A recent poll suggests listening to music can be more effective than caffeine in improving mood and focus.

It’s no secret that music gets us through the life’s biggest moments. Breakups, setbacks, celebrations and commiserations all call for an appropriate soundtrack – songs to help us think, reflect, run faster or get us “pumped”. But is listening to music just an aesthetic choice, or does it genuinely help us cope on a more biological level? A new study suggests that the song you put on your iPod in the morning really can help you battle those Monday blues.

In collaboration with Spotify, the music streaming service that has quickly become many millennials’ preferred method of listening, leading market research company Ipsos Connect has released a poll that suggests music is significantly “more likely to motivate millennials who feel they have little motivation”. According to their online survey, which involved 500 Australians aged 18 and over, including 331 adults under the age of 35 who described themselves as having “too little motivation on typical Mondays”, the majority of Australians need energy boosts most critically on early Monday mornings and again in the mid-morning. Though there are several methods that appear to work in boosting a person’s motivation levels on a normal work day, nothing motivates a person under the age of 35 better than music, including caffeine. Coffee, as expected, comes in a close second for people under the age of 35, and while its place on the leaderboard gets higher the older we get, it’s music that makes the difference when you’re young, according to Ipsos Connect’s findings. 

While the study offers a convenient marketing hook for Spotify, it is by no means the only research to make these assertions. Numerous scientific investigations have found benefits of listening to music ranging from improved concentration to better digestive health and even a physiological rewiring of the brain improving cognitive skills and dexterity. Also high on the list is working out and eating – both activities that are often better with a soundtrack, so crank up the radio next Monday morning and let music carry you through your day.

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