Music has many advantages. Some of them are better known, but others go unnoticed because they are related to specific situations. Today we want to talk to you about one of them: the benefits of music in physical activity.
A group of scientists led by Peter Terry studied the effect of music on performance during the exercise at the University of South Queensland, Australia, in collaboration with Professor Costas Karageorghis and his team.
- The results of the study were recently published in an article entitled Effects of Music on Exercise and Sport: A Metaanalytic Review.
- Which presents overwhelming evidence of the benefits of music to facilitate and make any type of physical activity more enjoyable.
? When words don’t work, does the music speak? -Hans Christian Andersen-
Peter Terry, along with Costas Karageorghis and their respective teams, analyzed 139 available studies on the subject, published between 1911 and 2017, gathering more than a century of information, with the aim of providing a sufficiently complete and reliable summary of the benefits. music in physical activity.
Exercising while listening to music makes the activity easier and more enjoyable. With a very large sample of data, involving thousands of participants, the researchers determined that, first, music brings a physiological benefit and secondly, it has an “ergogen”. effect, that is, promotes better performance.
This translates into several other benefits, which we will talk about later.
One of the researchers’ findings is that music increases mood during physical activity, has a dissociative effect: it helps the person abstain from the present situation and evoke relevant and significant situations of the past, or dreams of the future.
This happens when listening to songs from personal playlists, i. e. it is not enough to have access to a melody; the effect is mainly seen when the person listens to songs that are part of their personal preferences.
Improving physical performance is what is known as the “energy effect”. This corresponds to the spontaneous increase in production in the year, that is, if you normally do 30 sit-ups, if you listen to music, you can do more with the same perception of effort.
This applies mainly to repetitive aerobic exercises, the effect occurs when the person is able to synchronize the activity with the rhythm of the melody. Researchers noted that music can be a good reference for maintaining a steady rhythm in exercises such as sinking, for example. .
Another of the most interesting advantages of music is the fact that it changes the perception of the effort we make, that is, it helps us to feel that exercise is less difficult and exhausting, that is, it greatly reduces the feeling of sacrifice or suffering during physical activity.
Other research conducted at the University of Jyv-skyl in Finland has shown that, in general, the most lively and danceable songs reduce the sense of perceived effort; In addition, this effect is enhanced when we listen to songs associated with our personal experiences.
Terry and Karageorghis found that exercising while listening to music increases physiological efficiency, meaning there is an optimization of the oxygen use we have, so physical activity increases blood flow, but reduces the amount of oxygen needed to match this increase.
Everything indicates that good humor and the union of the body with the different rhythms make breathing more harmonious and, therefore, we have managed to improve it. At the end of the day, tiredness takes time to delay.
It is a fact that music has a very interesting effect on our brain, the novelty is that this study allows us to see to what extent it can help us to perform activities that would initially be difficult for us, so music becomes an excellent ally to make the most of physical exercise.