Music in my brain...

Why is it that it seems like my best thinking is done when accompanied by music? Whenever I sit down to write a letter I have music playing in the background. Why is that?

When I was in the hospital doing in-patient therapy after my car accident, my vocational-therapist, Mark, had me take an IQ-ish test twice: once with no distraction and once while I had another job to work on. The end result was that he was testing whether I would achieve the same results, worse results, or better results if I was "slightly distracted" by another task.

His conclusion at the end of the therapy was that I perform better when I have something like music (not anything that would consume my mind or emotions...) going in the background, though I'm quite sure that this was always the case. As much as

I'm not sure if the same thing would have been said before the accident, but it's defiantly true since the brain damage... Since the accident, also, I've become painfully aware of the dangers of constantly filling your head with music (like those that never don't have an earpiece in their ear listening to their iPod...) and thus, make themselves essentially "deaf" to the whisperings of the Spirit and the yells and warnings from their loved ones.

Though, it's true that "listening-to-music" can be abused, it just makes sense to me that everybody would perform better with some music playing in the background. Maybe it's an idea created from watching movies, but every scene in life should have it's own background music! Music, it is well known and proven, increases your capacity to memorize and thus increases your capacity to remember what you learn. Some time later I'll have to write about memory, but it music definitely adds to one's memory or capacity to memorize.

Of course you have to remember the singing of praises to your God or the hymns that we sing in church or the carols that we sing during the holidays. My friend, Matt, says that he would like a radio station that just plays Christmas music year-round. I told him that we have invented something for just such an idea: CD players that will always play your own favorite CD of Christmas music...

Music will brighten the gloomiest day and will infuse your soul with the joy of the moment!!!

JPS