“Music is the shorthand of emotion.”
Leo Tolstoy
Music has been with us for centuries. We are all very aware of the subjective benefits of listening to music but until fairly recently, we haven’t known the neuroscientific benefits of music and how it can help us emotionally.
“Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation.”
Oliver Sacks, Musicoplilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
The Psychology
With more advanced technology such as brain imaging techniques at our disposal, more and more research is being done to search for factual, evidence-based findings. Thanks to this research exploring the psychology of music, we are now able to understand why music is so beneficial for our mental and physical health.