Listening to music while studying is so commonplace because students of the digital generation have been raised in perpetual audio-visual stimulation. Many millennials feel very uncomfortable in silence simply because they are so accustomed to being near a screen or near digital audio. If you are in this position, then studying without some sort of audio in the background can feel very uncomfortable.

There are pros and cons of listening to music while studying. Keep reading to learn about them!

Pro – It Moderates Depression

Many people know what it feels like to burn out. It is where you extend a great amount of effort over a period of time to the point where you are unable to continue. To quote Gustave Flaubert, “every word was like tearing the flesh from my bones.”

Over time, too many burnouts create a physical response. For those looking to research this response, look up cortisol secretions in depressed adult. In short, your body creates stress hormones when dealing with certain studying in the same way it creates stress hormones when you see a spider crawling up your bedsheets.

Burning out while studying is what teaches your body to release these stress hormones. However, the introduction of music breaks up this cycle. The occasional invigorating song, or even the absence of that negative voice inside you, is enough to break the stress-hormone cycle.

This means music during studying can go partway toward moderating levels of depression during study time.

Con – Listening to Music While Studying Will Lower Your Productivity

Movement within your field of vision, audio, physical stimulus, and smells will all lower your productivity. Listening to music can lower your productivity by a minimum of 10%. Intensive studies trying to prove that classical music helps people study have been repeatedly debunked.

Listening to music with words in is the worst thing you can do because your mind is forced to dedicate a portion of your mind to interpret the song. That is partly why you may find it easier to concentrate if you already know the song off by heart. Music with words “will” dramatically affect your reading comprehension.

That is why music with words in it is only suitable for repetitive tasks such as working out.

Music without words, such as classical, drum & bass, jogging music, etc., removes your mind’s need to interpret words, which means your productivity suffers less, but it will still suffer by at least 10%.

There is the argument that studying and listening to music helps a person study for longer. For example, one may say, “Yeah, my productivity is reduced by 15%, but music allows me to study for 3 hours longer than I otherwise would.” Sadly, this is not the case. At first, while the notion of music and study is new, you may be able to study for longer, but after a while, you settle into a routine where your study hours normalize.

Pro – Music Can Help You Study While Tired

Obviously, nobody is endorsing studying while tired. We all know about all-nighters to finish almost-due essays, but these should be rare exceptions and not the norm. The deleterious effect that too little sleep has on people is dangerous because it is so insidious; we often have no idea just how badly our sleep deprivation hurts us because we feel fine at the time.

Nevertheless, music, especially with a repeating beat like electronic music, concentration music, house music, and drum & bass, will help you study while you are tired. Part of the reason is that it is a form of stimulation. The other reason is that it marks an audible passage of time, which helps stop you from grinding to a halt without noticing.

Does listening to music help studying? Do people grind to a halt without noticing? Think about it, how many times have you been studying and suddenly realized you had spent the last 20 minutes staring at a wall or daydreaming without noticing?

Also, if you are taking a break and you are tired, try to use wireless headphones for TV watching. It is no fun getting up to go to the toilet and being pulled back by your headphones like a wild rabbit caught by a snare.

Pro & Con – Music Affects Your Productive Mood

There is an old TV show from the UK called “Rising Damp.” The primary actor is able to chirp off hundreds of lines of dialogue at an almost rapper-style speed while maintaining perfect clarity. Students at Keele university subjected people to three back-to-back episodes and discovered that not only did the subject start talking faster, but they would also read faster after watching the show.

Our deepest and most primitive instincts tell us to copy what we are exposed to. As an infant, this behavior helped us learn and as we grow it helps us integrate into society. This natural instinct works so well that even the speed at which we speak, read and study can be affected by something as simple as a TV show.

Run tests on yourself using concentration music (or jogging music or workout music) with no words, and with different tempo beats. YouTube videos often use BPM scores. Try studying with music at 128 BMP and then at 160BMP. As long as the music doesn’t have words, you will notice a difference in your study speed when the music is faster.

The reason this is also a con (a downside) is that the opposite is also true. If you listen to wordless chill-out music, it will slow your rate of study considerably. Supermarkets use slow and wistful music so that shoppers move more slowly and spend longer in the store. Slow music has the potential to severely limit your study progress.

Some Evils Are Necessary

In a perfect world, nobody would need to use music while studying. Everybody would get enough sleep, everybody would settle into a sustainable study routine, everybody would get their essays done on time, and everybody would feel comfortably studying in complete silence.

The fact is that music is going to reduce your productivity, but in many cases it can be used as a bandage to stop you grinding to a halt, feeling uncomfortable in silence, and to help you maintain your studying momentum. Just be sure to listen to faster-paced music, and never listen to music that has words in it or you are making studying harder for yourself.