Strengthen brainpower with this special music

If you want to tone your body, head to the gym. To strengthen brainpower, turn up the volume on this special music!

The meaningful pattern of sounds we call music has a powerful emotional effect on the human brain. Music can reduce anxiety, blood pressure, and pain while it improves brain connectivity in key areas.

But not all music is equally beneficial for brain exercise. What is the best kind of music for you?

Recent research has indicated that your favorite music, especially from your teens and twenties, is like comfort food for your brain. After adolescence, our social lives shift into high gear as we hang out with peers and look for a mate. Music is primal, and shared musical experience helps us connect with others.

Shared social meaning of music 

Each generation bonds around the cultural soundtrack of their coming-of-age stage of life, making this music especially meaningful and memorable.

For example, the 50^th anniversary of the Woodstock music festival occurs this month on August 16-19. If you were born in the 1940s or 1950s, you might have a soft spot in your heart for the music of Woodstock performers such as Arlo Guthrie, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, or The Who.

If you were born in the 1920s or 1930s, you were probably too busy with work and family responsibilities in 1969 to pay attention to a 3-day music festival featuring new types of rock music. However, you might light up upon hearing the music of Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Frank Sinatra, Gene Autry, Johnny Cash, Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, or Broadway shows such as Oklahoma! and Guys and Dolls.

Personally meaningful music strengthens brain’s default network

Whether it’s Tony Bennett or Jimi Hendrix, personally meaningful music strengthens the connections in your default network. The brain activity that occurs in the default network is your Story Superpower, in charge of your personal life story, memories, and relationships. Irregular activity in the default network is linked to Alzheimer’s, anxiety, autism, schizophrenia, and possibly other frontal lobe disorders.

Listening to the music of your younger years can strengthen memory recall, calm the nervous system, and boost brain performance.

Here’s a fun brain training exercise. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Woodstock this month on August 15-17, get together with a friend and listen to some songs by famous Woodstock performers. Even if it is not your favorite music, see what memories bubble up to the surface from listening to it.

And if you really want to work your brain, move on from listening to doing: dance or sing to the music, or your own version of the music with your favorite musical.

Enjoy your trip down memory lane as you strengthen brainpower listening to your generation’s music!

To learn more about the default network, see Chapter III in Better with Age: The Ultimate Guide to Brain Training.