Sara Leila Sherman
Appearances
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
We'll play the flight of the bumblebee, but we'll encourage the kids to buzz around like bumblebees. Or we'll play Bach, and we encourage this element of breathing with Bach to it. And it's amazing what a one-year-old and a two-year-old can do when we give them the space to be themselves and to experience this serious music, they don't have to get it, but they can feel it.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
And the more exposed they are to them, it becomes taken down from this pedestal, almost as we often think about it, like you said, this fancy restaurant or hotel or whatever it might be. And it can become more integral into accepting music like the death leopard, whether you like it or not, but it also then breaks this barriers of our expectations of it. And it's not put in a box.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Here's classical music over here for when I do these fancy things.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Music in elevators, restaurants, department stores, grocery stores is, again, a business that was founded in 1932 called Muzak. So when we think of elevator Muzak, it's actually the name of the LLC, Muzak Holdings LLC, that started this idea when you go into a store. And the idea was when you play a certain type of music, it might make people buy more things if you have this...
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
type of music that will encourage them to pick up more items on their way out. Think of it like the little kids and all the candy or all the chips that are right near the cash register when you see parents scrambling. No, no, no. But very rarely do you have classical music, which again is this calming music or it doesn't have to be classical, but
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Instrumental music with a low amount of beats per minute that kind of keep us in this calm, grounded state. I love the oldies and I love that they do that. And so somebody somewhere is intentionally picking that soundtrack for that grocery store.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
I love that story. And because it's, when I talked about cues before, it's the idea of something becoming, listening to it consciously and having it all of a sudden go into our subconscious. And so then, oh, actually I like this song or you've heard it enough times. You know this song, whether you realize how you've learned it to begin with.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
And so it's the same if we think about buttoning our shirts or brushing our teeth or learning how to tie a shoe. It's this action that we purposefully focus on. It's something our explicit memory. We are trying to remember how to do this action. And eventually it goes into our subconscious, our implicit memory, and we do it automatically. And music... is exactly the same.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Think about songs from your childhood or when you hear a song and you can have a very vivid memory of what that's attached to. And it's because of the way you've listened to it however many times. Or if I sing this to you, after two notes, what is that song? Jaws. Yeah. Two notes. And you know exactly what song it is, but you didn't sit there and think, hmm, here's two notes. Here's Jaws.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
It's because it has been ingrained from watching the movie. That song itself has become so used in pop culture that we have this association with it. So that absolutely makes sense that radio show hosts did this and that people were all of a sudden having favorite songs because it was prescribed for them.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Music predates language. Neanderthals used music as a way of communicating. Some of our earliest instruments are vulture bones created and carved into a flute. And again, predating language is a form of early communication.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
So when we think about using music as this tool to connect with one another before language, whether it's rhythm, whether it's creating sounds to tie emotions, music and emotions are so important. linked together when we hear certain sounds, like I mentioned, it ignites different parts of our amygdala, whether it's happy or sad and sounds have that capability.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
So the more that you are singing a song and attaching it to a melody and to the harmony underneath it, especially if you've sang it with other people, absolutely. It's easier to remember than if I ask you even happy birthday. I'm sure if you had to write down the lyrics to Happy Birthday, you have to think about it or sing it in your head in order to write it down.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
It doesn't just seem like Happy Birthday. Our brains don't function that way. Everything is intertwined and integrated together when it comes to the music.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
That's a good question. And I think it's very individualized. Again, music as that cue can absolutely help if you're having a hard time focusing. But again, if you're listening to music with lyrics when you're trying to write or focus, it detracts from that. Because music never really is a background noise like we talked about. So it's finding that music that supports that.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
If you find that silence really works for you, wonderful. But I think it's worth experimenting with different types of music and with silence to see what works for you with different types of sounds throughout the day.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
All right. Thank you, Mike. Thanks for really interesting questions.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Hi, Mike. Thank you for having me.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
70% of Americans listen to music for three to four hours a day. So then when we think of music and how much we're consuming music anyway, that's a lot of hours. But the idea of intentionally using music to help with our focus, our cognitive functions, our emotional awareness, community building, we don't necessarily put the thought into that in our everyday lives. And so that's what...
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
I love talking about is how we can intentionally use music as that tool to bring presence into our everyday lives.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Absolutely. But I have to ask, do you like that music or do you find, you know, the idea of the masseuse and the waterfall and the flute music? To me, that doesn't resonate with me. So it's almost makes me a little anxious instead of relaxed. Do you actually find that you are more relaxed when you hear that type of music in that setting?
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
OK, so I'm going to answer your question and then you just spurred something else that I love talking about as music, as a cue in the absence of music and what that does to our brains. But so it's not always waterfalls and flutes. Different types of music do different types of things for us. Our brains start firing our neurons 300 to 500 milliseconds after it's exposed to music.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
So that's faster than we have a conscious thought or before we can even recognize the melody. And what it does, it goes through our auditory cortex to our amygdala, so where we process emotions. So you're right that it makes you feel something, but it doesn't just have to be that because music can help lower our blood pressure and our cortisol levels. And maybe it's Bach.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
And in terms of reducing our stress levels and our cortisol, it usually is something with slower beats per minute, usually less than 80 beats per minute and long melodies and not words. Words tend to actually interfere.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Well, absolutely. Death Leopard is then music to motivate or to have a different side of our emotions activated. When we listen to different types of music, it interacts with our amygdala in different ways. So there is a part of our brain that has that section for focus and for kind of this calm music. And I think that's what you're talking about there. But then this other music
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Different types of music do different types of things for us. Our brains start firing our neurons 300 to 500 milliseconds after it's exposed to music. So that's faster than we have a conscious thought or before we can even recognize the melody.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
ignite something called a groove and a groove isn't just something that we think about when we're you know at a concert or a mosh pit a groove is actually a neurological term when our brain waves are synchronizing so if you think back to a concert or whatever it might be or death leopard when you're in a room with people listening to music that has usually 80 to 120 beats per minute which i imagine death leopard does
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
It's usually most popular music, and it's the same amount of beats that most of us walk to, so the rhythm of our feet. Our brainwaves synchronize with each other, which creates a sense of community. And it also has this way then of getting in touch with us emotionally. So whatever type of emotion Death Leopard is bringing to you, I imagine that upbeat, that energized, it's not that...
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
flute masseuse music. It has a point and it has a purpose. And so it's about figuring out what music has a purpose in our lives and how we want to use it at a time to ignite that purpose that we're looking for in that moment.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
It is a lot. But it's also the idea that music is often on in the background or what we think of music on as background music or today's world scrolling and social media. And the numbers are actually higher for younger kids, for teenagers in particular groups. where it's eight to nine hours of media consumption a day. And how much of that media consumption is involved with music?
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Think back to what you were saying. If the music turns off, what's wrong here? What's happening? And that's actually like hold music. That was the rant I was going to go on before about hold music, where when we're on hold somewhere, we anticipate music. And when it's not there as this cue, we think we've been hung up on.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
So we're so ingrained to have music be a part of our everyday lives, whether it's in an elevator, in a store. And so with that three to four hours, If we even take just 20 to 30 minutes, even less, two to three songs a day and say, hey, I'm going to attach this song to focus. Or especially if you're a family and you have young kids, it works really well to have songs be cues.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Hey, when we play this song, it's going to signal shoes and socks on, jackets on, and let's go out the door. And so those songs can, again, through that repetition, become this cue. And the three to four hours...
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
then it's not just in the background, which music never really is background because like I mentioned, our neurons are firing purposefully according to the music, whether we realize it or not. That's why if you're writing, it might be harder to write when you're listening to music with words. It might be harder to focus if you're listening to Death Leopard versus classical music.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
And so that three to four hours is really staggering, but let's put some of that intention behind it.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
So in the 1960s, this is one of my favorite stories, you know, switchboard operators. And the story of hold music on phones happened because a switchboard operator accidentally crossed the cable with the local radio show. And so the person on the phone was all of a sudden hearing the radio instead of being switched to where they were supposed to go. And so all of a sudden...
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
The hold music was patented in the 1960s. It still is under the same patent. And it's really become the signal now in our everyday lives of hold. You know, there's a 1989, there is a Cisco hold music. It's one of the most famous pieces of hold music out there. That's probably what you've heard on repeat. But there's all this research behind the type of hold music nowadays.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
that certain businesses pick. If you're with an insurance company, they might select types of music, like we mentioned, to lower your stress levels or your cortisol. So I agree. I don't love hold music, but it's a signal. Because if you were met with silence, how would you know if somebody hung up on you or if you were disconnected from the call? Right.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
In the world. So there are different statistics. The numbers are higher if you look at the UK and in Canada and America, but globally, which I think is important to look at. I think that there's been this shift of classical music. If we go back to Mozart, Mozart's concerts were...
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
for lack of better words, let's say raucous, where people cheered if they really loved this crescendo, which means the music gets louder and they would cheer. And he expected that. We have letters of Mozart writing to people and saying they applauded just like I knew they would. And then when it got really soft, I could hear silence and like I wanted.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
And they were so excited at the end of this part that they applauded. And he was not against this type of interaction with the classical music. In fact, he It was a social event. It was expected. And the way classical music is often presented today, here's a sonata, here's a symphony, and there's different sections. We call them movements. Do not clap. Be on your best behavior.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
Sit with your hands folded on your lap. And in the 1700s, early 1800s, music was not that way. And it's really taken the shift and... Again, I don't want to say elitist mentality, but it is on what is expected and how to perform and be on your best behavior in a classical music concert, which is not how classical music started as a performance.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
And I think that really does a disservice to reaching new audiences and to exposing people to music. I don't think we need to have a whole bunch of classical music lovers, but appreciators and understanding because that is music that will help reduce our blood pressure, our stress levels. It's great for creativity, for activating our default mode network and for so many different things.
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
But classical music is not as accessible as we have the potential to make it as a society.
Something You Should Know
The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
I like that you chose the word classes up the place. So it already has to you also this level of sophistication associated with it, correct?
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The Many Ways Music Affects Your Brain & How Safe and Effective Are Your Meds?
And so I don't disagree, but I think, again, then it puts this barrier. I like to think of the fourth wall and classical music in particular, breaking that fourth wall of what our expectations are at a concert or performance. I run a classical music concert series called Mozart for Munchkins, and it's an interactive experience. So we'll do that.