You got sleep, exercise, diet.

That's all old news, at least on this channel.

But what about music?

You walk into the library at any given day and what do you see?

Everyone is studying and wearing headphones.

Even the guy in the corner watching anime is wearing headphones.

Everyone is listening to something.

You might say, so what?

But what if I told you that certain types of music can actually give you superpowers and enhance your ability to learn faster and remember more?

What if I told you that choosing the right type of music can make you more productive?

I mean, sign me up.

So in this video, I'm going to review the science behind the optimal music for learning and then share with you our framework, which is as easy as ABC to help you apply these strategies. If you're new to the channel, my name is Mike.

I make videos with my little brother, Matty.

And this topic is near and dear to us because we spend a lot of time studying in medical school, but we also spent a lot of time producing music.

So this video is a nice way to combine two of our biggest passions. I used to give very little thought to the music I listened to when I was studying.

All I knew was that you want to pick music without lyrics because it's distracting and forcing your brain to multitask.

And then the other thing was that apparently classical music isn't the best study music and listening to Mozart as a baby doesn't make you smarter.

Other than that, I didn't think it really mattered.

So I just listened to whatever music I thought can make studying more enjoyable so that I can get through it faster.

But after looking into the science, I realized that I could be much more intentional with my music choices because it could actually enhance my ability to focus and to learn faster. So here is our framework for study music, timestamps and links to the research in the description below.

A is for alertness.

So the more alert or aroused we are, the more receptive we are to learning.

And the more unaroused we are, the tougher it is to learn.

Well, duh.

However, the science suggests that you should apply this to your baseline alertness or even your personality type.

So if you're a person who is usually highly alert or you're often anxious or you're just very sensitive to a lot of external stimulants, then try avoiding intense music.

And better yet, consider studying with no music or no sound at all.

On the other hand, if you're a person who at baseline is more unaffected by external stimulants, you're unaffected by a lot of sounds, for example, if you're comfortable living in a loud city environment, then maybe studying in silence isn't the best thing for you because you're used to having so much noise in your life.

If you take it away, this removes you from your comfort zone.

This could also be applied to personality types.

There was a study that suggested that music was more detrimental to introverts because they're more sensitive to music than extroverts.

B is for beats.

So good focus music has, among other things, a steady pulse and it's even better if you add a sense of motion.

Examples of steady beats can be found in progressive and deep house music, which is some of our personal favorites, and especially with the lo-fi beats to study to trend that we can find all over YouTube.

The beats can block out distractions and intrusive noise by anchoring your brain to a predictable rhythm and they hold our attention because they're repetitive enough to become subconsciously predictable.

When I'm studying with music that has a steady beat, some of the best study sessions for me are when the beats get me fully absorbed into my work that I completely forget that I'm listening to music altogether.

C is for cues.

So there was this research that studied how sounds can affect a student's ability to learn and they found that if you play a certain tone during a study session and then you play that same tone while the student was sleeping, this enhanced the retention of their knowledge.

You could do this by having a metronome, for instance, while learning something, playing in the background or particular music, and then have that very faintly while you sleep.

If they just delivered that odor or tone while the subject slept, rates of learning and retention of information was significantly greater.

But you don't have to use a metronome and honestly, that would drive me crazy.

You could pick anything else.

I remember there was a time in medical school when I was studying to Epic Sax Guy on repeat. 10 hours of Epic Sax Guy, Gandalf approved.

If melodies are too distracting for you, try more natural sounds like raindrops, bells, chimes, birds chirping, even thunderstorms.

You want your brain to associate the sounds with what you're learning so that when you go to sleep, you can play those same sounds at a quieter level to help you reinforce your knowledge.

And the added bonus is that some of these sounds can also help you sleep better.

D is for dopamine.

In physiology, dopamine is responsible for motivating you to get things done.

So when it comes to studying, more dopamine means you'll be more motivated and focused on getting your work done.

So there are studies that found that listening to white noise actually increases dopamine in certain areas of the brain.

White noise is any sound that has the same amplitude or intensity across all audible frequencies.

So it's kind of like white light, which is a mixture of all visible colors or technically all visible wavelengths of light.

If you don't care about those technicalities, then this is what white noise sounds like.

So the science found that this noise can actually increase the amount of dopamine released by your brain.

So if you have the discipline, you can try playing white noise in the background at a comfortable level while you're studying.

E is for emotion.

You probably remember the moments in your life where you experienced strong emotions, like a birthday party or a vacation you had where you were really happy and excited.

And the same can be true for memories that are sad or even traumatic.

For me, when I think back to my time in university or even high school, there were some classes where I can confidently say that I don't remember anything I learned, like chemistry, physics, calculus.

If you asked me to recall what the professor talked about during lectures, I couldn't tell you.

Emotion plays a big role in your memory.

And I had a lot of negative emotions when I had to study for subjects I didn't enjoy.

But the interesting part is that I can remember the random conversations that I had with my best friends or even the lyrics to some of my favorite songs at the time that I haven't heard now for like 10 years.

Emotions bring back all the memories, in particular, nostalgic emotions.

So for us students, the idea here is that if you've associated a strong positive emotion to a song or a type of music or even a sound like raindrops, for example, then you can try to use that song to bring you to a happier state of mind or to trigger a nostalgic mood to help you learn and to help you boost your memory.

F is for frequencies.

This one is probably the most complicated to understand, but I'm going to try to make it simple.

Basically, our brain activity is measured in brain waves ranging from delta waves when we're sleeping all the way up to gamma waves when we're alert and focused.

So your ability to learn depends on your brain waves.

For example, alpha waves is a great state for the brain to practice recall, especially of information you already know.

And gamma waves is for hyper focus.

It's great for problem-solving and learning new information.

So based on what you're trying to do, you can try to get your brain into that wave or into that frequency by playing those frequencies into your ears.

This is called binaural beats.

It's a lot more complicated than that and involves a lot of science about brain waves, frequencies, detuning, all of which we've already covered in a different video. Okay.

So now that you're familiar with all the pieces, here's a simple way to think about it.

So first ask yourself, do you want to study with or without music?

That can depend on your sensitivity to external stimulants.

Don't do it if you're too easily distracted.

If you do want to use sound, the next thing you have to think about is do you want more focus or more motivation?

There hasn't been any research that actually ranks these different types of choices against each other.

So it's going to take some experimentation on your part to see which method works best for you.

I'd recommend that you try each of them one by one and you can easily find any of these types of music on YouTube for free.

Lo-fi, binaural beats, white noise, the Pokemon theme song.

You want to pay attention to how long you're able to stay focused for and how well you're able to recall information with each method.

You might find that different methods work for different situations.

Long versus short study sessions, relaxed versus focused, morning versus evening, problem-solving versus creativity.

You can easily mix and match.

So definitely start experimenting and in the comments below, let me know what type of study music works best for you.