Music, Happiness, and the Brain

Have you ever come home after a long, hard day and turned on music to de-stress? Do you associate music with different types of emotions (i.e. "I listen to Green Day when I'm angry.")? Do you find it impossible to sit still while listening to a certain type of music? Have you ever wondered why this happens? So have I. Ask most people to listen to music in a fast tempo and they will probably say that it makes them feel happier, recall happy memories, and/or make them want to dance. Give the same people slow music in a major key, and they will say, most likely, that it makes them relax, that such music is good for meditation. On the same line, slow music in a minor key makes people feel sad and possibly recall sad memories. If most people are asked to listen to dissonant music in a fast tempo, their most likely response will be fear.(1) To a certain degree, dissonance is dependent on culture, but there is a theory that dissonance sounds abrasive to listeners of any culture. Studies have demonstrated that babies as young as four months old react negatively to dissonant music. (2) For any piece of music, the way it is experienced by each listener is often entirely different. One could hear Saint-Saens The Dying Swan (a slow piece for solo cello) and literally picture the swan and it expires, while another could be picturing the time she danced to the piece for a ballet class or the time she played it for an audience. Either way, this piece is very moving and paints a graphic picture for the listener. However, for the listener picturing the poor swan, the reaction and memory associations would be very different than for the dancer or the cellist. It is a fact, as much as facts can exist, that the right kind music releases endorphins. This causes relief of pain, and if there is no pain, happiness, pleasure. (3) It has also been shown that music can induce sleep by convincing the brain to release melatonin. This can be seen visibly in listeners to whom a relaxing piece of music is being played. For many people, music that has an intrinsic feeling of pleasure associated with it can cause a listener to become motivated to do something. (4) These pieces have no other memories attached to them, but, interestingly, when they are played, the areas of the brain that are stimulated are those that are also stimulated by food, sex, and drugs. This could imply that there is a connection between these things and the way that music is processed by the brain. What is it that makes music so intensely powerful? We may never really know. As much as we can quantify the responses the brain produces when we listen to music, we cannot yet explain why they happen.
Below is the Chart that helps you, if you are a listener of Indian Classical Music. A summary of the table is:

Time: The time at which raga should be listened
Raga: Name of the Raga should be listened at the mentioned Time of the day

Benefit: The benefit you get if you listen the Raga at mentioned time of the day

Click on the Image to see it large

Hope this would work for you...