• Question: Does music and sound affect our bodies?

    Asked by 454radg23 to Ajay, Kate, Kuntal, Pip, Reka on 4 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Reka Nagy

      Reka Nagy answered on 4 Nov 2016:

      Absolutely!
      Experiments have shown that some music can relax you, ease your pain, boost your immune system, and make you more productive both mentally and physically. It can also make you feel sleepy – just think of lullabies.

      Meanwhile, some sounds and tones that are unpleasant to us can make us feel agitated or even feel physical pain, such as that cringy feeling we get at the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

    • Photo: Pip Millington

      Pip Millington answered on 7 Nov 2016:

      There are two ways of looking at this question 1) how sounds affect us at the physical level and 2) how sounds affect us at the functional level

      1) We need to understand what sound is.

      Sound needs a medium or environment to travel through in order for it to be perceived, for example air. When something makes sound it produces waves in the air which are made up of areas where the particles of the air are close together and areas where they are further apart. If the distance between these areas is long, we hear a low sound; if it is short, we hear a high sound. If the air is very compressed in these waves, then we hear a loud sound!

      The part of the human body which is most sensitive to these changes in how much the air is compressed is the ear, specifically the ear drum (or tympanic membrane), so sound physically affects us all the time. If the sound is loud enough, the compression of air can be enough to feel it in other parts of your body. Have you ever been to a concert where the drums are loud enough that you can actually feel your bones vibrate?

      2) The combinations of sound waves which at the outer ear are converted into electrical impulses which travel along nerves to the part of the brain called the auditory cortex. This part of the brain is able to tell you THAT you are hearing something but it has to send impulses to other parts of the brain linked with memory in order to tell you WHAT you are hearing.

      What we call music is really a collection of sounds of specific pitches in a specific order. The way the human body interprets this changes a lot between different people. Oliver Sacks was one neurologist (brain doctor) who looked at the affect of music on individuals in more detail using fMRI scanners to look at which parts of the brain are active with different music. When people listen to some music, just the parts of the brain associated with hearing light up. If they listen to music they dislike, then the part of the brain linked with disgust can light up (the amygdala). If the person listens to their favourite piece of music, you can see the whole brain light up because hormones are released, causing an emotional response associated with happiness.

      To see more about how music affects the brain, see this programme Alan Yentob made a few years ago

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