Top 10 Yoga And Meditation Music Recommendations For 2021
Cognitive skills are the essential skills that your brain uses to think, read, learn, remember, reason, and stay focused. One study concluded that simple mind body practices, such as combining Kirtan Kriya meditation with music can significantly improve cognitive function. With participants seeing a dramatic increase in cognitive function and memory after just 6 short months of practicing. Keeping these benefits in mind, there have been new developments in creating music that when paired with meditation help increase its impact.
It’s not until we forget our headphones that we realize just how much we rely on music to help us through the day. Our favorite music seems capable of pumping us up before an important moment, calming us down when we’re upset, and just about anything in between. If you have selected the best melodies, concentration will become automatic.
She found that both practices were linked to significant improvements in mood and sleep quality. “Both meditation and music listening are potentially powerful tools for improving overall health and well-being,” Innes says. If the idea of listening to music seems a lot more practicable to you than meditating, these findings are great news.
If you’re more of the calm silent type, blues music is most probably your playlist preference. By combining meditation with the right type of beats, you can increase your motivation and confidence levels. Music therapy uses different aspects of sound to improve your emotional and physical well-being.
Music can provide many psychological benefits including stress reduction, improved memory, and general improvement to cognitive performance. Research shows that the activity of listening to music can aid in detaching a person from their surroundings and help focus on their own thoughts and actions. When applied specifically to a meditative setting, music can aid in mindfulness, visualization, and contemplation.
Raise your hand if you think that you need silence in order to meditate. A lot of people don’t believe it’s possible to enter a meditative state why listening to music. The problem is, there are certain methods that either require you to focus solely on your breath or utilize a mantra practice. Neither of these methods is conducive to practicing with music. But there is a practice style you can use called mindfulness that does allow for listening to your favorite music created by your favorite musicians.
Certified music therapists are professionals trained in using music to improve mental and physical health. A music therapist can assess a person’s individual needs and create a treatment plan that can involve both listening to and creating music. For more information on music therapy, talk with your doctor or visit the American Music Therapy Association. If you do have trouble meditating with music that has lyrics or loud instruments, try the more traditional meditation music, like instrumental music, meditation bells, or nature sounds. For me, this simple benefit alone should be more highlighted more often to promote hearing music while meditating. Improved focus, concentration and mental clarity are also some of the less-focused benefits of meditating with music.
In the Buddha’s day the vast majority of meditation would have taken place outdoors. Even when meditation took place indoors, the buildings Ambient music would have lacked glass windows and silence would have been extremely rare. So you could argue that meditating in the presence of natural sounds is closer to the original practice of meditation. On the other hand, just because silence was rare in the Buddha’s day doesn’t mean that people then wouldn’t have found silence useful as a background for their practice. Stress is becoming a side effect of modern life and if it’s not taken care of, can lead to serious conditions, such as anxiety and depression. Both music and meditation have been shown to have an positive influence on a persons mental, emotional and physical state.