08 Monday Feb 2021
Posted in Intelligence for Your Life
Tags
be happy, Connie Sellecca, conniesellecca, happiness, intelligence for your life, intelligenceforyourlife, listen to music, mood boost, music, nostalgia, reward center of the brain
Need a boost of happiness? Listen to music you love but haven’t heard in forever. According to the journal Science, forgotten musical favorites provide the biggest mood boost. That’s because they combine nostalgia AND novelty, which activates the brain’s reward centers better than either one alone.
16 Tuesday Jun 2020
Posted in Intelligence for Your Life
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blood flow, boost heart health, Connie Sellecca, conniesellecca, good music, heart, heart attack, heart health, intelligence for your life, intelligenceforyourlife, listen to good music, listen to music, music, University of Maryland
Avoid listening to music you don’t like! Researchers from the University of Maryland found people forced to listen to songs they disliked saw their blood vessels constrict about 6% within 30 minutes, which reduced blood flow, strained their heart, and raised the risk for clogged arteries. While people listening to their favorite songs saw their blood vessels expand by 26%, making them wider and more relaxed. And their bodies were pumping out nitric oxide, a compound that helps prevent the clots that can trigger a heart attack.
28 Thursday May 2020
Posted in Intelligence for Your Life
Tags
Connie Sellecca, conniesellecca, intelligence for your life, intelligenceforyourlife, listen to music, music, reduce pain, reduce pain with music, reduce physical pain, University of Utah
Listen to music! Researchers at the University of Utah Pain Research Center measured the effect of music on people who received painful – yet harmless – electrical shocks to their fingertips. The result: Those who focused on the music, and followed the melodies, or concentrated on the lyrics felt less pain than those who weren’t hearing music. The reason? Because music triggers emotional responses and captures people’s attention, which is a distraction. Music also activates sensory pathways to the brain that compete with pain pathways. So fewer pain signals actually get through.
02 Thursday Apr 2020
Posted in Intelligence for Your Life
Tags
bond, bonding, brain, Connie Sellecca, conniesellecca, coronavirus, COVID-19, covid19, dance, dancing, feel good chemicals, intelligence for your life, intelligenceforyourlife, listen to music, music, reduce pain
…dance away – even if you have two left feet! It’ll help you bond with others and reduce feelings of pain. That’s according to a study in the journal Biology Letters. Because when we move in sync with others, everyone’s mirror neurons light up, which facilitates bonding. And the physical activity and music encourages the brain to release feel-good chemicals that blunt pain. Two solid reasons to get your groove on!
27 Thursday Feb 2020
Posted in Intelligence for Your Life
Tags
Connie Sellecca, conniesellecca, feel better, feel happy, improve your memory, intelligence for your life, intelligenceforyourlife, listen to music, music, shuffle, tunes
Play some tunes, but put your playlist on shuffle!
Research shows that when we don’t know what song is coming next, the pleasure centers of our brain light up. And every time there’s a musical surprise – which happens every 3 or 4 minutes – we get a flood of feel-good brain chemicals. They not only perk up our mood, they improve our memory and help us solve complex problems.
17 Monday Feb 2020
Posted in Intelligence for Your Life
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classical music, Connie Sellecca, conniesellecca, dopamine, intelligence for your life, intelligenceforyourlife, listen to music, lower blood pressure, music, reduce stress, slow heart rate, stress, stress-reliever, stressed out, stressful
While classical music has a particularly soothing effect – it slows heart rate, lowers blood pressure and even decreases levels of stress hormones – ANY music that you love will flood your brain with feel-good neurochemicals like dopamine.
And music is particularly beneficial if you’re in the middle of a stressful event. If you don’t have access to music, make your own. A study on stressed-out nursing students found that singing relieved their stress and prevented burnout.
16 Friday Aug 2019
Posted in Intelligence for Your Life
Tags
classical music, Connie Sellecca, conniesellecca, cortisol, heart rate, intelligence for your life, intelligenceforyourlife, live music, lower heart rate, music, reduce stress, stress
What can reduce stress in everybody – young, old, men, and women? Hearing classical music played LIVE! A study in the journal Public Health found people who attended a concert had significantly lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. And that was even true for people who didn’t usually go to concerts or weren’t familiar with the music being played. It’s partly because classical music has been shown to lower heart and breathing rates… and partly because experiencing the same thing with others makes us feel part of a community – and that social support reduces stress.
02 Tuesday Jul 2019
Posted in Intelligence for Your Life
Tags
cat, cat music, Connie Sellecca, conniesellecca, dog, intelligence for your life, intelligenceforyourlife, music, purr, relax, savage beast
You’ve heard the saying, “music soothes the savage beast.” Well, new research shows that classical music can soothe your cat! According to the Journal of Feline Medicine, classical music has the most calming effect on cats by far – while pop music came in second.
And classical is especially effective because it tends to contain tempos and frequencies that match a cat’s purring.
So try playing classical music in the car the next time you have to take your cat to the vet!
25 Friday May 2018
Posted in Intelligence for Your Life
Tags
concert, Connie Sellecca, conniesellecca, ear plugs, earplugs, festival, hearing damage, intelligence for your life, intelligenceforyourlife, loud music, music, music festival
Next time you attend a concert or music festival, bring earplugs. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, it could save your hearing!
For the study, researchers measured the hearing of volunteers before and after a music festival where the sound was roughly 100 decibels – which can cause permanent hearing damage within 5 minutes. Among people who wore earplugs, only 8% experienced hearing damage. But 42% of those who didn’t wear earplugs showed measurable damage.
23 Monday Apr 2018
Posted in Intelligence for Your Life
Tags
children, Connie Sellecca, conniesellecca, ears, headphones, hear, hearing, hearing damage, intelligence for your life, intelligenceforyourlife, kids, listen, loud, loud music, music
Parents, do your kids have a pair of child-size headphones that the box said were, quote, “safe for young ears”? Don’t believe it. Because the consumer-product review site, Wirecutter, did a little investigating. They analyzed 30 different children’s headphone brands, and found that half of them did not restrict decibel levels as advertised. And the worst ones allowed volume so loud it could permanently damage a child’s hearing – or even an adult’s – within minutes! For reference, the noise of a lawnmower is 100 decibels – and can damage hearing after 15 minutes. And the government mandated safe limit in the workplace for adults is 85 decibels – which is like the noise an idling bulldozer makes.
Well, these child-friendly headphones allow the volume to reach 114 decibels – WAY over the safe limit. If you want to see if your child’s headphones are safe – go to TheWirecutter.com for their list “Best Kids Headphones.” And make sure kids never listen to anything higher than 60% of the max volume – and to give their ears a break at least every hour.
