Music is a powerful tool. A good beat can change everything! Music can express feelings and evoke emotions, inspire ideas, educate, and motivate actions.
According to an article, Music and Health: What Can Music Do For Your Mental Health?, in the Huffington Post, music therapist Jennifer Buchanan explains,
“Music quickly taps into our rewards centers in our brain,” says Buchanan. “What happens is for most of us in seconds, we will release hormones into our system, like dopamine, which will help us feel good, oxytocin, which will help us trust people and serotonin, which can help us sleep. It all depends on the tune.”
So, if the right tune can release the right hormone response, then is it safe to assume that the right tune could promote better exercise performance? In 2010, the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences at Liverpool’s John Moores University performed a study to answer that very question.
The study observed 12 healthy male students for 25 minutes, on three different occasions. They were asked to cycle at their own work-rate and given six popular music tracks, of different tempi, to listen to. At the end of each track, they recorded the distance covered, work done, heart rate, exertion, thermal comfort, and how much each young man like the music. From the study, they found that speeding up the music increased distance, power and heart rate; slowing the music caused a decrease. They observed that the individuals not only increased their work while performing to faster music, but chose to happily exert themselves more when they enjoyed the music.
With the right, motivational, pumped-up playlist you may just learn you love to work out! So, to help you workout harder, and enjoy it, we asked clients and friends to help us compile a TimeLess list of the 50 BEST Workout Songs. ENJOY!
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