Free Essay. Effect of Music Education on the Brain and Cognitive Abilities

Music education has been for the past few years been introduced in schools across the globe. This is because of reduced funding or inadequate funds and competition with academic subjects. Currently, the opportunity of learning musical instruments in schools is being viewed as a luxury than part of the education system (Swaminathan, Schellenberg, & Khalil, 2017). Despite the indication that music is beneficial to cognition, it is being removed from the education system. The removal of music from the education curricular has initiated several studies on the impact of music education on the brain and cognitive abilities. From the research, it was evident that music lessons had substantial cognitive improvement compared to students who had no music lessons.

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The children who were lucky enough to have music lessons in their schools showed improved ability to plan, language-based reasoning, and organize and complete tasks. Consequently, there was an improvement in academic grades (Jaschke, Honing, & Scherder, 2018). This primarily suggested that cognitive skills and abilities developed during the music classes, and it is not anyway related to subjects. Moreover, music classes should be applied in all schools the results from studies have indicated that music is beneficial to the growth of brain and cognitive abilities. Consequently, this will support the political development as it integrates music in the school's education system.

How Listening to Music Benefits the Brain

People believe that music is the medicine of the mind. The advanced research in brain imaging and neuroscience has revealed what happens to the brain when one listens to music for long. The study conducted has indicated that listening to music can reduce pain, blood pressure, depression, and anxiety (Swaminathan et al., 2017). Consequently, music improves the mood, increase some cognitive function, sleep quality, enhance learning and concentration, increase cognitive functions, and ward off the effects of brain aging. Moreover, research has found that music stimulates the whole brain. Likewise, because music is architectural based, structural, and mathematical based mainly on the relationship between one note and the next one, it makes the brain workout.

Additionally, listening to music for a long time activates the motor, limbic, and auditory regions of the brain regardless of whether a person is listening to Beatles or Vivaldi (Slevc, Davey, Buschkuehl, & Jaeggi, 2016). The research also found out that the motor region of the brain process rhythm, the limbic area, is primarily associated with emotions, while the auditory parts, on the other hand, process sound.

Music Reduces Depression and Stress

Over 500 studies of meta-analysis have indicated that there are many health benefits to listening to music, which includes lowering the stress hormone (Costa-Giomi, 2015). Moreover, in one to studies, individuals who were reviewed were undergoing surgery listening to music at the same time showed that they have lower levels of cortisol, the hormone for and anxiety. Therefore, this indicated that there are positive effects on listening to music and the brain and the chemistry that is associated with physical and mental health, and the benefits mainly stress reduction, aids social bonding, boosting immunity, and lifting the mood.

Likewise, music also triggers the brain's nucleus accumbent that is responsible for the release of good feeling neurochemical dopamine (Wang, Ossher, & Reuter-Lorenz, 2015). This part is the integral part that results in the motivational system and pleasure reward, which play an essential role in learning. Importantly, high levels of dopamine increase concentration, enhance memory and boost mood. The dopamine is primarily the chemical that facilitates the yummy feelings that one gets from consuming chocolates, achieving a runner's high, or having an orgasm.

Consequently, science research has indicated that music can help alleviate depression and help n individuals feel in control of their life. Moreover, there is evidence of music assisting people to recover from brain trauma in the brain (Janus, Lee, Moreno, & Bialystok, 2016). When people play music, it helps the brain to get oxytocin hormone, therefore, increasing the feeling of social bonding, trust, and connectedness. Primarily, in one of the studies conducted, music reduced depression by 25 percent and chronic by 21 percent. Other studies also indicate that music therapy reduced depressive symptoms.

How Music Enhances Cognition

Music improves specific high brain functions that make people smarter. Primarily, research has indicated that listening to music mainly enhances reasoning mathematical abilities and reading and literacy skills (Costa-Giomi, 2015). For an individual taking time to start learning, musical instruments are one of the best extra activities, and one can engage the brain in at any age. If an individual is not a musician and listens to music for fun, it also has positive effects.

People who listen to certain types of music indicated high episodic memory and high processing speed. Likewise, other studies have suggested that listening to background music while working also increases productivity and enhances creativity on specific tasks and cognitive performance (Jaschke, Honing, & Scherder, 2018). However, the type of music and the model if the job matters a lot. As acarian music, such s popular tunes influence the brain to multitask, and on the other hand, it can affect reading and comprehension and processing of information.

Music Boost Memory

The brain of an individual connected to the music with long-term activities. There are specific brain regions that are linked to certain episodic and autobiographical emotions and memories that are activated through hearing music. This indicates listening to music improves working memory for the adults. For people with Alzheimer's or dementia, music is believed to have a deep emotional recall (Costa-Giomi, 2015). People can have their favorite music that can help the calm down their brain to enable the individual or listener to regain connection with other people. An individual who has Alzheimer's have shown improvement when they listen to classical music. Consequently, listening to music can help a young brain to enhance learning and retain information.

Giving the Brain a Musical Boost

Music therapy can help people improve their health, such as premature infants, development learning disabilities, children with autism, brain injuries, chronic pain, people with emotional trauma, physical disabilities, depression, and Parkinson's disease, among other conditions (Costa-Giomi, 2015). Research has found that there are measurable changes following music therapy. The music therapy mainly involves getting involved with people who are professionals in music therapy. Moreover, children can have benefits through the introduction to music.

In conclusion, music classes should be applied to all schools. The results from studies have indicated that music is beneficial to the growth of brain and cognitive abilities. Consequently, this will support the political development as it integrates music in the school's education system.

References

Costa-Giomi, E. (2015). The long-term effects of childhood music instruction on intelligence and general cognitive abilities. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 33(2), 20-26. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/8755123314540661

Janus, M., Lee, Y., Moreno, S., & Bialystok, E. (2016). Effects of short-term music and second-language training on executive control. Journal of experimental child psychology, 144, 84-97.

Jaschke, A. C., Honing, H., & Scherder, E. J. (2018). Longitudinal analysis of music education on executive functions in primary school children. Frontiers in neuroscience, 12, 103.

Slevc, L. R., Davey, N. S., Buschkuehl, M., & Jaeggi, S. M. (2016). Tuning the mind: Exploring the connections between musical ability and executive functions. Cognition, 152, 199-211.

Swaminathan, S., Schellenberg, E. G., & Khalil, S. (2017). Revisiting the association between music lessons and intelligence: Training effects or music aptitude? Intelligence, 62, 119-124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2017.03.005

Wang, X., Ossher, L., & Reuter-Lorenz, P. A. (2015). Examining the relationship between skilled music training and attention. Consciousness and Cognition, 36, 169-179.