Challenges

Whether you're playing the piano or enjoying a Mozart concerto, music has restorative qualities that can lift your spirits and spark old memories.
Playing an instrument has been tied to greater volume in certain areas of the brain. And even just listening to a favorite song can improve your mood, sleep and more. “Music is processed all throughout the brain,” says Laurie Keough, clinical professor of music therapy at Nazareth College in Rochester, New York.
Here’s a closer look at some of the brain benefits of music.
1. Improved memory and thinking skills
“An emerging body of evidence suggests that older adults have better cognitive outcomes if they engage with music, regardless of whether the engagement is through listening to music, playing an instrument, or singing,” note the authors of a study published in the Journals of Gerontology Series B, Psychological Sciences & Social Sciences in 2023.
The researchers followed 5,021 adults over the age of 50 for an average of 12 years. Participants were asked how often they listened to music (passive engagement) and sang and/or played an instrument (active engagement); they were also given cognitive tests every two years to evaluate episodic memory, which is the ability to recall details about past events. Only 961 people said they never listened to or performed music, and these participants performed worse over time on the episodic memory tests compared with those who engaged in music actively and passively or only passively.
In one study, amateur musicians had greater volumes in areas of the brain involved in executive function, memory, language and emotion compared with non-musicians. The study, published in Brain Sciences in 2021, included 73 adults between the ages of 60 and 80.
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