Mahit's tips on why music may help you study better
11 April 2022
Hi, my name’s Mahit and I’m a first-year Software Engineering student here at Macquarie. Today I’ll be talking about the effects of music while studying.
Whether you have Final Exams coming up or any major assignments due soon, focusing on work for long hours can sometimes be a dreadful and tiring task.
Listening to music can push us through those long study sessions in the library or help keep us focused in a noisy café’ while we sip our cups of coffee typing up that 3000-page report due soon.
But we might often ask ourselves, is it really a good choice to listen to music while we study?
Music creates a mood. Relaxing study music can help us beat anxiety or stress while studying. Music in the background can provide motivation which can aid in improving focus on tasks. It can fuel the endurance required to get the most out of those long study sessions. In some cases, the positive mood created by background music can indirectly boost memory formation which has helped students such as myself with memorisation.
However, listening to music while studying can also create distractions. A study on the effect of background music on short-term memory showed that background music makes our working memory worse, especially when it involves a lot of vocals. Listening to loud music can make it difficult to focus due to its negative effects on reading comprehension as well as mood.
Ultimately, everyone will have different learning styles and different things which work for them. If listening to music is what works for you, try listening to music that is not too fast or too loud, puts you in a better mood, and involves very few vocals. This will maximise the benefits background music while studying has to offer.
Some of my personal favourites which have worked for me include:
- Lo-fi beats
- Piano Instrumentals
- Relaxing study music on YouTube