Lift to music. Here is why!

How Can Your Workout Benefit From Music?

 Lifting to music has more benefits than just making your workout more badass. In a New York Times article, published in 2008, titled: They're playing my song: Time to work out, sport psychologist Costas Karageorghis explained how listening to music while working out can:

1. Reduce your perception of how hard you are working by about 10 percent during low-to-moderate intensity activity.

2. Profoundly influence your mood; elevating the positive aspects, such as vigor, excitement and happiness, and reducing depression, tension, fatigue, anger and confusion.

3. Be used to set an appropriate warm-up, workout, and cool-down pace.

4. Be used to overcome fatigue, and control your emotions if you're in a competition.

Exercise with Music = Stress-Reducing/Health-Promoting Duo

Exercise is perhaps one of the most effective stress-reduction strategies there is. And, with or without exercise, music is also a great mood regulator in its own right. Loud, upbeat music generally has a stimulating, energizing effect, whereas slow music can act as a sedative and have a calming, soothing impact on your mental and emotional state.

Other Health Benefits of Music

Harp music can be particularly helpful for individuals with heart issues, or suffer from pain or anxiety. Harp music has also been found to have benefits for premature infants. The Bedside Harp web site lists an impressive number of studies on harp music's impact on human health and well-being.

Interestingly, Harvard researchers have shown that the rhythms of healthy hearts may be similar to those found in classical music, and that certain rhythms (such as that of harp music) can train your heart to beat more normally.

In fact, Harvard has a nice web site dedicated to Music and medicine where you can read more.

Music therapy has also been shown to:

• Improve motor skills in patients recovering from strokes

• Boost your immune system

• Improve mental focus

• Help control pain

• Create a feeling of well-being

• Reduce anxiety 

Music and Focus

Another study mentioned by the New York Times was published last year. It discovered that listening to music could prevent basketball players from "choking" while under pressure to perform. 

They theorize that the music allowed the players a new focus; a distraction, "from themselves, from their audience and from thinking about the physical process of shooting," which freed their bodies to perform more automatically, without nagging interference from their own thought processes.

What kind of music do you listen to at the gym? What would you recommend to people looking to make a playlist? How else can music help you lift more efficiently and effectively? Leave a comment on what music you recommend or prefer!