Music Gives Your Brain a Natural High

Who needs heavy drugs when you can listen to music?

That's one conclusion that could be drawn from a reading of a recent study written up in Nature Neuroscience. The study found that listening to music — specifically experiencing the anticipation of hearing music that a person really likes — can make that person's dopamine emissions go off the charts and really do scientific things like fill your striatum with good vibrations internally while processing the music you're hearing externally, not to mention flooding the limbic system with oh-so-positive emotions — the result being that the person feels really, really good, without ingesting anything other than oxygen.

The study also found that dopamine levels rose for up to 15 seconds before the specific point of maximum emission, so it was the before and the during. (Makes you wonder whether there was a bit of post-emission depression during the after.) And the researchers found that dopamine levels rose in one part of the striatum before and another part of the striatum during — nothing like sharing the wealth of experience.

Now, the study volunteers listened to a wide range of music, but all of that music was instrumental. So, we can't say for certain whether dopamine levels spike during the nth listening to Enter Sandman, Your Cheatin' Heart, or Rock Around the Clock.

However, two pieces of music that the volunteers did listen to were Claire de Lune, by Debussy, and the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. (Personally, my dopamine levels spike during that entire 2nd movement of the Ninth, and it has nothing to do with A Clockwork Orange.)

So there's the answer, next time you're feeling a bit down. Just listen to your favorite bit of music again and prepare to let the dopamine flood in.