Study: Exercise and Music Clear the Brain

April 1 -- Exercise is good for the body as well as the psyche, according to scads of scientific research. But here's a new wrinkle. If you listen to music while exercising, your brain will probably work better too.

Clinical psychologist Charles Emery of Ohio State University has studied the effect of exercise on various types of patients over the years, and to no one's surprise he has found that it helps in many ways. But as a lover of music, as well as an exercise enthusiast, Emery decided to kick his research up another notch and see what would happen if he combined those two passions.

"I've always thought that music had many benefits for people, and increasingly people use music when they exercise, so it seemed like a logical next step in terms of a research project," Emery says.

So along with Evana Hsiao and Scott Hill of Ohio State, and David Frid of Pfizer, Inc., Emery put his theory to the test, with the help of 33 men and women in the final weeks of a cardiac rehabilitation program. Each of the participants were tested for mental performance after exercising without music, and exercising with music.

The results were very convincing.

Vivaldi Tested, But Not Limited

On average, the participants performed more than twice as well on a verbal fluency test after listening to music while exercising than they did after exercising without the music.

"When there was no music, there was no change," Emery says.

Emery chose Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" for the project because prior research by other scientists with that particular piece indicated that it helped patients with lung disease perform better mentally.

Emery suspects, however, that similar benefits could be gained by listening to all kinds of music, not just classical. The passionate, upbeat rhythms of "The Four Seasons" may stimulate mental performance because it is complex, thus forcing the brain to organize neural transmissions. But other selections might work better for some people.