New Study Shows Practicing Music Improves Attention Span
Do you ever feel overwhelmed and unfocused?
I do. Between work, an ever expanding list of hobbies, and keeping engaged with our communities, most of us have trouble finding enough time in the day to get everything done. And then when we sit down to work, we find it difficult to focus, our attention spans worn thin by constant overstimulation in the real and digital world.
But imagine my thrill when I found out that by practicing music for years, I’ve already been helping increase my focus! A new study claims that learning to play music may improve our abilities to focus and tune out distractions. We already knew that practicing music is linked to improved language skills and increased motivation, but researchers now find that “musicians are able to more quickly and accurately respond to and focus on what is important to perform a task, and more effectively filter out incongruent and irrelevant stimuli than nonmusicians. In addition, the advantages are enhanced with increased years of training,” as quoted in Medical News Today.
We knew playing music was fun, but now we know it also might be an antidote to our distracted and short-attention age. So grab your guitar, make some beautiful music–and build those attention muscles, too!
Have An Awesome Day!
Landry Levine
Student Experience Coordinator, Brooklyn Guitar School
