Studying to your favorite beats can improve your retention

Photograph courtesy of Pxhere. It’s the week that your midterm paper is due, and you still have to read a chapter from the textbook and find at least one scholarly article to use in your paper. You get comfortable with a laptop, something to drink, put on a playlist of your current favorite songs and get to work. The first thing that I want to make clear is that while I do think without a doubt that music helps me study, every person is different when it comes to how they approach studying. Some people prefer to study in complete silence, some need the sounds of the outdoors and some need music. What works for one person may not work for someone else, but I think that music is a very flexible tool when it comes to studying that can be helpful to a wide variety of people. I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t have at least one genre of music that they like to listen to, and a single genre is all that you need to get started. Playing relaxing music while studying can create a very calming state of mind that can ease your nerves, especially if you’re dealing with anxiety for an upcoming exam. According to a Foundation Education article from 2018 titled “Does Music Help Students Study?”, music with a high bpm or intensified nature can often have the opposite effect of relaxing music. However, before you go putting on your favorite track, it’s important to be aware of the different effects that different types of music can have on your ability to study, as some potentially do more harm than good. Music can also serve as a distraction to your studying. I find that this is especially the case when I listen […]

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