How classical music can help you during social distancing

Tips on how to best utilise classical music on IDAGIO in everyday life

During these trying times, many of us are taking steps to isolate ourselves from the outside world. For some of us, this can be a challenge. Balancing home office with entertaining and educating the kids, all while keeping positive and calm is no mean feat. But music can help.

If the melodic balconies of Italy have taught us anything, it’s that music brings us together and raises our hopes, so here are some tips on ways that you can use IDAGIO in your everyday life at home and how it actually benefits you.

Home Office

Music has been scientifically proven to help us concentrate, but only when used correctly.

When we listen to music many sections of our brain are activated and utilised as we absorb, pull-apart and reassemble what we are listening to. For example, the temporal lobe, normally the language centre or the brain, processes words on the left and sound on the right. The occipital lobe visualises the score as the piece plays and the amygdala processes the emotions that are triggered by a work or performance.

One might think that all of this activity is detrimental to our ability to focus, but they would only be half-right. One of music’s greatest strengths is its ability to make us feel and the effect it has on our mood. In their 2010 study, Hallam, Price and Katsarou demonstrated the calming effect that music had on children in comparison to aggressive music. This not only highlights how classical music can be best utilised whilst working from home, it also demonstrates its pitfalls.

From their findings, we can conclude that music should be used to settle, focus or motivate yourself and not as constant background noise. Try to select calming, peaceful music over passionate or aggressive works. For example, allow the dulcet tones of our Soothing Guitar playlist to settle you into a morning of answering emails. Better still, try our newly curated Home Office playlist. Classical music is a valuable tool in your isolation arsenal, that should not be underestimated.

Parents & Kids

One of the key challenges that parents are facing at the moment is balancing working, educating and playing. Mothers and fathers are adapting to become teachers, breadwinners and playground friends all at once. But here is how you can use classical music on IDAGIO to help.

As with adults, calming classical music helps children focus and settle. Struggling to ease the kids back into their maths homework after playtime? Try Moonlight Sonata. Focus drifting during reading time? Try playing Debussy. This should initially distract and then settle young minds back to the task at hand, making school time easier and generally more enjoyable for the whole family.

Loneliness

One frightening and incredibly real side of working from home is, of course, loneliness. For extroverts of any kind, the prospect of not speaking to their colleagues for 3 weeks strikes fear into their hearts. But, as always, music is here to mediate. In a 2013 mass-overview of 400 papers, researching the neurochemistry of music, Prof. Daniel J. Levitin and his team found that listening to music helps reduce anxiety, combat depression and even boost your immune system!

Embrace and enjoy this time with yourself. Take yourself to the gallery with Mussorgsky, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff or chase through the woods on horseback with Schubert. Music can help you escape and, more importantly, not feel alone. Better still, share your favourite tracks with colleagues online. The possibilities are endless.

Eating

For many of us, music in the kitchen is nothing new, but did you know that what you play can affect how much you enjoy your food?

Modern research suggests that how we taste is connected to what we hear, meaning that music can literally make your food taste better. Not only does Motzart at the dinner table provide entertainment, it can also impact the way we eat. Charles Spence, a University of Oxford professor in experimental psychology suggests that high sounds are linked to sweetness, whilst low sounds are associated with sour. A bit of Magic Flute for dessert never hurt anyone.

De-stressing

And once the laptops are closed, the kids are in bed and the dishes cleared away, you can, of course, use classical music to help you wind down or escape. Plug into your favourite symphony or drift off to a concerto or two. In their 2008 study, Harmat, Takács & Bódizs concluded that listening to classical music before bed reduced sleep problems. Taking some time to reflect and wind-down is an important part of stress management, so the evening provides the perfect opportunity to explore and enjoy new works or artists you’ve discovered throughout the day and settle in for the night.

So if you are struggling, allow music to help. Stay healthy!