Do you have to devote maximum concentration to your work or studies? Listening to the right kind of music, or to a well-chosen ambient sound can increase your focus considerably.
Because:
Our subconscious is constantly on the watch, seeking to protect us from any danger. Even when you are in the safest environment, an unexpected noise will always break your concentration, because the brain automatically anticipates any possible danger. These acoustic distractions can be blocked out with headphones, because we can keep our subconscious occupied with sounds that we have specially chosen for it.
Get into the flow
You may have experienced this while driving: you have arrived at your destination, or you have covered 30 kilometres on the motorway, and you can’t even remember the minutes that have passed, because you were concentrating fully on the task in hand. That’s the type of experience you want to have when you are working or studying.
Music that’s intended to help your concentration, according to the latest research, should be groovy but not too hectic. It should bring you to the moment just before you want to start dancing. Our brain reacts to speech, even subconsciously, and so audio books are practically useless as aids to concentration. Music with lyrics is only an aid to tuning out if you know the songs by heart, and your brain doesn’t have to keep trying to work out what is being sung, even subconsciously. And of course the best kind of music for concentration is instrumental: classical, dance and electronic music or soundtracks from films. Some studies have found that music that we like can help our concentration, but music that we don’t like will very quickly put us off our work
Ambient sound instead of music
It’s not just music that can transport you out of your everyday environment: a realistic ambient sound can also help you to get into the flow. You can do this with apps, for example, like Noisli (Web) or Noizio (Mac und iOS) which produce sounds like a café, a train travelling along, a walk in the woods with birdsong in the background, or a wonderful day at the beach.
Our headphones are comfortable to wear, and they sit lightly on the ear, so that you will very quickly forget that you are wearing them. The clever on-ear design protects you passively from much of the surrounding world, so that you are quickly transported to a flow tunnel where you are surrounded by your favourite ambient sound. Thanks to Bluetooth technology, hër gives you full freedom of movement and you won’t have any annoying cables lying around on your desk.
Nevertheless, we decided that we would include a cable connection with our hër headphones. This is so that you can still listen to music if you have forgotten to charge up your headphones.
