Over the recent months you've been hearing about how classical music can help you relax, learn and grow.
And it turns out there is one period of classical music that is worth singling out as especially powerful at helping you focus. In fact, in the hands of some health professionals, Baroque music may be life-saving.
A few years ago, a radiologist by the name of Dr Mohiuddin became interested in exploring how he and his fellow radiologists could make small changes to their work environment to help them handle their massive workloads.
Loading...Radiologists spend a lot of their time in a 'reading room' where they analyse patients' scans and images, hunting for even the tiniest of abnormalities. It is painstaking work and the stakes are high. After talking with one of his colleagues, Dr Mohiuddin realised they both reported benefits from listening to Baroque music (music from around the years 1600-1750) in headphones as they worked! He decided to test whether the music promoted concentration.
He had all the radiologists at his hospital take part. For a number of weeks they listened to the music of Vivaldi and Handel through headphones while they worked.
The productivity of the radiologists improved. The amount of radiology slides they got through in the reading room increased. They reported greater accuracy in their work and their work satisfaction also went up. But not only that. Dr Mohiuddin had them do some tests before and after the trial and found that listening to Baroque music was associated with increasing their spatial reasoning, attentiveness and concentration.
Alongside that, brain imaging research out of China led by Dr R. Gu found that listening to Baroque music (they used music by Vivaldi) has a positive influence on learning efficiency, that is, on your ability to pay attention and remember stuff. Baroque music with certain characteristics (including a tempo of between 50 and 80 beats per minute and certain mid to lower frequencies) was particularly effective.
Dr. Gu believes this effectiveness is due to Baroque music stimulating alpha waves particularly well. Alpha waves are dominant when you’re really in the present moment, you feel in the here and now, capable of bringing your attention to the task at hand.
To quote the researchers, “brain imaging research using electroencephalography found that Baroque music can bring about a balanced, stable, calm state of mind and improve learning efficiency.”
So there you are, get some Baroque into your life to help with focus and productivity as well as your mood!
Greta Bradman is a soprano, Registered Psychologist and ABC Classic presenter.