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- 🎵 Why Does Music Give Us Chills?
🎵 Why Does Music Give Us Chills?
The mysterious connection between music, emotion, memory, and the brain
Welcome to The Smarter Brain, a curation of thought-provoking ideas and actionable reads to help you build better habits and become more productive.
Happy reading - See you on Wednesday!
Cheers,
The Smarter Brain Team
Estimated Reading Time: 2 mins
3 Ideas for Better Habits
The Inexpressible
Aldous Huxley was a British novelist and philosopher best known for Brave New World. His writing frequently explored consciousness, perception, emotion, and human experience.
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
Source: Music at Night and Other Essays
Life Without Music
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher and writer whose work frequently explored art, emotion, culture, and the meaning of life.
“Without music life would be a mistake.”
Source: Twilight of the Idols
Music as Emotion
William Shakespeare was an English playwright and poet whose works explored love, identity, emotion, and human behavior.
“If music be the food of love, play on.”
Source: Twelfth Night
The 4 Productivity Killers You Don’t Even Notice
Jay Papasan and Jordan Freed get brutally honest about why most people can’t stay on track. This isn’t another podcast on habits or hacks—it’s a deep dive into the real reasons your calendar is full and your goals are stuck. If you’ve ever felt like your time is slipping through your fingers, you’ll want to hear this.
Productivity Tools and Resources
Put a Song in Your Heart
It directly discusses getting goosebumps or chills while listening to music, then explains how music can influence the autonomic nervous system, heart rate, stress responses, and emotional arousal. Read more here.
Why Does Music Feel So Good?
This article explores the neuroscience of musical pleasure and discusses research by Valorie Salimpoor and Robert Zatorre. It describes experiments in which participants listened to music that gave them goosebumps or chills and examines the involvement of dopamine and the brain's reward system. Read more here.
Music That Moves You
Spotify gives users access to enormous amounts of music and personalized recommendations. It's particularly relevant because personally meaningful and familiar music can be especially powerful at producing emotional responses.
Sound for Your Mind
Endel creates adaptive soundscapes designed around activities such as focus, relaxation, and sleep. It's an interesting example of how sound can be deliberately designed to influence mood and physiological state.
What We're Reading
The Music and the Brain program offers a mailing list covering its work at the intersection of music and brain development. It's a useful newsletter choice for a topic connecting music with neuroscience.
Neuroscience News publishes research and news about the brain, cognition, behavior, and neuroscience. It is useful for following new discoveries related to music, emotion, perception, and reward.
Brain Food
Today I Learned: Music-induced chills aren't merely a subjective feeling. Studies have found that chills can be accompanied by increased skin conductance and physiological arousal, including measurable changes in the autonomic nervous system. (Source)
Science: In the 2011 study by Salimpoor and colleagues, dopamine activity differed between the period leading up to a peak musical experience and the moment of the peak itself. The researchers found greater involvement of the caudate during anticipation and the nucleus accumbens during the peak emotional experience. (Source)
Have a productive rest of your week,
The Smarter Brain Team
Resource Spotlight
Music, Goosebumps, and the Science of Frisson
Monthly dispatches rooted in music psychology, not just music appreciation-this one's about the strange moment when a song makes your skin tingle. Explore frisson, the phenomenon behind musical goosebumps, and how surprise, rhythm, memory, mental imagery, and the body's automatic arousal systems can turn a few notes into a full-body experience.
Music, Frisson, and Why Certain Songs Feel Like They Know Us
Monthly dispatches rooted in the psychology of listening, not background noise-this one's about the mysterious moment when a song seems to reach somewhere deeper than words can. Explore why a single note, melody, or musical passage can suddenly change your breathing, raise goosebumps, or bring tears to your eyes.
Music, Frisson, and the Neuroscience of Feeling Alive
Monthly dispatches rooted in neuroscience, not just musical taste-this one's about why certain songs can trigger an almost electric physical response. Explore frisson, the chills, goosebumps, tears, and rush of emotion that can emerge when music surprises the brain and violates our expectations in exactly the right way.
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