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October 11, 2024 Login
Entertainment

Whistling while you work: Does listening to music help focus?

By Lila Genberg, September 13th, 2024

Music can help motivate, relax, or entertain you for hours on end. With school starting up, students across Berkeley High School are starting to get back into classwork and having to focus a lot on school. From juggling multiple AP classes, to being buried in homework, what if there was something you could do that would make focusing easier? That’s where music comes into play. While the topic has been debated, music can be very beneficial to helping students to focus. Whether it’s listening to your favorite R&B playlist, or playing jazz or classical music in the background, music can be a great tool to help you focus.

Grace Steckel is a sophomore who likes to listen to both instrumental classical music and R&B music while doing schoolwork. “I would say it calms me down. And being calm helps me concentrate on assignments, but I wouldn’t say it directly helps me concentrate.” Steckel said. 

Playing music while doing work seems to be a lot about setting the mood and putting you in the right headspace to be productive, more than being a magical switch to make you focus.

Steckel also mentioned that it really depends on the kind of music she is listening to, “Usually, it depends on the genre, but if it’s kind of calming music, then it helps me focus. If it’s kind of more hyped up, or more exciting music, then it kind of distracts me.” This is the big question; does music serve as a distraction, or does it put you in the right headspace to be more focused and productive? 

A freshman in Universal 9th Grade, Leda Watson-Lamprey Singer, does not listen to music while doing work. “I just want to listen to music instead of studying and (end up) paying attention more to the music and less to the work,” Singer said. This points out a flaw that critics of this idea bring up, that the music proves as a distraction. Although this is a valid point, what you listen to, as well as the kind of work you are doing are both factors that affect your focus. To say that music distracts someone in every situation is incorrect.

According to a study done by Stanford University, “music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory.” Researchers found this by using musical compositions from the 1800s and reading fMRI scans. These discoveries suggest that listening to music might enhance the brain’s ability to anticipate events and maintain attention, which can come in handy when studying for something like a test.

Melissa Jimenez, an English teacher and co-teacher leader of Berkeley International High School at BHS presents an interesting perspective, that music playing in the classroom can also help the teachers themselves be in a better headspace. “When you’re teaching, there’s a lot of variables that you’re often presented with because you never know what kids are going to do or what they’re going to say. Music kind of helps me to regulate my own emotions in those moments, and I think that does lead to a little bit more focused teaching,” Jimenez said.

Although it depends on the person, environment, and activity, music can help put you in the right headspace to focus and concentrate on what you are doing. In a classroom setting, music, especially instrumental music, can set the mood for both the students and teachers and allow them to do their work to the best of their ability.