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Leaving all anecdotes aside, let us look at the scientific evidence. Considering the value of this question in our day-to-day lives, I’ll summarize music psychology research here. Research has given us quite a few valuable insights into how music affects our minds and behavioral output. One example is: Listening to slightly distracting music in the background which makes you rethink your thoughts could actually promote your creative thinking! The truth is that people do listen to music while working or learning. The questions we need to ask are: Is music detrimental to work?  Is music a creativity booster?  Is music good for learning & productivity?  Are certain types of songs better for work? Is listening to music in the workplace a smart choice? Let us find out. The effect of background music on work quality, productivity, learning, and creativity Here are 10 research findings on the role of music in creativity & productivity. Each point summarizes one academic ...

Humans like measurements. They like measuring land, the weight of gold, their penis, their breasts, their wealth, their age, their skills, their whole life. That's just back in the day. We have now measured the size of an atom, the universe, their facebook likes. That's not enough, is it? Let us move to the reality of humans. We measure our everything and compare it with dogs and dolphins. Let's measure everything in the universe and brag about those numbers that make us look good. - A human.  The fascinating art of measuring the human IQ, EQ, HQ, SQ, EQ, SQ Doctors love measuring. You go visit a clinic, wait until it's your turn. Then comes the measurement. "Stand on the weighing scale (I want you to realize you are fat), now give me your arm (I want to know if your blood pressure is fine)." That's not it. You go to a job interview and get selected for the next round. Score. Now it's their turn to have fun with you. They invite you for assessment. ...

What do you mean when you say your heart says one thing and the mind says another thing? The Heart vs. The Mind This may be a little too obvious, but I'll highlight it anyway. There is no heart vs. brain or heart vs. mind as such.  There isn't any thought vs. feeling, logic vs. emotion. There are variations such as heart vs. brain and heart vs. thinking which are equally untrue.  There is no OR or VERSUS. Emotions and thoughts both involve the wholistic brain in their expression. They inform one another. The Heart vs. the Mind debate Understanding how to let one inform the other is a part of mature thinking. One need not choose between the two, one could bring the best of both worlds or let one warn the other. Another aspect of this is the heart vs. brain idea as a concept with connotations. To look at it technically, there never is an input from your heart that you can understand and evaluate, to guide yourself. The heart carries connotations of childlike, at the core, deep w...

There are a number of ways to look at life lessons. On most occasions, you'll see life lessons coming from someone's experience or some book. This article will surprise you. Experience is not the only way to learn about life. Sometimes, you'll see lessons in the oddest places. Such as the clockwork of your brain. I am going to walk you through certain processes in the brain and then I'll show you what we can learn from them. Not for the technical bit, but for living a good life. It's remarkable that we can learn something from the brain.  Here are 5 life & motivational lessons everyone should take from the human brain! ... And why you should know these features of the brain Lesson 1: Astrocytes Your brain is a dense network of about 80 billion neurons and another 80 billion non-neuronal cells (astrocytes, glial cells). The neurons are what most people refer to as brain cells. They largely accommodate learning, memory, emotion, etc. The glial cells & other a...

Today, I am going to highlight some findings from my favourite body of scientific literature. Cross-modal perception . In an  earlier post , I discussed the many senses we humans have. There are at least 10. This post looks at how our senses affect and change the perception of food and drinks! Cross-modal perception is perceiving something around us with the integration of at least 2 of our senses. It is about how one sense affects the other. In this article, I'll cover 20 ways in which some sensory aspect affects our food experiences- eating, drinking, savouring, fine dining, etc.  How  many  of our senses affect the 'taste' of food and drinks!  The psychology of food perception Before we get to that, I want to introduce the idea of cross-modal perception with a little more detail.  It basically means that we perceive something in the environment based on the combined information from a lot of our senses. Information from each of these senses affects t...

They are useless.  Well, not entirely. Let us see why.  The survivorship bias - you need success stories and failure stories. A thinking error that leads to false conclusions With this article, you will be able to answer the following question. Question: Why do People who wear helmets on the road have a higher chance of having a brain injury?   Glad he has a helmet on. During world war II, Abraham Wald, a statistician, made a smart logical inference which led to bomber planes lasting longer in the field.  He realized that planes that used to return from battle had bullet holes all over them. Surely, one would think that the planes need better armor. Abraham Wald took into consideration the survivorship bias . He noticed that planes with bullet holes had some hidden information in them. The ones that had holes at particular spots did not collapse in battle. The planes that did not return must've had bullet holes in some other spots that led to critical damage an...

Yes, multitasking is possible and No, it is also not possible. Why? We have one brain and as a biological system, there is competition to maximize the use of available resources. Attention is an 'executive function' that we deliberately direct somewhere and it can also be unconsciously hijacked. Take, for example, reading the menu card (executive) at a bar and then your eye turns (unconscious) toward that attractive human that walked by. While there are many arguments in favour of multi-tasking and people claiming to be good at it. There is really no multi-tasking in a parallel way. We can't direct executive attention at 2 places at the same time. That seems to be a biological limitation. There are 2 empirical findings: There is a lot of research showing that multi-tasking leads to loss in productivity for at least one of the task(s). There is also some research showing that there are some people who can multi-task because their brains actually can direct executive attent...