The Best Music to Listen to For Optimal Productivity, According to Science

At work, there are often a lot of things that try to get our attention. Luckily, music can help put us back on a more productive track.

Studies out of the University of Birmingham, England, show that music is effective in raising efficiency in repetitive work – so if you’re mindlessly checking email or filling out a spreadsheet, adding some tunes will make your task go by that much faster.

But when it comes to tasks that take more thought, it’s not so easy to find the perfect playlist. Science can help, and that’s a good thing.

Based on what we know about how music affects productivity, you should try listening to this kind of music when you don’t feel like doing anything:

Songs with sounds of the nature

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently found that adding something natural can make people feel better and help them concentrate better.

Researchers found that the sounds of nature can cover up understandable speech just as well as white noise. They can also improve cognitive functioning, make it easier to focus, and make workers happier overall. Researchers used the sound of a mountain stream in their study. This sound was also random enough that it didn’t distract the people who were being tested.

You could just listen to recordings of nature sounds, or you could try this relaxing background music with water sounds:

Songs you enjoy

When you listen to music you like, you might feel better. Teresa Lesiuk, an assistant professor in the music therapy program at the University of Miami, found that personal taste in music is important, especially for people with average job skills.

Most of the time, people in her studies who listened to music they liked finished their tasks faster and had better ideas than those who didn’t. This is because the music made them feel better.

She told the New York Times, “When you’re stressed, you might make a decision more quickly because you can only pay attention to one thing at a time.” “When you’re in a good mood, you can see more possibilities.”

You don’t really care about these songs

But different research suggests that it might be best to listen to music that you’re not sure about.

Researchers from Taiwan’s Fu Jen Catholic University in Xinzhuang City looked at how people’s interest in music affected how well they could focus. They found that workers were more distracted by background music that they strongly liked or disliked.

Songs that don’t have words

Words get in the way. According to research from Cambridge Sound Management, lost productivity isn’t caused by noise in general. Instead, it’s how clear the words are that takes our attention away from our work and makes us try to figure out what someone is saying. A 2008 study from Cambridge found that speech distracts about 48% of office workers.

So, if you want to drown out your neighbor’s conversation with music, you shouldn’t use music with lyrics. Your attention would shift from the conversation to the words in the song.

This list of music without words may give you the boost you need to get things done:

Songs with a certain pace

How you feel depends on the speed of the music. In one study, Canadian researchers found that people’s IQ scores went up when they listened to fast-paced music. If you need to be more upbeat at work, you could try listening to music with the same pace. Baroque music, for example, is often chosen by people who need to work.

In fact, radiologists told researchers at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, Harbour Hospital in Baltimore, and the University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia that listening to baroque music made their work and mood better. This playlist offers a nice sampling:

In another study done by researchers from the BMS College of Engineering in Bangalore, Malaysia, people who listened to music with about 60 beats per minute said they felt much less stressed and their bodies were more relaxed. In classical music, this is called “larghetto,” which means “not very fast” or “a little bit slowly.”

If you want to feel more relaxed while you work, you could try one of Focus @ Will’s playlists designed to help you focus:

Songs played at medium volume

Noise level matters. Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville found that moderate noise levels are just right for creative thinking.

Researchers have found that both high and moderate noise levels make people think more abstractly. However, high noise levels make it harder for the brain to process information.