4 Habits for Energy, Productivity, & Happiness That Changed My Life (Science-Backed)

(00:51):

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and thank you for being here with me. And I want to just acknowledge you for taking time to listen to something that could improve your life if you're a new listener. I also want to welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm Mel Robbins and I cannot wait to share this time together with you. And today you and I have such a cool topic to talk about. We're going to talk about this incredible research related to music and how you can use music to hack your concentration, your mood, to prime your brain to learn. There's even certain kinds of music that will help you focus and sleep better. And research even shows that a certain type of music at a certain frequency can help you heal. I mean, how cool is that? This is way better than learning how to juice a lemon because the research that you're going to learn today is going to help you squeeze more juice from your entire life and from your brain.

 

(01:48):

You're just going to love this because all you got to do once you learn, everything that we're going to talk about today is just hit play and the music and the incredible wiring in your brain and your body, they will do all the work for you. So let's jump in and I want to start by talking about how you can use music as a hack to put you in a better mood almost instantaneously. It turns out according to research, that when you listen to songs that you liked when you were growing up or songs that were kind of like the anthem during certain periods of your life, research shows that simply listening to these old songs puts you in a better mood. And I think you kind of know this. You kind of know this, right? Because you've experienced this before, but when I share the research with you and we really unpack this and what's happening in your body and your brain, I really want you to lean into this because it's a powerful tool that you can use in your day-to-day life.

 

(02:49):

Okay, so just picture this. You're driving in your car, you're just cruising down the highway, you're thinking about work or you're thinking about your grocery list, or you're wondering, oh my God, did anyone feed the dog? Your mind is just busy turning over these thoughts and all of a sudden one of your favorite songs from high school comes on the radio for me. Oh boy, there was a phase early in high school. I was so into the cure and the specials Friday I'm in. I don't even want to s say I'm a terrible singer. You guys know my daughter's a singer. You'll turn this off if I sing, so I'm not going to be singing. But then there was a phase where everybody in my high school in western Michigan was way into Bruce Springsteen, born in the USA came out I believe when I was in high school.

 

(03:35):

And there was also this whole body of music that's now called Yacht Rock. That's that sort of easy, soft rock stuff that my parents were constantly playing. It was like always in the house or in the car or in the boat. You know that song if you like Pee Colada? So I'm so embarrassed, I am so embarrassed when I sing because I think I have a terrible voice. But when you even think about those lyrics, if you like Pina Coladas, aren't you immediately transported back in time? I mean, first, if you think about your favorite songs, stop and think right now. What was one of your favorite songs when you were in high school?

 

(04:22):

Maybe even had a poster hanging in your room. You played it over and over and over again. If you had siblings, they were like, turn it off. Oh my gosh, you knew all the words. If you think of that song, you immediately start thinking about all the memories that you have from that period of your life. And what's so interesting about this to me is you don't have to think to yourself, oh, I'm going to think about that time I took a road trip with friends, and now that the song is on, no, no, no, no, your mind naturally just hearing the song goes there. I cannot hear that word, that song, rather, if you like Pina Coladas, I don't even know what the heck the name of the song is.

 

(05:14):

You know that song, right? And not immediately just go back to being in middle school and nights in Michigan where I grew up. It just naturally goes there. You think of your song, maybe you're thinking about a road trip with friends or the day you went to see that band in concert or a school dance where you were just so excited because you had a huge crush on that person. And that song was playing in the sweaty gymnasium in middle school, or I don't remember what song, it's maybe you guys can remember this, but there was a song when I was in middle school, gosh, I was racking my brain trying to figure this out. I'm hoping you will write in and tell me what this was. It was a song would play near the end of every middle school dance. And I'm talking early eighties everybody.

 

(06:03):

It is a song that is probably eight minutes long and this song would come on and so help me, God, I cannot remember what it is. But if you were dancing was somebody that you really liked, you were so excited. I mean you were going to hold them close. This was going to be like that hip rocking circle for eight minutes long. Oh yeah, you won the lottery because you get to be with this. But if you were with the wrong person, this is like a slow death march in a circle with the wrong person. And that's, God, I wish I could remember that. You know what it is? It starts out slow and then it builds and it's so long, and it was at the end of every anyway, or I'll give you another example. When I was in eighth grade, my dad fulfilled his lifelong dream of renting a motor home and taking his family on a cross country road trip where we visited all of these national parks and we had three eight track cassette tapes in that motor home.

 

(07:05):

We had Neil Diamond's greatest Hits, we had the Band America and their greatest hits, and we had hooked on classics. And I'm going to tell you something, if hooked on classics comes on, I can feel myself just hearing that music just I feel myself in the motor home cruising down I 90 toward the corn palace in Iowa, playing gin rummy with my mom and my brother in the back while my dad drove. I mean, it's immediate. You know what I'm saying? You've got these songs, right? There's research around what's happening because you don't have to think your body and your brain remembers. And here's another one. So I haven't talked to you guys about this, but I am all fired up because my daughters and I just went to see Taylor Swift in concert. Holy cow. I got to do a whole episode about everything that I learned from Taylor Swift, but that's a whole nother thing.

 

(08:08):

It was insane what a sensory experience that concert was because her first album debut came out when Kendall was, I think seven years old, mean Kendall picked up a guitar in order to learn how to play Taylor's music. Her music was the soundtrack of my life as a young mom and of their life growing up. I mean, when you got two girls, that's what was playing. And so fast forward almost two decades later, here we are in concert screaming our brains out. And it's almost like as all the music was playing, I was both in the concert with my adult daughters, but I could also feel in my body, I was in a car like in 2010 driving carpool to a lacrosse tournament and Cruel Summers plan. You know what I mean? I'm drunk in the back of the car.

 

(09:18):

Holy cow. What about you? What was some of the favorite music from your past? Is there a particular song that brings up fun memories for you? Maybe it was the song that played the summer you graduated from high school, or the song that your dad always played and every time you hear the song, you immediately think of him. Or maybe it was your first dance song, right? Every time our first dance song comes on the radio, Barry White Can't get Enough of your love. That's what Chris and I first dance. I'm like, what a song. And I'm right there. 

(10:22):

The researchers dove deep into understanding why memories associated with songs like Immediately Change Your Mood. And they say that you and I tend to have more memories associated with older songs than newer ones. And there's a term for this. It is called neural nostalgia. In other words, these songs from our past where we have really positive memories and positive emotional associations with them. I'll give you another one, the Steve Miller Band, that album with the horse head on the cover that I played that, oh my gosh, sophomore summer in college. And these songs from your past that you and I have positive associations with. It's kind of like reminding you of a time in life when you had less stress, when maybe you had a little less on your plate, you were a little more innocent, you felt a little more hopeful. You have happy memories that are intrinsically linked with music from your past.

 

(11:23):

So the fancy way that scientists talk about this is they call this music evoked autobiographical memory, which means you have emotions that are like crazy strong driving to the grocery store simply because you hear a song from the past. And what's also cool is let's just say you're driving to the grocery store and all of a sudden the song that was the defining of your high school summer or your college years or being a young parent or being in your twenties in the city all of a sudden hits the car. Your body changes immediately. And you know what else happens? Vivid memories. You immediately remember living in the city post college with your friends. You immediately remember that summer that you took that road trip. You immediately remember your childhood and something you were doing. And we're going to get into the science of why this is the case.

 

(12:27):

And I am so fired up about this topic. I just experienced this with the Taylor Swift concert, not only at the concert by the way, but a week before our daughter Kendall found a playlist of the set that Taylor was going to play. And again, Kendall is the super fan. And so she was like, you got to listen to the playlist. And I'm like, I know all these songs. And she's like, I know, but she got to listen to the playlist. I'll tell you what, even listening to the set list before the concert, as I'm driving my errands and I'm going here and there, it flooded me with a decade and a half of memories raising my girls. And the same thing is going to happen to you. I mean, you've experienced this. There's nothing cooler than it being a beautiful day and the windows are down in the car and yet the song is coming on the speakers and the wind is blowing, and you feel this feeling of freedom and joy.

(14:24):

And I can give you a quick example. So one traumatic experience for me is that I was in a car crash where the car rolled, and I can remember being in that car, it was yesterday, I can literally close my eyes. The memory is so seared into my mind and into my body that I know exactly what it felt like to be in that car as it rolled. Now, here's an interesting thing. That accident happened when it was snowing, and there was a particular sound that I heard as the car was rolling, and it's the sound of snow crunching. You know how snow's like, and to this day, I'm talking decades later, if I walk down a sidewalk and the snow crunches under my feet, I have the sensation of immediately being back in a car that's rolling. It's a form of negative neural nostalgia, right?

 

(15:24):

We've just been learning about how songs can take you back to the positive. So here's what I want you to understand that I think is super cool. The same mechanism in your body that records negative traumatic experiences, and you then get triggered and you remember them or you feel things from your past. It's the exact same recording system that records the positive ones, and it explains why you remember positive memories when it was like something super emotional. It's because the high state of emotion being in a car crash, high state of emotion, right? And when you're in a high state of emotion, the limbic systems activated and it's trying to remember everything. The emotions are on fire and it's trying to protect you. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Which is why it records it. It's why I remember the sound. Same thing with positive.

 

(16:16):

Same thing with positive. You're in a high positive emotional state. Think about graduation from high school. Think about graduation from college. Think about your wedding day. Think about when your first child was born. Think about some of the most positive experiences, even positive experiences like you are seeing your favorite band play. I will never forget what it was like to be in that stadium with my daughter screaming every single word of those Taylor Swift songs. I was in such an activated, excited, positive state that my limbic system was on fire recording the memory. And it's the reason why, for example, you can remember things like I bet you can remember what kind of day it was and details about your high school graduation years later, right? You can almost put yourself back there, highly positive state, but I bet you cannot remember what you did the Thursday before graduation.

 

(17:19):

Can you? Of course not. If you've ever been in a car accident, you know exactly what you were doing right before the accident happened, but you don't know what you were doing two days before. And there's a reason why the heightened emotional state that your body went into is what triggers the recording of the memory. That's why this works. And I hate the fact that it's good that we have a word for negative trauma, but I wish we had a really amazing pump up word for positive recording because it's the exact same thing. It's only with your best memories, not your worst. And what this research is telling you is that this neural nostalgia that gets created because of the heightened emotion and also repetition, that's also part of the research when it comes to the encoding of these memories. And you listen to the song over and over and over, and you're having these happy days and it's the best summer of your life.

 

(18:15):

And oh my God, that it's the heightened emotion that locks in the memory. That's why this works. Isn't the science so cool? And this explains why neural nostalgia is such a hugely cool thing and can be a remarkable tool for you to help you lift your mood or to help you change your mindset. Because you know that song that you heard at one of your favorite concerts, boom. It can put you right there. For example, for me, one of the best concerts I have ever been to in my entire life, 2017, Gillette Stadium, U2 Joshua Tree album tour. All I have to do is hear the opening riff of the first song on U two's. Joshua Tree album, is it? What is it? Streets have no name. I don't even know the name of the song, but I know the guitar starts playing and all of a sudden it accelerates incredible song.

 

(19:08):

And I'm transported to Gillette Stadium July, 2017. And a funny story about that tour right before the concert, I happened to be giving a speech in Vegas to 27,000 people, and I was standing backstage, one of the biggest events that I had ever spoken at, and the whole setup and the production for that event, 27,000 people, was unbelievable. And the guy who was working for the production company who did the event in Vegas that I was speaking at also happened to be the production company that was doing U Two's tour. And he told me the story about the fact that it was the first time if any of you ever saw that tour, it was incredible because U2 played in front of this massive IMAX size screen, and it was the first time that anyone had ever done a tour with a screen that size. It was eight K resolution, it was 200 feet by 40 feet tall cinematic screen.

 

(20:09):

It was the largest high res screen at a touring show ever. And he told me the funniest story. He said that a few years before the Joshua Tree tour, you two had signed a contract to do a stadium tour, but the album that they were planning to tour wasn't ready. So they had to scramble because they had booked all the stadiums and they decided to just do their most popular album of all time, like front to back cover to cover. I mean, absolutely incredible. And I don't know if it's a true story or not, it's just the one that he told me. And I got to tell you, it was one of the best nights of my entire life. And I'll tell you, Joshua Tree, the album was released March 9th, 1987, which was the spring of my freshman year of college. I played that album until the needle broke on my record player.

 

(21:03):

I mean, it was the album of my college experience and so many other people too. In fact, at the concert in 2017, it was crazy. There was a huge thunderstorm. And right before U2 came out, the sky broke open and the sun came down. And then all of a sudden that first song played and the 200 foot cinematic screens started running the music videos that had played on MTV back in the day. And I looked around everybody there was my age, it was like the world's biggest college reunion, all of us who had been freshmen in 1987. It was magical, it was iconic. But here's the part I want you to hone in on. Your favorite music from the past can help you hit the reset button on your mood right now, simply putting on one of your favorite songs from high school, from college, from your childhood, from another time in your life that reminds you of a really good memory.

 

(22:12):

The second you hit play your mind and your body does the work, it changes you. And as we go further and further into this topic of using music as a hack, you're going to learn the science. It's absolutely insane how this works. And I want you to understand this because whenever you're stressed or you're feeling really low or you're having a bad day or you're feeling isolated or alone, I want you to be able to use this tool. I don't want you to just listen to me today as you're taking your walk or you've invited me into your house or your car, or you're watching me on the tv. If you're on YouTube, I don't want you to just nod along, be like, yeah, I've experienced this, Mel, I know exactly what you mean and I know exactly what my song is because these songs that transport you are a hack and a tool to make your life better.

 

(23:04):

I want you to make a playlist because anytime that you want to shift in your mood, you don't have to wait for lightning to strike. You can put a song on that you love and you can let the song do the work, and it could be exactly what you need. And oftentimes you don't need to want it to work seriously. Have you ever had somebody that's really sad and you're like, oh, come on, lemme cheer you out. And they're like, I don't really like it. Then all you do is you put their favorite song on, they look at you and they're mad because they don't want to feel better, and the song turns on, and by the time the song's done, they're feeling better. That's why this is such a great hack because you don't have to feel like it. You just have to put on the music that will lift your mood.

 

(23:50):

And this is for when you want an immediate shift. I want you to consider this research when you're feeling like, ugh, I dunno. Put the song on and let the research and your brain do the work for you. In fact, I've got a little hack for you. If you ever want people to help you do the dishes, all you got to do is play music. My trick is I've got this disco playlist that I use to make people help me with the dishes. Yep, you have a big dinner party, you got your family around, you got a backyard barbecue, boom, hit the disco playlist. Mine begins with YMCA and people like young men, when that starts playing, people cannot sit at the table while you're busing. Everybody starts picking up their plates and sort of wiggling toward the kitchen, and you will all of a sudden have put on a playlist disco that activates brainwaves inside of everybody, and now they're moving and they're grooving and they're motivated and they're helping you, and it becomes a dish party instead of a chore that you have to do.

 

(24:59):

So I want you to use this to your advantage. And here's how number one, make a playlist in advance. When you're done listening to this, please make a playlist. Remember, back in the day, if you're in your twenties, you probably did not do this, although maybe you make playlists for people, you probably make playlists for people. Well, being 55 years old, I remember making mix tapes for other people that I loved. Remember doing that where you would have one of those fancy stereos that had a double cassette player so you could stop, play, record, stop, and you'd have to, do you remember that? I remember being so psycho about it. I remember actually trimming and doing hand edits on this at time. And so when you made a playlist, what were you doing? You were trying to communicate emotion to somebody. This is how I feel about you.

(26:45):

Your playlist should be made to put yourself in an uplifted mood. You can shake off a bad day and you can tap into now the fancy word neural nostalgia, but you always knew that this was there. Now I just want you to use it. Alright, that's hack number one. So now I want to move into the next way. You're going to use music as a hack, and there's this really interesting area of research in the role that music can play when it comes to priming your brain so that you perform your best. And the way we're going to dig into this is that we're going to cover two different types of music. First up, we're going to unpack music that you can listen to and should listen to by the way before you're about to do something. Okay? So you can think of this first type of music and the research kind of priming your brain.

 

(27:39):

You're getting ready to do your best, okay? Then we're going to unpack research on a type of music or sound that's called binal beats, which is a specific sound that you should be listening to while you're either studying, writing or reading. It will help you stay focused. It can help you relax. In fact, I'm going to play some for you in just a bit. And I'm so excited for you to know this, which is why I want you to share this with everyone who wants to perform their best. Because this hack and this research you're about to learn is a total game changer. So let's cover the first kind of music, the first kind of music that you should listen to right before you're going to do something important that is going to require you to either perform or requires concentration. This kind of music I want you to think about is your personal walk-on music.

 

(28:30):

Just like a sports team. You know how they all play the walk-on music, all the NFL guys run onto the field boxers, come on with the thing playing. Well, it hypes them up. The same thing works for you and me before we're supposed to write or pay our bills or do something that really matters where you want to perform. And it may seem kind of weird, Mel, why would I play all this hype up music to get me all pumped up before I have to sit my butt in a chair and concentrate? I mean, isn't that kind of going to backfire? Am I getting myself all jacked up and then I'm supposed to sit still? Not exactly. I want you to check the study out. This study proved that what they call familiar energetic music researchers say that when you listen to this sort of familiar energetic music, which basically means hype music that you like, they say that it delivers performance gains inside you and puts you into a state of peak performance and focus.

 

(29:35):

So I'm sure you're thinking, what the heck is familiar energetic music? It's just music that you listen to that energizes you. For me right now, my playlist, it's like Lizzo, Dua, Lipa, anything that's like, okay, I got to get up and dance. And this is different than the kind of music that you and I were talking about earlier, right? Kind of think about you two from 1987 versus Dua Lipa. Very different kind of music, right? The neural nostalgia music from U2 or that pinada song that reminds you of your parents, that's about triggering emotion. That's what that hack is about. That's about transporting yourself from one emotional state to another. Whereas this second hack in research is about using this sort of hype music and walk-on song idea to prime you energetically. And let me explain the research because it's actually kind of incredible. This is a study that they did at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering.

 

(30:38):

And so it's an engineering study. They actually kind of tallied it. They were fastidious about it. And sure enough, this study lasted six years. In the study, scientists asked people to put on wearable tracking devices kind of like a Fitbit, and then they were part of the study for six years. So the scientists have six years of data to back this up. I mean, this is a deep study on human behavior. And they measured brain activity as people did things like drink coffee or sniff kind of a stimulating aroma like a perfume. And also they measure brain activity when you listened to different kinds of music. So check this out. After six years, the research found that energetic music, I'm talking whatever floats your boat, you like EDM, you like country, you like Dua Lipa, doesn't matter. Whatever gets you going that when you listen to that kind of energetic music, it measurably alters brain arousal and altered it even more than other things that were measured in the study more than coffee.

 

(31:49):

So why on earth is kind of hype music that you love more effective at priming your brain than coffee? Well check this out. This is where the science comes in. It's because of something called the beta band in your brain. So brainwave activity in this area, the beta band puts you into a state associated with peak cognitive performance and music increases activity to this beta band area. And you felt this, haven't you? You've got a big meeting or an interview, you put on a hype song and when you walk in, don't you feel better? Of course you do. So if you need to be on top of your game today, maybe you need to memorize something or maybe somebody that you love needs to get a really good grade on the psych exam. Or let's say you're getting close to work or you're on your commute right now as you're listening to me, instead of just dragging yourself into the office another day as you're walking the last few blocks or you're driving in the last couple miles, put on one of your favorite hype energetic songs.

(33:49):

And I want you to use the science. I want you to activate the brainwaves in the beta band. I don't even know if I'm saying it correctly, but I want you to activate the science and use music to prime your brain into a state of peak performance and simply using music and this research, we'll get it done. And what's so cool about this is that music is practically free. I mean, you can change your mood, you can increase your clarity and focus and activate a peak performance state by hitting play and simply listening to some of your favorite songs. And you've seen pro athletes, haven't you? You know what they do. If you ever see tennis players, haven't you noticed they sometimes put on headphones? Have you ever noticed that people sit on the sidelines with headphones? Why? So that they can get themselves back in that headspace of winning.

 

(34:46):

And I got to share this thing with you because I think this is kind of cool and it just shows you the power of this research and using it in your life. So as I was digging into the study, and we always read the studies and dig in and make sure that it's something that's legit and peer reviewed and something that you can really feel confident and trust. And the scientists worked on this study get this for over six years, which means they have six years of data to back up this finding and recommendation. I mean, we're talking about a deep validated study on human behavior. And this is what researchers were saying in their conclusions on a scientific study. There's always a conclusion at the end of a major academic study where the researchers kind of give you their findings and they may even talk about what studies need to be done next.

 

(35:44):

And researchers in this study were blown away by the possibility they were so excited by the findings that I'm sharing with you. This is a quote of what the researchers of this study said. Wouldn't it be great if we could live in a world where we could use simple things that are available to us to change our states of mind from angry to more peaceful or from afraid to focused and alert? Wouldn't life be so much better? Of course it would and it would too. I want that for you. And that's why I love bringing you these little science-backed tips that can help you do exactly that you have access to right now. In fact, so many of you that are fans of the Mel Robbins podcast around the world you're writing in and you're like, how do I change my mindset? How do I stay positive?

 

(36:41):

How do I be more optimistic? And I am sitting here telling you this is a tool. It's in your tool chest right now. And what's also so cool is that the Mel Robbins podcast, which is helping you improve your life, is adjacent to this tool right on your smartphone. Because if you're listening in audio, whether you're on Spotify or Apple or Amazon Music or whatever, you can also listen to music in that same app. And so that means you're like poop. One click away from building a playlist and tap it into this research whether you're going to use the neural nostalgia to immediately transport you to happy memories and a lifted mood. Or you're going to use this research around what I'm calling the hype music and the beta band in your brain to put you in a state of peak performance. Two different playlists, profound research, immediate results.

(39:04):

Yeah, I kind of think it's like were there some whales that just swam by? I mean, what the heck was that? Kind of weird, right? But you want to know something fascinating? If you Google bin neural beats or you search for it on Spotify or Apple or Amazon Music, you will find all kinds of playlists curated with this specific kind of sound. This stuff is really popular and there's kind of two ways you can use it. You can either use it while you are trying to do something, so you actually put the headphones on and you listen while you're trying to focus or concentrate, or you can use Ural beats as a way to get yourself ready and so you can listen to it before you need to focus or concentrate. So let's dig into the science of this kind of woo a kind of weird sound, right?

 

(39:51):

So binal beats are what scientists call an auditory illusion. And here's how they work. They work by putting your headphones on. And headphones are really important here because you need to experience binaural beats with individual sound coming into each one of your ears. Plus, if you play this weird whale song stuff over the speakers, your family's going to be like you lost your mind. So once you have your headphones in, what's so cool is the binaural beats track does the work with your brain.