Music and Emotion: How Hearing Music Affects Our Moods

Few people would question the ability of music to impact our emotions. It's common to have an impulse to listen to music which mirrors our feelings, whether we're listening to gloomy music when we are sad or upbeat music when we feel energized. In fact, this tendency to use music as a tool of emotional expression has been a key part of human society for thousands of years, and its a custom than transcends time and culture. In all cultures throughout history, the ability to use music has been an important feature of any society.  

Even though we generally take the powerful emotional qualities of music for granted, it behooves to ask the question: why is it that music affects us so deeply? Researchers at leading universities have been studying this question with renewed attention in recent years, and although some questions remain, we now know a lot more than we previously did. One of the chief findings of the most cutting edge research has been that starkly different cultures often react the same way to the same pieces of music. This remarkable finding adds support to the claim that music is a type of universal language that is common to all human beings.  

Regarding how music affects our emotions on a physical level,researchers point to the relationship between music and the production of endorphins, which are the hormones that play a key role in regulating our moods. These hormones also play a vital role in the way we form relationships with other people, which partially explains the unique power that music has to bring people together.  

In a fascinating study performed by psychologists at Oxford,researchers studied whether music can impact our emotions so deeply that it can increase our tolerance to pain. The groundbreaking study found that after listening to joyful communal singing, the level of endorphins was higher and that correlated with increased pain tolerance.  

Ultimately, many questions remain about precisely how music is able to influence our emotions. But one thing is clear: both hearing music and playing an instrument can drastically improve ones well-being. Given this reality, signing up for online music lessons could be a great way to enhance your current lifestyle. 

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