Time Required
3 minutes to listen to the music and 2 minutes to reflect.
How to Do It
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Prepare your listening space. Find a quiet and comfortable place to listen without any distractions.
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Listen to the music. This piece is Movement 1 of "Spring" from The Four Seasons by the composer Vivaldi.
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Set your intention to listen with full attention. As the music plays, listen closely to the melody and instruments.
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Notice any sensations in your body or emotions that come up. Let yourself move freely to the music. Bob your head, smile, or even get up and dance!
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Embrace and savor any feelings that arise. Notice the kinds emotions that the music brings. Joy, lightness, warmth, motivation, or any emotion that arises while listening.
Click on the play button below to listen to the music.
Reflect. After the music ends, sit with the feelings that emerged. Think about how you feel compared to before you listened to the piece. Pay attention to what changed with your body and mind.
Why You Should Try It
Sometimes life can get overwhelming or stressful and at times like these, research has found that listening to music can elevate your mood. Beyond helping you de-stress, music that makes you feel good can also enhance your creativity. If you feel like you have run into a creative block, it can help you generate new ideas and perspectives.
Why It Works
Taking the time to listen to happy music can help people focus solely on the music that is playing and, as a result, elevate their feelings. You can easily incorporate listening to happy music into daily life and research suggests that, practically, listening to happy music can promote creative thinking, especially in education and organizational settings where creative thinking is both important and rewarding.
Evidence That It Works
Ritter, S. M., & Ferguson, S. (2017). Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking. PLOS ONE 12(9): e0182210.
Five groups of Dutch university students were asked to listen to four pieces of different music, which were selected based on their ability to promote a specific mood. This Movement 1 of "Spring" from The Four Seasons by the composer Vivaldi was played with the intention of elevating the participants' moods. Results from this study showed that those who listened to this piece by Vivaldi increased the number of creative ideas and solutions they came up with. Furthermore, if you find yourself stuck in a rut, listening to such music can also help you develop flexible thinking and generate creative thinking solutions to help with problem solving.
Finnerty, R., Zhang, K., Tabuchi, R. A., & Zhang, K. (2022). The Use of Music to Manage Burnout in Nurses: A Systematic Review. American journal of health promotion : AJHP, 36(8), 1386–1398. https://doi.org/10.1177/08901171221105862
Listening to music reduces burnout among healthcare professionals.
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The Greater Good Toolkit
Made in collaboration with Holstee, this tookit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.
The Greater Good Toolkit
Made in collaboration with Holstee, this tookit includes 30 science-based practices for a meaningful life.