2 weeks, Sonos came with some results about how music changed their behaviors. With music, the families got closer with each other. The experiment provides us a clear effect about the music in our lives: The families started to have more connection in normal activities such as cooking, inviting people to their houses, laughing more and using more love expressions like “I love you”. 

 Music is so powerful that it can be used as a motivating drug. According to the research, music has the same effect as some of the normal drugs nowadays. People can use music as a substitute for caffeine or alcohol; music can make you feel calm, energized and sad. Music can make people 25% less irritated, it can provide inspiration anytime and gives more motivation to do exercise and physical activities.

 According to the Journal of Consumer Research, music preference changes depending the moment of our life. For example, when someone ends a relationship or has an interpersonal loss, this person will tend to listen to sad songs because the music is like an empathic friend, a person who truly understands what you are passing through.

 Music helps people in different ways that people couldn’t imagine, such as therapy with music. Music therapy was designed for managing stress, enhancing memory and alleviating pain. The research made by University of United Kingdom, shows that from the 7000 patients on whom they did surgery, the ones who listened to music didn't suffer from the pain and used less medications and the ones who didn't listen suffered more and used more painkillers. 

Fall has arrived in the northern hemisphere and with that, depression. Every time that the fall and the winter arrive, the day starts to get shorter and the energy to do some activities outside runs out. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a depression disorder where people can get more depressed when the weather gets colder. The people who suffer with this disorder or feel bad because of the long nights and cold days should use music as their ally to motivate them to do activities and not only stay at home. Music has the power to change their behavior and, with this, balance the depression that people suffer in cold weather, primarily in Canada.

Music has a huge impact on people’s life, providing them the energy to do activities and improve their mood for the day. With it, people can use music as an instrument to combat SAD when the cold weather arrives in countries that have extreme low temperatures. They can take comfort in listening to good music.