Have you ever gone brain dead while studying? Maybe you can’t keep your focus and you keep getting distracted when you are stuck with reading 35 pages of a textbook. To help with that, perhaps I suggest cranking up the Bach or whatever your favorite non-lyrical songs are.

Research that was published in “Learning and Individual Difference” has found that students that listened to a one hour lecture with classical music playing in the background, scored notably higher than the class who listened to the same lecture with no classical music in the background.

Listening to classical music can also reduce anxiety. Similar to this, a Russian study shows that children that listened to classical for one hour a day, every day, over a span of 6 months started to show different brain activity indicating that they are more relaxed more often. This data was still seen when the child was not paying attention to the music.

Some say that a 60 beat per minute is ideal to put the brain into the “bright and breezy” state of mind. Once this step has been accomplished, it is thought that your thinking and creativity will be somewhat easier, says Telemann & Vivaldi of Concertos for Recorder.

If it is said that music is helpful while studying, then what do the students at LHS have to say about it?

“I feel like it can help you block out noise if there are conversations going on in the background,” said senior Nate Ninteman.

There are other types of music that have been shown to increase your concentration levels if Mozart or Beethoven just isn’t your jam. Music or sound that resembles your surroundings is designed to keep your brain engaged at a lower, and more subconscious level.

“With lyrical music you end up listening to more of the words in the music than you end up paying attention to what you are doing,” state’s senior Cyrano Clark. He adds, “I have once accidentally typed the words that I was hearing instead of what I was actually trying to write.”

“A 2015 study found that when it came to sound-masking with ambient noise, “natural” sounds, such as waves at a beach, also improved subjects’ ability to concentrate,” says www.helpscout.com.

Things such as waterfalls, rain, or the ocean are all good things that you can listen to, to help you study for that big exam.

Spotify is a free app/program that you can sign up for where you can download music or just listen to it when connected to wifi. On this, there is a variety of playlists that will go on for hours that are music all related to those that are proven to help concentration. Some are more classical, some solely based on piano, and some that are even calming electronic tunes.