1147: Daniel J. Levitin | The Science Behind Music as Medicine

Summary

Summary of Episode 1147: Daniel J. Levitin | The Science Behind Music as Medicine

The Jordan Harbinger Show featured an insightful conversation with Daniel J. Levitin, a renowned neuroscientist and musician, delving into the profound ways music serves as a form of medicine. This episode explores the multifaceted impact of music on the human brain, addressing its therapeutic applications, underlying mechanisms, and future potential in healthcare.

---

1. Introduction to Music as Medicine

Jordan Harbinger opens the discussion by highlighting the transformative power of music beyond mere entertainment. He states, "Music is not just for jamming and relaxing. It can actually help your immune system. It can trigger memory... it can treat other diseases like PTSD and a whole lot more." (02:56) This sets the stage for an in-depth exploration of music's medicinal properties.

---

2. Experiential Fusion and the Brain's Default Mode Network

Levitin introduces the concept of experiential fusion, a state where listeners become one with the music, often losing self-awareness. He explains, "Experiential fusion... you forget that you're listening to music. You might even forget who you are." (03:48) This state is linked to the brain's default mode network (DMN), a circuit associated with self-directed thoughts and mind-wandering. Engaging with music activates the DMN, promoting restorative and healthful mental states.

---

3. Music in Treating Movement Disorders

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on how music aids individuals with Parkinson's Disease. Levitin elaborates, "Music that has the tempo that is more or less your walking speed will help restore the ability of Parkinson's patients to walk." (09:17) By synchronizing movement to musical rhythms, patients can improve gait and reduce freezing episodes, leveraging the brain's neuronal synchronization with beats.

---

4. Music as a Natural Painkiller

Levitin discusses music's analgesic effects, stating, "Listening to music you like releases dopamine. Your brain releases its own endogenous opioids." (12:57) This dual action not only enhances pleasure but also elevates pain thresholds, offering a complementary approach to traditional pain management and potentially reducing reliance on pharmaceuticals like opioids.

---

5. Music and the Immune System

Exploring the connection between music and immunity, Levitin notes, "Listening to pleasurable music can increase levels of immunoglobulin A... increase the production of natural killer cells and T cells." (49:47) These immune responses suggest that music can bolster the body's defenses against infections and reduce inflammation, although the evolutionary reasons behind this synergy remain unclear.

---

6. Music in Addiction Recovery

Music's role in addiction treatment is highlighted as Levitin explains, "Music is a part of a lot of addiction recovery centers now... it's a part of it for different reasons." (32:18) The motivational aspects of dopamine release and the emotional support provided by music contribute to recovery, offering both solace and the drive to adhere to healthful practices.

---

7. Historical and Cultural Uses of Music in Healing

The conversation touches upon traditional uses of music in healing ceremonies. Levitin acknowledges the challenges in isolating music's effects from other elements like dance and community but affirms, "Just listening or playing seems to have a substantial and statistically significant effect." (35:01) This historical context underscores music's enduring presence in human healing practices.

---

8. Debunking Pseudoscience in Music Therapy

Levitin confronts pseudoscientific claims surrounding music, such as specific frequencies having therapeutic effects. He states, "There's no science at all that says that particular frequencies are associated with particular mood states or particular therapeutic things." (36:58) By distinguishing evidence-based practices from unfounded beliefs, he emphasizes the importance of scientific rigor in music therapy.

---

9. Music’s Impact on Memory and Traumatic Experiences

Music's ability to evoke memories, both positive and traumatic, is a key topic. Levitin explains, "Music that's Associated with a particular time and place... can invoke certain memories." (41:27) This phenomenon is particularly therapeutic for individuals with PTSD, as familiar tunes can anchor them to safer, more controlled emotional states.

---

10. The Future of Music Therapy and Technological Integration

Looking ahead, Levitin envisions a future where artificial intelligence tailors music to individual physiological states. He speculates, "AI would start with a tried and true... and maybe it'll alert you... and play relaxing music to lower your heart rate." (47:01) This integration promises personalized and responsive music therapy, enhancing its effectiveness through real-time adjustments.

---

11. Music in Neurological Disorders: Stuttering and Tourette’s

Levitin discusses how music can aid individuals with neurological disorders like stuttering and Tourette’s. He mentions, "Music has its own intrinsic tempo... the music system can effectively hijack the speech system." (52:42) Techniques like melodic intonation therapy allow patients to communicate more fluently by leveraging the brain's separate musical and speech circuits.

---

12. Music and Mental Health: Depression and Anxiety

Addressing mental health, Levitin advises that music should align with one’s emotional state. He humorously notes, "If you're depressed, you need to play depressing music." (72:11) This approach helps individuals feel understood and validated, facilitating emotional processing and resilience.

---

Conclusion: The Multifaceted Healing Power of Music

The episode concludes with a reflection on music's profound impact on various aspects of health and well-being. Levitin and the hosts agree that while music is not a panacea, its integration into therapeutic practices holds significant promise. As research continues to unveil the intricate connections between music and the brain, the medicinal potential of music becomes increasingly tangible.

---

Notable Quotes:

• "Experiential fusion... you forget that you're listening to music. You might even forget who you are." – Daniel Levitin (03:48)

• "Listening to music you like releases dopamine. Your brain releases its own endogenous opioids." – Daniel Levitin (12:57)

• "Listening to pleasurable music can increase levels of immunoglobulin A... increase the production of natural killer cells and T cells." – Daniel Levitin (49:47)

• "There's no science at all that says that particular frequencies are associated with particular mood states or particular therapeutic things." – Daniel Levitin (36:58)

• "If you're depressed, you need to play depressing music." – Daniel Levitin (72:11)

This episode serves as a comprehensive exploration of how music intertwines with human physiology and psychology, offering tangible benefits across a spectrum of health conditions. Daniel J. Levitin’s expertise bridges the gap between neuroscience and practical therapy, providing listeners with actionable insights into harnessing music as a tool for healing and personal growth.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

Bombas makes the most comfortable socks, underwear and T shirts.

[Daniel Levitin]

Bombas are so absurdly comfortable you may throw out all your other clothes.

[Advertiser]

Sorry, do we legally have to say that?

[Daniel Levitin]

No, this is just how I talk.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I really love my Bombas. They do feel that good. And they do good too.

[Advertiser]

One item purchased equals one item donated.

[Jordan Harbinger]

To feel good and do good, go to bombas.com wondry and use code wondry.

[Daniel Levitin]

For 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B-A-Com wondry and.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Use code Wondry at checkout.

[Advertiser]

Craving your next action packed adventure? Audible delivers thrills of every kind on your command. Like Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir where a lone astronaut must save humanity from extinction. Narrated with stunning intensity by Ray Porter. From electrifying suspense and daring quests to spine tingling horror and romance and far off realms, unleash your adventure aside with gripping titles that'll keep you guessing. Discover exclusive Audible originals, hotly anticipated new releases and must listen bestsellers that hook you from the first minute because Audible knows there's no greater thrill than the one that speaks to you. Discover what lies beyond the edge of your seat. Start your free 30 day trial at audible.com wonderyus that's audible.com wonderyus coming up.

[Co-host]

Next on the Jordan Harbinger show, there's.

[Daniel Levitin]

Not two kinds of medicine. There's not Western medicine and alternative medicine. If something's been shown to work, we call it medicine. If it's not been shown to work, there are some people out there who will call it alternative medicine. If we knew that it worked, it would not be an alternative. It would just be plain old medicine.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional mafia enforcer, Fortune 500 CEO or Hollywood filmmaker. And if you're new to the show or you're looking for a way to tell your friends about it. And of course, I always appreciate it.

[Co-host]

When you do that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I suggest our episode starter packs. It's a great place to begin. These are collections of our favorite episodes.

[Co-host]

On topics like persuasion and negotiations, psychology.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Today, we're talking about music. Hey, normally I'm not that interested in this topic, but as we will learn today, music is not just for jamming and relaxing. It can actually help your immune system. It can trigger memory, even in people with impaired memory or diseases. It can treat other diseases like PTSD and a whole lot more. Daniel Levitin has been on the show before.

[Co-host]

He has a knack for picking super interesting science topics and then just doing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

A killer job communicating his research on the show. If you love music, you'll love this episode. If you love science, you'll love this episode. And if you love science and music, well, you do the math. Here we go with Daniel Leviton. I read the whole book, by the.

[Co-host]

Way, really enjoyed it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think that stuff is just so fascinating. We as humans, we kind of know music does something because we feel it, right? When I play music in the gym.

[Co-host]

I feel like my workouts are a little bit better, a little bit more fun.

[Jordan Harbinger]

When I play music, when I'm hiking, I'm less tired for some reason. But no one till recently maybe has.

[Co-host]

Really thought about why this happens.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And you really do a good deep.

[Co-host]

Dive in the book on this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The book starts with this concept of, I think you called it fusion, where your awareness changes when listening to music. Can you explain this for me?

[Co-host]

I've never heard of this.

[Daniel Levitin]

Well, experiential fusion is a term coined by Richard Davidson at University of Wisconsin Madison, who works closely with the Dalai Lama about altered states and meditative states and such. And the idea is that it's sometimes referred to as flow, although it's slightly different, a flow state, you're in the zone. If you're a basketball player or if you're a coder, you just lose track of time. But the experiential fusion that you and I are talking about with music is that under the right circumstances, you forget that you're listening to music. You might even forget who you are. You become one with the experience. And the brain basis of this gets to a circuit called the default mode network that my colleague Vinod Menon discovered at Stanford. It is an altered state of consciousness where you're not in control of your thoughts, you're not directing them. They're self and internally directed, and we call it the mind wandering mode. And music can certainly activate that. And it's a healthful and restorative mode to get into. And it's a good antidote or reset button for the kind of hyper caffeinated work schedule many of us follow.

[Co-host]

Yeah, we've talked about the dmn, the default mode network on the show before.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is why I come up with.

[Co-host]

Great ideas in the shower mode. Is that right?

[Daniel Levitin]

Exactly right. Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But why do we want to enter.

[Co-host]

That state besides coming up with great ideas in the shower? You mentioned that it's a restorative time for the brain.

[Daniel Levitin]

So we talk about paying attention. It's an apt metaphor because attention, like money, is a limited capacity resource and the cost of attending to something is metabolic. We use up blood oxygenated glucose in order to attend to things, to focus on things. And every time you make a decision, you're using a little more of that glucose and it gets depleted and you need to take a break. What many of us do is we'll just have another cup of coffee or something. You know, the bump of caffeine, and that doesn't really help the brain. It doesn't replenish the glucose.

[Co-host]

It just masks the symptoms of us being tired.

[Daniel Levitin]

Yeah. And it kicks the can a little farther down the road and all that. But what you want to do is then take a break and this gets to the pomodoro method of work and break cycles.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So there is something to Mark Zuckerberg.

[Co-host]

Wearing the same clothes every day so he doesn't have to make a decision in the morning. Or do you think that's hyped up?

[Daniel Levitin]

My favorite example of that is Barack Obama wearing the same clothes every day. But yeah, sure, if you don't have to make that decision, there's a limited number of decisions you can make in a day and no matter who you are. And there are a number of studies of this. Now we're getting a little far afield from the music idea, but there was a study of Israeli court judges and they tended to hand out more arbitrary sentences at the end of the day. So the message is, if you were going to appear in court, you want to be at the early days of the calendar.

[Co-host]

Right.

[Daniel Levitin]

Oh, and you don't want to be right before the lunch break when they're tired.

[Co-host]

Oh, gosh, I remember this study. It's like, if the judge is hungry, you're in trouble, man.

[Daniel Levitin]

Exactly. They might be feeling hungry for food, but really their brain is hungry for glucose. The fuel of the brain is glucose, and it's what allows neurons to do their work. So you want to get in the default mode as a way of allowing your brain to replenish its own resources. And you can do that in a number of ways. You can go for a walk in nature, you can meditate, you can take a nap, you can listen to music.

[Co-host]

I can just imagine.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Your honor, I'd like to submit this croissant for you to eat before we proceed here, because my client really wants.

[Co-host]

To stay out of prison, and you're.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Not you when you're hungry. It's like a Snickers commercial.

[Daniel Levitin]

Yeah, I approached the bench, your honor.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exactly. Do you like grapes or you want an apple?

[Co-host]

I brought a few different items here for you to choose from.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's really scary because, of course.

[Co-host]

We don't necessarily realize that we're in that state. I assume these Israeli judges weren't thinking, like, I'm a real bastard before lunch, so that guy's in trouble. They probably just thought, oh, this is how the day goes. I assume unless you're paying attention, you have somebody studying your decisions. You're not necessarily paying attention to your emotional state. You think you're in the same emotional.

[Jordan Harbinger]

State while you're at work until you go home.

[Daniel Levitin]

And as your thinking becomes cloudy, you have less of an ability to assess your own thinking.

[Co-host]

Ah, yes, that is a little bit scary.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Especially the coffee thing.

[Daniel Levitin]

Well, it's a version of the Dunning Kruger.

[Co-host]

Yes.

[Daniel Levitin]

The problem with people who lack intelligence fail in two accounts. One is they make bad decisions, but the other is they're overconfident because they don't realize that they lack the intelligence to make a good decision.

[Co-host]

Exactly. In many ways, of course, we all think we're above average.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But it must, in some ways be.

[Co-host]

Kind of nice to see the world in this completely black and white way where you go, it's not complicated.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Just do this really obvious thing that.

[Co-host]

I came up with because I don't understand any of the nuances to what's going on in front of me at all.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It seems like, yes, your life won't.

[Co-host]

Work out the way that you probably.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Want it to, but day to day, your existence is probably a hell of a lot easier.

[Co-host]

No, no, no, no.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's a paradox.

[Co-host]

I'm always finding myself caught in back.

[Jordan Harbinger]

To music, though, according to your work.

[Co-host]

It can reduce pain, it can enhance focus, pump you up in the gym.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You mentioned Parkinson's. Patients use it. Tell me about that. Because Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, a lot of this stuff.

[Co-host]

I have aging parents. I'm also not getting any younger.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That stuff freaks me out. It sneaks up on you.

[Daniel Levitin]

So I would start by saying that music is not a hammer. It's a toolkit. Different kinds of music do different things. It's not a single tool. It's not a hammer or a wrench or a screwdriver. It's more like a Swiss army knife. And different music will do different things for you, so you don't want to lump it all together. So in the case of Parkinson's, music that has the tempo that is more or less your walking speed, your gait will help restore the ability of Parkinson's patients to walk when they've lost that ability. Due to degradation of circuits in the basal ganglia and other regions that control smooth, continuous movement, Parkinson's patients often freeze. There's an internal clock or timer that allows them to time their steps.

[Co-host]

It's like a metronome.

[Daniel Levitin]

When that's degraded, if you play the music. We now know there are populations of millions of neurons that synchronize to the beat of the music, and that becomes an external stimulus for them to guide their movements, and they can walk just fine. Now, you use the term metronome. And the interesting thing is a metronome doesn't work as well as music. And I think it's because music is a lot more engaging than a metronome.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Probably.

[Co-host]

Yeah. Than just the tick, tick, tick. For those who don't know, the metronome is what, essentially a pendulum that makes a ticking sound.

[Daniel Levitin]

Yep.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Do the Parkinson's patients walk faster?

[Co-host]

If you play music with a faster bpm.

[Daniel Levitin]

So the trick there is to get it at their normal gait. Otherwise, you become unsteady and could fall.

[Co-host]

Sure.

[Daniel Levitin]

But it's the same principle why we see Olympic athletes, especially runners and marathoners, running with AirPods to music that's at one or two beats per minute faster than they normally would run. Then they can synchronize to that slightly faster beat and actually increase their running times.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So I wonder if each runner would.

[Co-host]

Have their track that is probably at the exact max they can go. Maybe it warms up a little at the beginning. I don't know anything about running, but I assume they start sprinting as fast as they can. But as their brain and everything gets synced up, they can probably pick up speed a little bit during the sprint. I really don't know. That's fascinating. I actually never noticed that those people were wearing AirPods or earbuds at all.

[Daniel Levitin]

I guess during training, they are.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, I see.

[Co-host]

So during a match, they're not doing.

[Daniel Levitin]

This, I don't think so, but I'm sure some of your million listeners will write in now and be very angry.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yes, it always happens.

[Co-host]

Someone's going to write in and say, hey, I've ran in the. And I was not allowed to wear AirPods or something like that.

[Daniel Levitin]

I've seen people train with them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That makes sense.

[Co-host]

I just assume people train with music because it's more fun to train when you're listening to music than it is to spend an hour in dead silence while you're sweating in the sun. It's a tool that I don't know I'm using.

[Daniel Levitin]

Fun is important here. If you've got an exercise workout that's otherwise unpleasant or painful. We know that music can act as an analgesic, a natural painkiller, and it can act as a motivator. So these are two different tools in the Swiss army knife of music and two different neurochemical systems. The fun of music is driven by the dopaminergic system. Listening to music you like releases dopamine. Our lab was the first to show the analgesic painkilling effects. If you listen to music, your brain releases its own endogenous, that is internal opioids. So where you might otherwise be weightlifting or running and feeling some pain, the music raises your pain threshold. So that doesn't bother you anymore.

[Co-host]

I love that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And what I find fascinating about this.

[Co-host]

Is some people are going, well, what kind of music?

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I assume, let's say the Parkinson's.

[Co-host]

Patients, they could probably listen to anything cause they're syncing up their steps.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But I assume older people wanna listen.

[Co-host]

To, I don't know, Elvis or something like that. Younger people wanna listen to different things, like Taylor Swift.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Whenever I go to the gym with friends, it's always one guy brings a Bluetooth speaker and I'm like, God, do I have to listen to what you're listening to? Because he gets stoked for it. And I put my noise canceling headphones.

[Co-host]

In and I have to turn the.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Volume up because I want slightly different music. So I guess my question is this has to be music that we choose, that we like, right?

[Co-host]

It can't just be. There is music in general playing and it all has the same effect on everyone. The person who loves Elvis is probably gonna have a better effect than the person who likes EDM but is subjected to Elvis.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is that accurate?

[Daniel Levitin]

Absolutely. You're the A student. Yet again. It has to be music you like. And you can't say, oh well, classical is better or Elvis is king and he's better than Billie Eilish. We can leave that argument to musicologists. But if you're talking about brain effects, what your brain cares about is what it likes. And so for Parkinson's patient, if the tempo's right, it could be heavy metal or country or Tuvan throat singing. None of that matters. And same with an exercise workout or painkilling. And so we don't think of it in terms of genre of music or artists. Mozart is not special. Sorry to burst the bubble. That whole Mozart effect was bad pseudoscience.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What was that? Is that the baby thing, where it's.

[Co-host]

Like, you gotta play this to your baby and they come out smarter? Is that what you're talking about?

[Daniel Levitin]

Yeah, that's not true.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But what do babies hear in the womb?

[Co-host]

Do we know that?

[Daniel Levitin]

Yeah, we do. By the age of 20 weeks, the auditory system of the developing fetus is fully functional. They hear through amniotic fluid, which is somewhat like for us to listen underwater. If you're at a pool and there's music blasting, you'll notice you hear mostly the low frequencies, the notes, the percussion. The infant brain is wiring itself up to the sounds that it heard in the womb. I suppose you could say it's a womb with a view.

[Co-host]

Do you use that in every interview or are we special?

[Daniel Levitin]

No, you're special.

[Co-host]

Thank you.

[Daniel Levitin]

It's funny, they're wiring themselves up to the bass notes and to the rhythms. And there was a very clever experiment done by Alexandra Lamont in England many years ago where she had expectant mothers play music to their unborn children. And then a year later she came back and played tracks from those same albums to the now one year olds a year and three months later, let's say. And some of the tracks she played were ones they had heard, some of them were by the same artist that they hadn't heard. And the one year olds showed a marked preference for the music they had heard in the womb and not heard since. Really?

[Co-host]

That's interesting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That is shocking, I suppose, just because.

[Co-host]

The idea that the baby would internalize.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That, remember that at some level, from.

[Co-host]

Being just in utero, when they can.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Only hear the underwater version, now they're.

[Co-host]

Hearing the higher fidelity version. It's quite amazing because the time in the brain development and the fact that it would have sounded totally different, they still had a preference for that same track is crazy. Actually, really impressive.

[Daniel Levitin]

Brains are impressive.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And that's one of the reasons why.

[Co-host]

We do so many shows about the brain, is the more I learn about the brain, the more I'm just like, okay, we were designed by aliens or something. This is just too incredible.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is there a cutoff for learning in neuroplasticity for kids?

[Co-host]

I know this is not directly on topic, the whole language thing, like, if you don't learn it when you're a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Kid, you're never going to learn it.

[Co-host]

And all that stuff.

[Daniel Levitin]

There's a phrase in developmental psychology called critical period, and that refers to a kind of a hard stop. If you don't learn something by a certain point, you never learn it. And language and music are not like that. They're more like a sensitive period. They're a statistical distribution, meaning that most people have to learn some kind of language before a certain age or they never learn to speak. There have been these unfortunate, tragic events where a baby was locked in a closet.

[Co-host]

Yeah. Or feral children.

[Daniel Levitin]

Yeah, exactly right. And if you don't learn to speak before, I mean, there are arguments about what age it is, but let's say it's 8 to 10 and you're finally rescued and they try to teach you language, that window has closed. You'll never learn to speak in complete sentences. I'm not a veld monopsychologist. It might be six to 10, but it's a hard stop. But we see it in our own lives in a more gentle way, which is that if you try to learn a foreign language before the age of, say, 14, give or take a couple of years, you might very well learn to speak it without an accent and to become fluent just by osmosis, just by hearing it spoken in the home. We have lots of cases of bilinguals, trilinguals, multilingual kids who grew up in a multigenerational household speaking five languages, and they're equally fluent in all five by age 10, let's say there's no additional cost for having learned more than one language. But if you and I were to try to learn Japanese right now, at our age, it would be a whole lot of work, and we might be able to, at some point, speak like a diplomat, which is what our ambassadorial service do. I mean, they send them to these training camps so they can become ambassadors to countries where they don't speak the language, but they'll always speak with an accent. The accent has to be within this sensitive window. And the same is true with music. If you don't hear music before a certain age, you're never going to understand.

[Co-host]

Oh, wow, that's fascinating, but that would be hard to detest.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Good luck.

[Co-host]

Finding a kid that hasn't heard music.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Although I guess feral children, haven't heard.

[Co-host]

Music, haven't heard a language, or deaf.

[Daniel Levitin]

Children who suddenly have their hearing restored.

[Co-host]

That makes sense.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Duh.

[Daniel Levitin]

Cochlear implant or something that makes way.

[Co-host]

More sense and is way less sad. The opposite. The cochlear implant thing is actually like a miraculous piece of technology.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Do you know how they work? Because I'm always mystified at how this.

[Co-host]

Thing on the outside of your head just tells your brain what you're hearing. It's like a fake ear. It's just amazing.

[Daniel Levitin]

Cochlear implants have to be implanted early. They have rather mixed results for adults who go deaf. But what's happening is the way the ear works is your eardrum vibrates in and out, and that causes activity inside a structure that's coiled up like a snail shell called the cochlea. And there are hair cells, neurons that fire along. If you were to unwrap that thing and make it flat at one end of it, there are neurons that respond to low frequencies and the other end, high frequencies. And it's sort of laid out like a piano keyboard. And when a high frequency light comes in, this one vibrates. And if it's a low frequency, like this one vibrates, and they send electrochemical messages on up to the brain. If that whole apparatus isn't working, but the brain is still working, what they do is they implant electrodes in the brain to receive signals from an external microphone type thing that's inside the ear canal. The problem is that your actual brain has tens of thousands of these neurons. And we can implant a couple of dozen of these little electrodes. And so the voices and the music you hear are not very high resolution. They're like a super bad MP3 that you're hearing from a distance with white noise embedded over it.

[Co-host]

I see. So it's better than not being able to hear at all, because you can hear the car honking or the people talking to you, which is life changing. But you're not suddenly going to be able to hear like you or I through these earbuds. Getting a cochlear implant with today's technology.

[Daniel Levitin]

Right?

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, that makes sense. Cause I was just like, you just put wires in the brain and the.

[Co-host]

Brain goes, ah, I know what to do with these. I mean, that to me is still amazing, frankly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Now back to language learning.

[Co-host]

I speak several foreign languages, none of which I learned as a child. I learned them all after the age of 17. I think German Spanish, Serbian, Mandarin Chinese, and in English. And Nihama. Yeah. Yes, Honal.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So the language thing is it drives.

[Co-host]

Me nuts because I can hear my accent, especially in German where I'm the most fluent, and there's almost kind of nothing I can do about it. I'm very good at imitating voices, I'm very good at imitating accents, doing video game voice characters. I just can't get every single nuanced syllable in a German word unless I practice each one over and over and over and over again. And then when I say them fast.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In different combinations, it just falls apart. But then there'll be a kid who.

[Co-host]

Had a German nanny growing up and is taking German in college and I'm like, oh, you bastard, you sound better than me, even though your vocabulary is a tenth of mine. And so there's definitely something to that. I've been studying Mandarin for about a dozen years. I can read and write. And one of my friends said, no matter how long you study this, people will be able to tell that you're not Chinese.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I had to laugh because I'm pretty sure it's not merely the language.

[Co-host]

Proficiency that's going to give me away as somebody who's not Chinese, but it's.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Just, yeah, you're right. There's this sort of impossible barrier that.

[Co-host]

You just can't cross. My son can speak Mandarin really well. My daughter can understand Mandarin really, really well, Spanish as well.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And they will have a much easier.

[Co-host]

Time, I think, becoming fluent and possibly accent free in those languages just because we've started them so early. I grew up in Michigan. Nobody spoke a foreign language in my house or near me anywhere, pretty much. Maybe some Arabic or something like that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In Persian, but not in my home. It's amazing, though, that your brain can still learn it, but it just can't.

[Co-host]

Mimic it perfectly, which, it's almost like the physical control that your brain has over your ability to speak, it degrades.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Somehow or cuts off somehow. That's the part I don't totally understand because I can still dream in German. I can still think of things completely in German.

[Co-host]

I can still construct grammatically perfect German sentences.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I just can't say the damn words.

[Co-host]

In the way that Germans do.

[Daniel Levitin]

You could work as actors do with a speech coach and you could learn to do a much, much better job. And some diplomats, if they need to, they get this training. It's very intensive, takes a lot of work. Things that would have come effortlessly to you as an 8 year old are going to be a lot of work. It's not impossible. And you can get pretty darn good. I think that a real native speaker will still notice, just in the way that you, as a Michiganer, somebody in New York will probably predict you're from the Midwest.

[Co-host]

Yeah, they always say Canada, but yeah, it's basically.

[Daniel Levitin]

I mean, there's a little subtle thing about the vowels. I have a weird accent because I spent 40 years in California, but 20 years in Canada.

[Co-host]

Oh, yeah.

[Daniel Levitin]

And I used to have the neutral broadcaster San Francisco accent, which was the canonic American accent that all the broadcasters wanted. I was born into that. But 20 years of Canada ruined it. And people say people can hear it. You can train and get so much better that it would be that subtle. What's happening, though, in the brain is that in the early years of life, the primary mission of the brain is to learn as much as it can about the environment it's in, because it doesn't know what it's going to need. So at the age of four, a toddler can learn any of the world's languages. It doesn't matter which country they were born in. It doesn't matter what their genetics is. And they can learn it natively. And so let's talk about the Japanese RL distinction. Japanese don't make that distinction. We do. In certain Indian dialects, they have a different D. There's a fronto dental D. So they wouldn't say Delhi as in New Delhi. They would say Delhi. New Delhi. I can make it. I can't really hear the difference. I learned to make it in French. We've got all these different oo sounds. There's oo and there's ooh, and they mean different words. If I say I'm getting a book or I'm getting a buck, it just sounds like I'm saying book with an accent. But in French, it would be something very different. Tu versus different words, different meaning.

[Co-host]

Yeah. Chinese has this because they have tones.

[Daniel Levitin]

They all mean different things. One of them means mother, another means lamp, another means gunpowder. Yeah. But to us, it's the same sound, so the infant can learn it all. But a funny thing happens. Around age 10, the primary mission of the brain shifts to get rid of all that unused capacity to make room for other stuff. And so it starts pruning out unused connections.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's such a bummer.

[Co-host]

But it makes perfect sense. Right, because the child's brain doesn't know where it is. And the environment, as you mentioned, doesn't.

[Daniel Levitin]

Know what it's going to need.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right. So it says, okay, maybe I need really sharp hearing, because that's what we're doing here.

[Co-host]

I need to learn this language. I need to be able to decipher this kind of communication.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I suppose that makes sense why.

[Co-host]

Young kids who are born into traumatic or unstable environments suffer so much throughout their lives, right? Because they essentially prune a lot of neurons that they probably would have needed to, I don't know, go to college and be a successful doctor. But they retain a lot of qualities that keep them safe or alive in an environment where people are doing drugs or there's violence around them, or they don't get food regularly or something like that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What ages does that sort of stop happening? Do we know? Did you tell me this already?

[Daniel Levitin]

It's variable, but say 10 to 14.

[Co-host]

Okay, so similar to the whole language thing as well.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Discounts on the fine products and services that support this show. Music to my ears. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by NordVPN. If you're online without a VPN, you're exposing yourself. And not in the fun way. We've been using NORDVPN for years, and in today's world, VPNs are not optional anymore. Every time we travel, whether it was China, Europe, wherever.

[Co-host]

Nord has actually been a total lifesaver in China. It actually just kept us connected and protected when basically nothing else worked.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Airports, sketchy cafe, WI fi. It's not just hackers you need to worry about. Your own Internet provider could be selling your browsing data to whoever is paying.

[Co-host]

I mean, they are doing that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Plus Nord's got the extra perks. You can switch your virtual location in seconds, which means unlocking sporting events, TV shows, movies. You can't even get here.

[Co-host]

Friends have used it for dating to.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Turn on Tinder in other countries. That's a creative. You can even save money by booking flights in hotels, too. Because airlines and booking sites use dynamic pricing based on IP address.

[Co-host]

And I gotta figure that one out.

[Jordan Harbinger]

NORD is fast. No buffering, no lag. On top of that, the threat protection feature blocks malware, phishing attempts, all the garbage you don't even see coming before it hits your devices. All of this for about the price.

[Co-host]

Of a fancy coffee each month.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And you can protect up to 10 devices. Phones, laptops, tablets, your whole digital life locked down.

[Advertiser]

To get the best discount off your NORDVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com jordanharbinger Our link will also give you four extra months on the two year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee. The link is in the Podcast episode description box.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This episode is also sponsored by IQ Bar, Something I literally just ate. IQ Mix is a zero sugar drink mix from IQ Bar that hydrates, boosts your mood and promotes mental clarity. Anyone who knows me knows staying hydrated kind of a thing. Really boring thing to have, but whatever. Not as boring as plain water. And when you're out there rucking seven miles in the hot sun with a 60 pound pack strapped to your back, yes, that's a flex. Just drinking water isn't enough to put you back together. That's where IQ Mix from IQ Bar comes in. It's a zero sugar drink mix loaded with three times the electrolytes of your average sports drink. It's what plants crave. None of the junk, no sugar, no gluten, no soy, no GMOs. It's even vegan and kosher. For those of you keeping score, my go to flavor is pina colada. But they've also got passion fruit, lemon lime, peach, mango pink lemonade, Raspberry lemonade. All of those are actually quite good. But IQ Mix is not just about tasting better, it's about performing better. It's packed with magnesium L threonate, which.

[Co-host]

I take a ton of lion's mane.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So you get clean energy, real mental clarity without hammering down four coffees. That's my usual method if I'm 100% honest. No surprise. They've got over 20,000 five star reviews.

[Advertiser]

And right now IQ Bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off all IQ Bar products. Plus get free shipping. To get your 20% off, text Jordan to 64,000. Text Jordan to 64,000. That's Jordan to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, researchers, scientists, creators every single week, it is because of my network. The circle of people I know, like and trust. I'm teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself [e-mail] this is a course. It's a free course. It's not a schmoozy course. There's no upsells in the course. It won't make you or other people cringe when you use the tactics. It's very practical. A few minutes a day is all it takes. Many of the guests on the show.

[Co-host]

Subscribe and contribute to this course.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong you can find it again. It's free. No tricky stuff. Sixminutenetworking.com all right, back to Daniel Levitin. I'd love to talk about music and pain relief because the pain relieving effect.

[Co-host]

Of music is fascinating. You touched on this earlier.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But if we're listening to music and.

[Co-host]

It can help with pain, can it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Help with not just workout pain, the.

[Co-host]

Burn and the muscle. I just had back surgery, now I'm on oxycontin. Do I need less oxycontin if I'm playing some good jams?

[Daniel Levitin]

Probably.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Really?

[Daniel Levitin]

Yes. And you may not need oxycontin at all, depending on how bad the pain is. You might need Tylenol or ibuprofen. Advil. The brain releases its own opiates in smaller amounts than pharmaceutical levels. It has to be music you like. One thing that music can do, again, it's a Swiss army knife. Different music maybe will relieve pain for you. Then we'll relieve anxiety. But a lot of times pain is exacerbated by anxiety or stress. We become more sensitive to it. The mechanisms are still being worked out, but they're at a sufficient point that I wrote my new book. I heard there was a secret chord.

[Co-host]

Links in the show notes.

[Daniel Levitin]

In the UK it's called Music as Medicine, but it's the same book, different title. I wrote it now because I've been working with the National Institutes of Health and the White House science office for 10 years. And there really is a body of literature that not only shows that all these things work, but something in the underlying mechanisms. We can talk about the neurochemical signaling, we can talk about the brain, the biology of the brain that's involved. And we've seen clinical studies, randomized controlled clinical trials like you would with a new drug where music really can work. But again, not in every case. A friend of mine just got a terrible gastrointestinal infection from eating bad food in Pakistan.

[Co-host]

Oh my gosh, that sounds horrific.

[Daniel Levitin]

So it goes to the doctor when he gets back. It was awful. The doctor says, oh, well, take this antibiotic. He's had to take five different antibiotics, you know, and if you get strep throat, they'll give you an antibiotic. It doesn't always work. So medicine doesn't always work and music doesn't either. It's a trial and error. But I'm mentioning it because it's not like some wonder drug that's gonna solve all our problems on the one hand. But on the other hand, it's about the same as other Drugs. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is there an addiction treatment angle for.

[Co-host]

People who are hooked on things like opioids? Can we use music and addiction programs to help this? Or is it just that by the time you're addicted to oxycontin, what the body produces is not gonna ever be enough?

[Daniel Levitin]

Music is a part of a lot of addiction recovery centers now, whether it's AA or Narcotics Anonymous or various treatment programs. Yes, music is a part of this, and it's a part of it for different reasons. It's not just the release of endogenous opioids, but the dopamine that motivates you to want to get better and follow healthful practices.

[Co-host]

I know that shamans and medicine people throughout history, throughout the ages, have used music as part of ceremonies, as part of healing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Did you manage to research that at all?

[Co-host]

I mean, it seems like an obvious connection. They obviously knew music did something back then, and maybe some of it was just to show how serious the ceremony was. But from what I've heard from friends, when you do something like psychedelics or some sort of medicine journey, there's a lot of music and drums and banging and things that go along with some of these ceremonies, and they're there for a reason.

[Daniel Levitin]

So you're asking the question that any serious scientist would ask. How do you fractionate out the effects of the music versus the dance and the community? If you could assign a percentage, how much is attributed to the music per se versus these other paramusical aspects? And it's hard to say. It's very hard to come up with a controlled experiment. So in the shamanistic tradition, either contemporarily or 20 or 40,000 years ago, it was almost always the case that there was a large group of people. There was a leader, the faith healer, who was a very revered person in the community, who had special knowledge and special skills. There were often herbal supplements, one kind or another, and the dancing and the community, and it would go on for hours. There were typically trance states induced. So we try to do these experiments where we'll give people music or not music, and we'll give it to them with dance or not dance. But what's a control for dance that involves body movement that isn't dancing? And what's a control for a large group of people that are really pulling for you to bring a bunch of your enemies together and have them sing songs that they, you know, Ding dong, the witch is dead. Get out of here. It's very complicated to partition these out, but the Fact is that the way we use music now in clinics and VA hospitals and even for self remedy is that just listening or playing seems to have a substantial and statistically significant effect.

[Co-host]

That's really good news and very fascinating. I do want to separate the sound healing from what we're talking about right now. I want to separate music and therapy from nonsense pseudoscience like, this bowl produces.

[Jordan Harbinger]

A frequency that will shrink your tumor. Can we do that briefly?

[Daniel Levitin]

Yeah. So I'm a scientist as well as a musician, and when I'm wearing my scientist hat, I just want to see what the data have to say. And I go in with no preconceptions. The data are there to tell a story. My job is to figure out what the story is. My job is also not to be distracted by shiny things and stories that don't fit the data. So I have been part of sound baths and I've been to particular sound baths that play Tibetan bowls or crystal alchemy glass bowls. And they're very emotionally moving.

[Co-host]

I agree.

[Daniel Levitin]

Spiritually moving. I have a friend named Geralyn Glass who runs a therapy practice. She has a company called Crystal Cadence. I brought her to perform in front of directors from, I think there's 27 institutes of the National Institutes of Health. A year ago, the director of the NIH was there and a lot of scientists, and I would say all of us were very moved. Now, if you ask her what she's doing, she'll say, well, and I'm going to get this wrong. This bowl is tuned to C sharp. And so it's supposed to lift your mood. And this B flat bowl is for treating this and that. And the A bowl that's made out of this particular crushed gemstone thing is supposed to treat anxiety. I don't believe that any of that's true. I also don't believe that when a great pianist like Horowitz or Kissin or Lisa de Rocha or whoever it is, when they're playing a difficult piece, you'll see them do this.

[Co-host]

They're waving the hand in front of the face. Yeah. For people who aren't watching, they're waving the hand off to the side in a circular motion.

[Daniel Levitin]

So after they release a note, their hand will sort of go off into the air in some grand gesture. Now, the physics of the piano is that once your fingers have hit the keys, the way you release it has no impact on the sound at all. And what you do with your hand after has nothing to do with it. But maybe it has something to do with the mood they're in, or the embodiment of the emotion or something. But I think it's mostly for the audience's benefit that they do these grand gestures with their hands. They can believe anything they want to believe. I've met really wonderful musicians who think that the music is in their fingers, not in their brains. And I have to say, well, if we scoop your brain out of your head, you're not going to be able to play anymore. And they say, oh, yes, I would, because it's in my fingers. I say, no, you wouldn't.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I can't believe they argue with you on this.

[Co-host]

It's a bold argument.

[Daniel Levitin]

I play music. I work with musicians who are brilliant. And I don't want to say anything that's going to interfere with their process. How they get there in a way that will move me and make me remember a performance for 40 years or transform my mood for a week or more. I don't care how they get there. And so when we're talking about the bowls, if a bowl player believes that this frequency is going to have that effect, whether it has that effect on me or not, it's having some effect. But I do want to say there is no science at all that says that particular frequencies are associated with particular mood states or particular therapeutic things. And there's this whole pseudoscientific nonsense about how you have to listen to 438HZ tuned music instead of 440 or 432. It's a magic number. And if you look at 432 and you multiply it, it's the distance between here and the moon and it's the number of seconds that it takes the earth to revolve around the sun. And it's the heartbeat of your cells or some nonsense. It's. No, it's none of those things.

[Co-host]

I also don't have a problem with going to a Tibetan sound bath with.

[Jordan Harbinger]

A group of friends. After we went on a hike.

[Co-host]

We did this recently. I was in Laos and it was like, oh, this person's gonna play the bull.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It was relaxing.

[Co-host]

I slept well afterwards. Might have slept well anyway. Cause I hiked all day. But it doesn't matter. The only beef I have with this stuff is where people go.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You don't need harmful drugs.

[Co-host]

That's Western medicine. Or you don't need big pharma to pump you full of chemotherapy. You just need to listen to this sound and it will help you. That is where this stuff gets dangerous. When people stop looking for real health cures. Or get confused between what is actually effective medicine for a thing that can kill them or hurt them. That's where I sort of have to draw the line. I'm not trying to rain on people's parade because they have a brass bowl in their living room that has a little thing that they like to do in the evening that's harmless. It's a fun hobby. Go for it.

[Daniel Levitin]

But if you're going to use that as a cure for cancer instead of using medicine. You and I talked about this eight years ago or so when we were talking about my book, A Field Guide to Lies. And I remember the conversation, and my recollection is that we talked about. And I think you were provoking me by using the term Western medicine.

[Co-host]

Sure.

[Daniel Levitin]

There's not two kinds of medicine. There's not Western medicine and alternative medicine. There's just medicine. If something's been shown to work, we call it medicine. If it's not been shown to work, there are some people out there who will call it alternative medicine, but it's not an alternative. If we knew that it worked, it would not be an alternative. It would just be plain old medicine. So this is what killed Steve Jobs?

[Co-host]

Yes.

[Daniel Levitin]

Steve Jobs got pancreatic cancer, and he went to this charlatan named Dean Ornish who said, oh, I can fix that with yoga and diet, and maybe there were bowls involved, I don't know. And, you know, it killed him. He was going to die anyway. But he put all his faith in this weird thing, and when he changed his mind and saw it wasn't working, it was way too late for him to use actual treatments.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Did he have a really bad prognosis?

[Co-host]

Because I swear I read somewhere that he had a very treatable cancer initially, and it just spread because he didn't do anything real to treat it.

[Daniel Levitin]

I haven't looked into this in 10 years, but I know that he didn't like what the doctors told him.

[Co-host]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Daniel Levitin]

So he found another doctor.

[Co-host]

Yes, air quotes.

[Daniel Levitin]

Who told him what he wanted to hear.

[Co-host]

Dangerous.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Dangerous. Tell me about music and memories. I find that I will listen to.

[Co-host]

A song and immediately be transported back to a time where, I don't know, maybe that song was popular when I lived in Germany, or maybe it was popular when I went to my high school prom or something like that. And you get those feelings come back, they come rushing back. That's why so many couples have a song. Things like that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is music generally anchored somehow to memories?

[Daniel Levitin]

Very much so. Not all music, but music that's Associated with a particular time and place. And this is what Marcel Proust was writing about when he wrote about the madeleines, the cookies, or what we write about with smells, particular odors. If there's an odor that's ubiquitous and familiar to you and part of your life every day, that won't do anything, but every once in a while you get a whiff. My grandmother used a very particular soap. I associated that smell with her. And when she died, she had two or three unused bars of this soap. And she died in 1987. And I would use the soap now and then and it would instantly bring back a flood of memories of what she was like and what it was like to be with her. And it's because our senses are a trigger for memories. And most everything that you've experienced is in your memory system somewhere. The trick is to pull it out from all the things that are in there. And so you need something unique. The nature of music, at least in the last 60 years or so, is that we have popular music. We have songs that get played a lot for a relatively short period of time. Oh yeah, and Happy Birthday in the national anthem. Things like that, where you hear them all the time, they can invoke certain memories, but they're less likely to thank that song you heard the summer you were 13, or the song that was playing when you had your first kiss, or the song that was playing in that new country you were living in. Those get attached to the memories and all the sights and sounds and people and events are attached. Memory is multifactorial. It's pictures, it's sounds, it's smells, it's tastes, it's touch.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Does it work for bad things as well as, oh, I remember this song. I loved it. We used to play it in college and go cruise around in the car and meet girls.

[Co-host]

Does it also function for bad things? Can you hear a song and you're like, oh, this was when my parents got divorced, this song was on the radio.

[Daniel Levitin]

Yeah, absolutely. It absolutely works for that. And a lot of people who have had traumas, if there was music playing or a sound, a non musical sound, the trauma can be re invoked or relived or experienced through the sound. This is why soldiers who come back from the war with ptsd, if a car backfires, they duck for cover instinctively. And it can put them in a hyper vigilant and traumatized state for days or weeks or years that they can't escape from just ordinary environmental noises. The wrong song comes on. Same thing.

[Co-host]

Yeah. One of my earlier memories that I'll never forget, because I'd never seen anything like this. A friend's dad was driving us to lacrosse practice. This is sometime in the early 90s.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And we were stopped at a red.

[Co-host]

Light, and the cars behind us started to honk. And my friend was like, dad, go. And he froze. And he goes, you guys hear that? And we were like, yeah, the horns. He goes, no, you guys hear that? He had been in Vietnam, and he got so triggered by this helicopter that was quite loud, and it was low, so it was really extra loud. And he just froze, and he forgot where he was. Seemingly, he didn't know anything about what was going on in that particular moment. I emailed my friend about this, and I said, do you remember that? And he goes, that definitely checks out as something that would have happened with my dad.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So that was really disturbing.

[Daniel Levitin]

Well, of course, in a dangerous zone, a low helicopter can mean the matter of life or death. It could be somebody coming to rescue you. It could be somebody coming to kill you. And you have to freeze and take an assessment of the situation that really could kill you. And that moment, it's so horrible. The decision you have to make, Do I run towards it? Do I run away from it? Is this friendly or is this enemy? It can be paralyzing. Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That was one of those things where.

[Co-host]

I just remember looking at my friend and being like, what the hell, dude? And he was just like, I don't know, whatever. And I remember his mom drove us the next time, and we were like.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What was that about?

[Co-host]

And she was like, oh, yeah, something about Vietnam. And it happens. It's very rare. But he never drove us to lacrosse practice again. I have a feeling when I told my parents, they were probably like, look, they're not letting my kid in the car with you. I mean, I feel bad for him. Obviously, this is something that affected him deeply, But I just found that to be so strange. And it makes sense that the trauma and that sound are linked. I hope he's in a better place now, because helicopters are everywhere.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All right, if music can do, all of this can help us recall good.

[Co-host]

Memories, bad memories, help us calm down, help us get amped up. If music can do all that, why doesn't Spotify take my heart rate and physiological stress levels from my Apple watch or my Oura ring and suggest something to calm me down or to help my workout get better? I feel like Daniel Ek needs to get on this.

[Daniel Levitin]

They will. They are working on it. Are they?

[Co-host]

Okay.

[Daniel Levitin]

And Apple has Apple music that Makes sense. In the foreseeable future, you will be able to opt in to letting the streaming service you listen to music on communicate with your aura ring or your smartwatch, your smart device, and maybe it'll alert you and say, hey, your blood pressure's getting a little high. Would you like me to play you relaxing music? Or maybe you'll opt into the automatic. Whether you want it to or not, it'll start playing you relaxing music to lower your heart rate. And we know there is music that can do that in general for most people most of the time, but we also know there's music that does it particularly for you. They already know this, I'm sure, or could know it if they wanted to, because many of us have these devices that are monitoring. So I imagine a world in which music as medicine becomes invisible to us. Oh, you're on your way to the gym. The GPS knows you're on the way to the gym. It knows from past activity that you're about to get on the treadmill and also knows that that cup of coffee you had this morning didn't really do the trick. You're a little bit sleepy. And so it'll play you AC DC or Van Halen or whatever pumps you up in the car on the way to the gym. And then you get there and it'll keep playing it. You've had a fight with somebody and it'll know what music will calm you and the horizon. And we haven't used the two letters AI yet. I think what AI can do for us here is whatever music might be relaxing to you today may not always relax you all the time because your brain is constantly changing. Different events and different physiological occurrences can lead you to have different kinds of anxiety, let's say. And so ideally, what AI would do is it would start with a tried and true. This always calms Jordan down. And monitor in real time whether it's actually calming you down. And if it's not, it would get something else from your playlist or There are now 200 million songs across all the streaming services. It would find something you haven't heard that could become your new go to thing and test it in real time, see whether your body really reacts.

[Co-host]

Seems like AI could actually just make music that it knows I will like in that moment.

[Daniel Levitin]

Probably could.

[Co-host]

Yeah, that'll be interesting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I think it's quite fascinating that music.

[Co-host]

Therapy is not only effective because, let's say it's pleasurable, it actually is doing something in the brain.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You mentioned the immune system in the.

[Co-host]

Book you mentioned that music discovery can affect our immune system. What's going on with music discovery and our immune system? Why would we even evolve something like that, that ability?

[Daniel Levitin]

The why question with evolution is always tricky. We know that music can affect the immune system in several ways. Listening to pleasurable music can increase levels of immunoglobulin A, an important antibody that travels to the site of mucosal infections and help fights them off. We know that music that is pleasurable to you can increase the production of natural killer cells and T cells, also important for fighting disease and infection. Some music can lead to reductions in inflammation. Why music does this and why the immune system responds to it, we don't know. But it does. And so evolutionary reason, my guess is that we evolved over tens of thousands of years with music, and music co evolved with us so that the kinds of music we made and gravitated towards was the kind of music that made us feel good and was a sort of iterative process where one changes and the other changes in response to it. So they co evolved.

[Co-host]

I mean, music is ancient. I suppose it makes some sense.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It just is sort of mystifying to me.

[Co-host]

Why we would integrate that music so thoroughly into our brains. I just don't understand. And I suppose maybe we never will.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I've heard people who stutter normally don't.

[Co-host]

Always stutter when singing. What's going on here?

[Daniel Levitin]

So stuttering, like Parkinson's, is a motor disorder. It's a failure to regulate movements in a particular order and at a particular time. People who stutter are unable to get the words out in the right order and at the right time. The thing about music is that it has its own intrinsic tempo to it. Language, normal spoken language, doesn't. We sort of say things the way we want, when we want, but when we're singing, there's a time when the word has to come. And so if you can sing and not have any disfluency, it's because of music's internal clock that carries you along with it. So Elvis Presley, who we talked about earlier, was famously a stutterer. When he spoke, he didn't stutter when he sang, he also acted, but he probably, when he was acting, memorized the script with a certain cadence. James Earl Jones, the actor, is very disfluent and stutters when he gives interviews. But when he's in a role, like in Star wars or many of the other great roles he had, he has to be able to memorize the script with a cadence and work out ahead of time. What the rhythm will be. And once he does that, these rhythmic circuits in the brain, which are separate from the language circuits, take over. They effectively hijack the speech system and you're in the music mode.

[Co-host]

It seems like a miracle. And my mom was a speech therapist. I know teaching people how to manage a stutter is very tricky. It doesn't always stick. It's easier when they're kids, going back to what we discussed earlier in the show. So this seems like a really good insight into how to get around something like that or manage something like that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about Tourette's?

[Co-host]

You mentioned this in the book as well. There's a similar effect here as well.

[Daniel Levitin]

Tourette's is by definition a motor disorder characterized by tics, unwanted movements. There are some versions of Tourette's that include swearing uncontrollably. And at least with the tics, musicians who have Tourette's, such as Billie Eilish, the tics almost disappear when they're performing again, because the music system, in the way that singers can bypass the speech system, the music system takes over the motor system in its service, in the service of playing music. And so the tics disappear, and it's an island of respite for them. They may not disappear completely, but they're certainly reduced.

[Co-host]

That's incredible. So it must feel so good for somebody who is constantly suffering from these tics to play music and sing as much as possible.

[Daniel Levitin]

Yeah, it does.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Man, that Tourette's stuff is fascinating. What many of you may not know is that I also have Tourette's, but it doesn't happen when I'm podcasting. How weird is that? F cking shit. F cking balls. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Northwest Registered Agent. Starting a business shouldn't feel like taking the bar exam. With Northwest Registered Agent, you can build your business in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Seriously. And you get more than just a company name on paper. You get your whole business identity set up the right way, right out the gate. Northwest has been helping people launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. If you want to build your business and protect your privacy at the same time, this is the move. In just 10 clicks and 10 minutes, they'll form your business. Create a custom website, set up your local presence wherever you need it, whether that's your home state or across the country. Form your business for just $39 plus state fees, and you're backed by real business experts, not a chatbot. Northwest is a one stop business solution. Formation, paperwork, custom domains, trademark registration, all in one, clean, easy to use account. Northwest also protects your identity. They'll use their address on your Formation documents instead of yours, so your private life stays private. They even offer premium mail forwarding, giving you a real physical business address totally separate from your personal info.

[Advertiser]

Don't wait, protect your privacy, build your brand and set up your business in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com jordan and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered [e-mail] Jordan.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This episode is also sponsored by Notion. Ever feel like you're spending more time managing email than actually getting work done? We've been using Notion for years to keep our production calendar organized, and now Notion Mail is saving us a ton of time and helping me focus on what actually matters. Like a lot of you, I kind of live in my inbox sometimes, responding to questions, scheduling interviews, chasing down opportunities. But email management hasn't really changed in decades. It's tedious, cluttered, constantly pulling you off task. Notion Mail fixes that. You tell it what's important. It automatically sorts and labels your emails as they come in. I love the custom Views feature. You can split your inbox by topic, urgency, sender, whatever keeps you locked in and distraction free. And for the repetitive stuff like intros, thank yous, scheduling links, Notion Mail has one click snippets that make flying through emails ridiculously fast. And since it's fully integrated with Notion everything, your notes, your docs, your calendar finally works together just the way it should.

[Advertiser]

Get Notion mail for free right [e-mail] jorphdan and try the inbox at thinkslikeyou. That's all lowercase letters. Notion.comjordan to get notion mail for free right now, when you use our link, you're supporting our show. Notion.comjordan this episode is sponsored in part by Airbnb.

[Co-host]

I gotta give a shout out to Brian McDonald, who listens to the show and absolutely hooked me up in Vietnam. Recently Brian runs A Taste of Hanoi.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I had this layover in Hanoi.

[Co-host]

And he's like I got you set me up with one of his guides for a motorbike food tour in Hanoi, which is awesome. Now if you've never been in the back of a motorbike in Vietnam, it's something, man.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You're weaving through scooters in traffic like.

[Co-host]

A video game where you can actually.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Die and then all of a sudden.

[Co-host]

We'Re inside someone's house.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Literally inside.

[Co-host]

We rode the motorbike I'll tell you here.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The guide pulls into what looks like an alley, ok, but it turns into a hallway. And then he turns around, grins, and.

[Co-host]

Goes, okay, put your hands on my shoulders, duck your head down, pull your knees all the way in. The next thing I know, we're riding through someone's living room, not even kidding. Like actually someone's living room, to get to this little courtyard kitchen where this auntie is making pho that'll just ruin your life.

[Jordan Harbinger]

No pho will ever taste as good.

[Co-host]

And Vietnamese egg coffee upstairs on the balcony. I don't even know how to describe it. It's like tiramisu and espresso. Had a beautiful caffeinated baby.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Short trip, chaotic. Absolutely incredible.

[Co-host]

And I can't wait to go back and bring Jen next time because I know she's gonna love it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And next time we'll put our place on Airbnb to help fund the adventure. You can too. Airbnb makes it super practical.

[Co-host]

It doesn't take a lot of effort. You set it up before you leave and then, boom.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Your house is earning money while you're on vacation and making memories. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how [e-mail] host if you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support the amazing sponsors who make the show possible. All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support the show are searchable and Clickable over at jordanharbinger.com deals if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code, go ahead and email me. I'm happy to surface codes for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Daniel Levitin.

[Co-host]

What about ms? Multiple sclerosis in music? I've got friends who've had this. It's something that scared a lot of us because we were all getting older and some of my friends just suddenly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Had symptoms of this. Can you describe what this is and.

[Co-host]

What it does to your body?

[Daniel Levitin]

Multiple sclerosis is a neurodegenerative disease that attacks the myelin, which is the insulating sheath around the neurons. Neurons are sending electrical signals, and like the wiring in your house or in that microphone that's in front of you, they need to be insulated so they don't short circuit or arc. The wires in your home have rubber around them or some rubberized plastic or insulating material. Wires as it were in your brain have myelin. Which is a fatty white substance. And that's why we call it white matter. It's after the white insulating sheath. When that sheath becomes degraded due to the disease, it causes a lot of things. Memory trouble. Your neurons are not speaking to each other properly. Memory trouble, movement disorders, fatigue. And music plays a role there in all of them, but for different reasons. Music motivates you through the dopaminergic system. So help you get over the fatigue. It can help with memory problems. To the extent that music can serve as a cue for some memory. And in the way of Parkinson's. It can help people with Ms. To walk and move more continuously and speak better.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's very scary.

[Co-host]

I've read some research that this comes from the same virus that causes mononucleosis. Which I had that in college.

[Daniel Levitin]

Epstein Barr virus. Yes.

[Co-host]

So I think I got it from, like, I don't know, Going abroad and kissing girls in bars or something in Panama, who knows?

[Daniel Levitin]

They called it the kissing disease.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Daniel Levitin]

Because it was transmitted by saliva.

[Co-host]

Yeah. That is just really scary. Why do some people get this and other people don't?

[Daniel Levitin]

Do you know I'm not an epidemiologist.

[Co-host]

Right.

[Daniel Levitin]

Caveat. And I'm not a physician. I'm just a simple country neuroscientist. But what I do know about Epstein Barr Is that if you were to test the entire population. Something like 90% of us would have Epstein Barr antibodies.

[Co-host]

I see.

[Daniel Levitin]

Even still now you would have them. The question is whether you become symptomatic. So, mononucleosis, Epstein Barr. Far as I know. Same virus. Mononucleosis is a manifestation of the virus. Some people have a recurrence of it later in life. The mono can come back 10 or 15, 20 years later. Sometimes it's diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome. Sometimes it can become narcolepsy. If there are other factors. But most of us are able to live with it and keep it in check. Some of us can't. We don't really understand the body's ability to fight these invaders very well.

[Co-host]

I see.

[Daniel Levitin]

Which is why long Covid is still a thing. We haven't figured that out. Some people get it, some don't. Seems not to be particularly related to which strain of COVID you got. Or how severe your case was. So Captain Kirk used to say, space the final frontier.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Daniel Levitin]

I think the brain is the final frontier.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Daniel Levitin]

It's a vast, undiscovered, uncharted territory.

[Co-host]

It can be a little bit scary. For those of us that are up in our 40s and stuff happening to our friends, and it just. It starts to get real.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You mentioned with the stuttering and the.

[Co-host]

Tourette's, that there's almost an alternative pathway in the brain for some of these things. I think a decade ago or so, we talked about paradoxical kinesia, so how an old grandma can fly into action and maybe move super fast in an emergency, or how someone can lift a car off of their baby if it's trapped under the car.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is this the same kind of thing? How does this work?

[Daniel Levitin]

No, I think this is different. I think that is attributed to a sudden burst of adrenaline and some other factors. We're not talking about adrenaline here in a fight or flight emergency response. I think a better analogy is what happened with Gabrielle Giffords, the congresswoman from Arizona, shot in the Head in 2011. And she was shot. The bullet entered a part of the brain that is involved in speech, Broca's area. And she could not speak after the injury, but she learned to speak. And you can hear her give speeches now in 2025. And she sounds quite fluent. She used what was a technique called melodic intonation therapy. It turned out she. This has been well known for a hundred years. Some people who can't speak can still sing. And so she was taught to sing things, simple things, but necessary things, like show me to the bathroom or I need a glass of water. And by repeating these songs in the intact music system, the musical circuitry is separate from the speech circuitry. You're still making very similar movements with the jaw and the lips and the tongue and the larynx, but it's music, so it's a different system. And this gets to a fascinating evolutionary issue, which is the brain wasn't designed. It's a Swiss army knife that evolved to solve a bunch of different adaptive problems. And so there's a speech system that evolved separately from the music system. And of course, if you were to design it now, you'd design it entirely differently. You'd make them a single system. Why wouldn't they be? They use a lot of the same capacities, a lot of the same operations, but they evolved separately. For that matter, the neurochemical system that evolved. There are a hundred different neurochemicals. Crazy. You don't need 100 neurochemicals. And by the way, the neurochemicals don't do anything themselves. We say a dopamine motivates you and oxytocin makes you feel bonded. That's a very sloppy shorthand. Okay, Your Listeners are going to hear this first because most neuroscientists won't tell you this. What they do is there are circuits in the brain that relax you. Circuits that make you feel bonded to other people, circuits that motivate you. Those circuits evolve separately from one another. And it just so happens that they evolved so that a very particular neurochemical binds with receptors and activates the opening of those circuits. So we think of it as like a key and a lock.

[Co-host]

Yes, a key. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Daniel Levitin]

But if you were to design it from scratch, you might only need four neurochemicals.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Huh?

[Daniel Levitin]

An excitatory one that is short acting like adrenaline. It doesn't stay around for a long time. An inhibitory one that's short acting. And then a long acting excitatory and inhibitory. Long acting things like immune function. Yeah, four neurochemicals would do the trick. But we have 100.

[Co-host]

Wow. All because they evolved separately at different times, different ways. So it's just redundant.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But hey, it works out for somebody.

[Co-host]

Who has a little bit of brain damage, right, because they can use that other system to communicate in ways that the other system is now damaged. So is that why if someone has a stroke similar to a gunshot wound to the head, they can maybe sing what they need, or sing communication and something along those lines as opposed to speaking if they can't speak anymore.

[Daniel Levitin]

There are a lot of demonstrations of this and some recent work being done at UC Berkeley by Robert Knight, my colleague there, where a patient came in just recently who had a stroke and spoke in what we would call a word salad. He could not say the words to Happy Birthday. When he tried, he said words that didn't belong in it. And he couldn't get full words out. And he was like, closet.

[Co-host]

Okay. Poor guy.

[Daniel Levitin]

But he could sing Happy Birthday perfectly fine. And so Bob Knight taught him. You know, the guy is a grandfather. He likes going to the meat counter, the butcher, to order pork loin. So Bob taught him a little song. Go to the meat counter, sing the song when you want to order pork loin. Because you can't speak to the butcher. So the guy goes and he sings to the butcher.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm trying to imagine what that is.

[Co-host]

I'd like pork line. Does he have to finish the whole thing or is it just like one line?

[Daniel Levitin]

Yeah, yeah.

[Co-host]

Cause the butcher could be like, I got it. I see you every Tuesday. I know already, man.

[Daniel Levitin]

That would be today. Could you give me some pork loins?

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Daniel Levitin]

Tomorrow I'd like some hot dogs.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We're Laughing at somebody who had a stroke. We are terrible people now.

[Co-host]

I'm not laughing at that person.

[Daniel Levitin]

Well, he laughs about it too, of course.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I would hope so.

[Co-host]

Look, he can communicate after a stroke. It's amazing. There's nothing more awesome than that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about music instead of or in addition to drugs?

[Co-host]

I mentioned the painkilling thing earlier, but.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about conditions like dementia? There's drugs for this. Do they work Well, I don't really know.

[Co-host]

I don't think they're cure all or even highly effective at this point.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Are people working with music on this or is it just in the research phase?

[Daniel Levitin]

We cannot cure dementia. We can possibly slow it down with drugs. And there are some experimental drugs for this and some standard drugs. Revastigmine is one of the promising approaches. The last time I looked, which is about four years ago. There are other things coming down the pike. These new GLP1s that gave us Ozempic. The next three to five years, I think we'll see some really dramatic movement there. But the role of music is. That's most apparent is that oftentimes people with dementia are experiencing a loss of memory such that they don't recognize loved ones. They don't know where they are or how they got there. And they may not even recognize themselves in a mirror. It's profoundly disorienting. Yeah. And it causes many of them to just crawl into themselves, fold in on themselves because nothing makes sense. Or it can cause them to become violent because people are approaching them and kissing them and they don't recognize them and. Why are you kissing me? I don't know you. Depending on your personality and how you respond to being kissed, you know, could be aversive or why are you talking to me like, you know, in that familiar tone. It's disrespectful. We've just met. They can become very agitated, violent if you play music of their youth. A principle of memory. And I know you're fascinated by memory. You should have my colleague on who just wrote a book about memory whose.

[Co-host]

Name you can't remember right now.

[Daniel Levitin]

Actually, Charan Ranganath.

[Co-host]

Oh, he was on. Yeah, he was on recently. That was episode 1002. So it was actually June 2024. Yeah. Super interesting guy. I will never not be fascinated by it because it's almost like this superpower that humans have that works in all these funny, mysterious ways. And now we're finding it interacts with music.

[Daniel Levitin]

One of the principles of memory is that the memories that get in earlier are the strongest and the Most robust in many cases. You play a person with Alzheimer's or dementia, profound memory loss, a song from their youth and it suddenly reconnects themselves. They reconnect with the self they thought they had lost.

[Co-host]

That must feel like a massive relief in some ways to somebody like that.

[Daniel Levitin]

And the relief can last for a long time. It can pull them out of themselves if they were catatonic or withdrawn and make them social again. Or if they were aggressive, it can calm them.

[Co-host]

That's good to know. It seems like that stuff should be on play from wake up until bedtime in any care home instead of some of the depressing silence, frankly, or loud ass TV that you hear in those places.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about music and sex? How can that help asking for a friend?

[Daniel Levitin]

A lot of people like making love with musica. There are a lot of different kinds of sexual activity. There's crickies, there's longis, there's different tempos to sex, both in the act itself, the movements, but also in the arc of it. Is this something that we only have 10 minutes before the kids get home? Or we've got a nice evening, let's take our time and explore each other for an hour or so or two. Music can fill the silence in the background in a way that allows you to feel like you can relax and slow down if that's what you want to do. It can also guide the movements so that the sex becomes like a dance. The tempo you can synchronize to can also help invoke that default mode network. I think there's goal oriented sex and non goal oriented sex. And by that I mean most things we do have goals. There can be orgasm motivated sex and just sex that's motivated by a desire for closeness and a connection with another person. It may end up in an orgasm or it may not. And the goal of it is not necessarily to have an orgasm. And it can still be very pleasurable and fulfilling and as rewarding as non orgasmic sex, believe it or not. And so the music gives you permission to have that more leisurely kind. And if you're having trouble getting into that zone, the music can create a separate space in the way we might light incense or change the lighting. Or if you're not somebody who has a glass of wine all the time, the wine sets this apart as a separate event and a separate thing we're going to do together. So it's all about setting a space and a consciousness and an intention. People would use different kinds of music that's meaningful to them for these different experiences.

[Co-host]

I love the idea that we can utilize music for things like this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about depression?

[Co-host]

So many people suffer from this, whether it's severe or minor. Can you share some insights into how music interacts with our brain to ideally.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Alleviate symptoms of depression at some level?

[Co-host]

Is that a thing?

[Daniel Levitin]

It is, and it needs to match the state you're in.

[Co-host]

Okay.

[Daniel Levitin]

If you're depressed, you need to play depressing music.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What? Really? You think it'd be the opposite if.

[Daniel Levitin]

You'Re depressed, you're typically in that situation because you're feeling, to some degree, misunderstood.

[Co-host]

Okay.

[Daniel Levitin]

Happy music is just a bunch of other people who don't understand you.

[Co-host]

I see. Yeah.

[Daniel Levitin]

Depressing music allows you to feel that you are understood. It allows you to live with that experience and thus overcome it.

[Co-host]

If I were to jury rig this on my own, right. Oh, I'm feeling down. I probably would just say, all right, Spotify happy music. And then I would just be annoyed that this happy music was playing while I felt like crap. So it makes sense. You almost need to start from a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Point where the music is relating to.

[Co-host]

Me on my level. Yeah, that does make a lot of sense.

[Jordan Harbinger]

How can someone incorporate music into their.

[Co-host]

Daily life as a form of maybe self care for mental health? Do you just wake up and assess your mood and play music according to that mood? Is that helpful at all?

[Daniel Levitin]

Yeah, it's helpful to have go to playlists if you're a real planner, as I am. I have a playlist that I have as part of my advanced medical directive that if I'm in the hospital and I can't speak for myself and I'm just languishing there, play me these songs.

[Co-host]

And they're songs from your youth.

[Daniel Levitin]

Not all. No, I'm not talking about if I have Alzheimer's, but songs that are meaningful to me and that will comfort me and help me to feel part of something larger rather than stuck in my own self.

[Co-host]

I see.

[Daniel Levitin]

Help me feel connected to the universe or to my own past and hopefully a future.

[Co-host]

I see. So this isn't something where you're incapacitated and this music will break you out of it. It's maybe something that'll just make you feel better.

[Daniel Levitin]

You're right. I should have an Alzheimer's playlist and.

[Co-host]

A chemotherapy playlist before you forget to make it. Yeah, exactly. All jokes aside, but yeah, before you can't make it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is all.

[Co-host]

Man, this is amazing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about Lo Fi beats? Are you familiar with this?

[Co-host]

Of course you are. There's a whole channel Lo Fi Girl, right when you're studying or something, you put this on. This has just gained massive popularity for studying and focusing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is there something in the structure of.

[Co-host]

This that makes it effective or is it just happen to be trendy?

[Daniel Levitin]

There is something about entraining gamma waves of your brain to music. It's still early days. I would say it's not pseudoscience, but it's not yet in the evidence base.

[Co-host]

Got it. Okay. I just wondered if the simplicity of lo fi music maybe allowed the brain.

[Jordan Harbinger]

To enter some kind of flow state more easily.

[Co-host]

I don't know. Stabbing in the dark. Some people claim that lo fi music enhances memory and learning. Also no evidence for this yet.

[Daniel Levitin]

Psyche Louis at Northeastern University, a tremendously talented researcher in this field with her collaborator Ed Large at University of Connecticut, has a new treatment for Alzheimer's that involves gamma wave lights flashing and music that has activity in the gamma wave as a way of slowing the progression of Alzheimer's. I just saw a demo of it a few days ago and it was very impressive.

[Co-host]

Are there scenarios where certain types of music might hinder rather than help learning or focus? Is it, hey, we don't know if lo fi music helps you focus, but.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We do know that heavy metal sure doesn't.

[Co-host]

Or something like, is there anything that's anti focus, anti learning, or is that not a thing?

[Daniel Levitin]

There is no evidence that listening to music while you study will help. There have been a thousand papers on this. Literally a thousand papers. Proper music, not lo fi beats music like you would have on the radio. Heavy metal, jazz, classical. No evidence that it actually helps you study and in fact, evidence that it creates a state of divided attention where the results are worse. The problem is that it's so much more fun that we get deceived into thinking we're doing better, but we're not.

[Co-host]

I see. That's funny. I never thought about that. I think for me, I would listen to lo fi beats when I'm trying to focus on something. But what it does is it blocks out the a holes talking in the.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Library that are distracting me. So that might be the only use of it. But honestly, a good pair of noise.

[Co-host]

Canceling headphones or something where I couldn't hear anything is probably actually better. This is all amazing stuff. Music can heal you. It can help you in some ways, help you get rid of pain, help you get laid.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Excellent. What about bad or even evil uses of music? Is there music being used for the dark side at all?

[Co-host]

Speaking to James Earl Jones, certainly we.

[Daniel Levitin]

Use music to intimidate okay. Army bands may have Battle of Jericho. The walls came tumbling down. The idea is that loud music, that is not the music of your tribe.

[Co-host]

Yeah.

[Daniel Levitin]

The Americans drove Manuel Noriega out of his compound in Panama when nothing else worked. We turned off the water, the electricity, the air conditioning, blockaded the food. The only thing that made him give up was heavy metal music blasted at 160 decibels. He couldn't take it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wasn't it Van Halen or was it Metallica?

[Daniel Levitin]

I think it was Van Halen. There'd be some poetic justice if they played Jump.

[Co-host]

That's right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's right. I remember reading about this, and it's funny man. He's in there. He can't wash his hands, can't sleep, and he's finally.

[Co-host]

He's just. I can't take it with the guy with the leather bodysuit. Just. I'll go to prison for the rest of my life.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Daniel Levitin]

The less obvious one is that although the music may not be intended to intimidate or disturb, it often does. When we ask people what are among the most unpleasant features of modern life, often in the top five is unwanted music in public places, piped in music.

[Co-host]

Or the guy with a Bluetooth speaker on the subway. They know who they are.

[Daniel Levitin]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Co-host]

They're doing this on purpose, Right? This is an attention thing. What do you make of that? I know you're way off topic, but.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Those people, they have to know. I'm the most annoying person here.

[Daniel Levitin]

I don't know. It was a beautiful, pastoral afternoon in the countryside and some guy came in with what must have been 2000 watts of subwoofers in his pickup truck. And you could hear him coming from half a mile away. And then he just parked his car in the next to the reservoir and played his loud music. And it made it miserable for everybody. I don't know what that's about, but it was very obnoxious and unpleasant and I left.

[Co-host]

There's a special place in hell for people who decide to ruin environments for everyone else. It's gotta be an attention thing. I would love to hear people's theories.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you're a person who does this or used to do this, please email.

[Co-host]

Me and tell me why you did that. I gotta know. It's gotta be an attention thing. I can't think of any other reason.

[Daniel Levitin]

Or it's just that you're so self absorbed you don't care what other people are doing or think.

[Co-host]

Yeah, possibly, yeah. Some sort of disorder, I suppose.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Where do you see the future of.

[Co-host]

Music therapy and neuroscience heading in the next decade with this stuff.

[Daniel Levitin]

There is an evidence base now for music therapies and music interventions. Music therapies are those done by a therapist. Music interventions are what you might treat your loved ones or how you might treat yourself or a doctor. A dentist playing music in the dentist's office. That's not a music therapist. It's a music intervention. We've seen increased recognition that this is a real thing by healthcare providers. State of New Jersey Blue Shield Blue Cross in the state of New Jersey now reimbursed for musical therapies. Massachusetts is giving out 12 vouchers for free arts therapy as a preventative to help people stay healthy in the first place. Francis Collins, former head of the nih, is working to get legislation passed that will get Medicare to pay for music therapies and music interventions, maybe even for people who otherwise couldn't afford it. Elderly people to have their Spotify subscription paid for as a prescription by Medicare Medicaid.

[Co-host]

Interesting. Yeah, that would be.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Your Spotify price has gone up to.

[Co-host]

$1,100 a month because insurance is paying for it. Oh, and you can only access these five playlists.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Sorry.

[Co-host]

Ugh. Anyway, that's a whole different podcast, I suppose, on the future of the American healthcare system.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Thank you so much for coming on to discuss this.

[Co-host]

I just find it so amazing what the brain can do. I love the fact that music interfaces with our minds in such a primal way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I think people, by the way.

[Co-host]

Who love music as much as you do are going to get a lot more out of the book. Because I will admit, a lot of the stuff in the book was, like, terminology music stuff. Of course I understood what you were saying, but a lot of the finer points probably went over my head. As somebody who doesn't play a musical instrument and is not as much of a music fan as you, I recommend reading the book for people who like music and for people who don't care about it per se. But I think people who especially love music are really going to love the book as well.

[Daniel Levitin]

I tried to write it keeping in mind the dictum of the Simpsons, which is, the Simpsons is a cartoon that works at two levels. Kids love it, and then there's a lot of stuff that they're not going to understand and they just ignore it. And then adults get this sort of satire and more advanced humor. So I tried to write the book thinking I want to communicate at a level where the average high school student will get a lot out of it, but even scientists will get a lot out of it too.

[Co-host]

I think you did a great job with it.

[Daniel Levitin]

Thank you, Jordan.

[Co-host]

But yeah, thank you once again for.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Coming back on the show.

[Daniel Levitin]

Thank you, Jordan. Good to see you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The deepest parts of our oceans remain a mystery, with 75% still unexplored. You're about to hear a preview with Victor Vescovo. The first person to reach the deepest points of all five oceans. Built and piloted a submarine that defied crushing pressures, revealing a world few have ever seen.

[E]

71% of the earth is ocean and of that 75% is completely unexplored. It's extraordinary. Deep ocean in the middle of the Pacific is completely unknown. We just don't go there and it's hard to go there. And many of the places in the ocean are really rough and because it's so harsh, that's why it's really hard and really expensive to explore the ocean. I think I'm cursed with just an insatiable curiosity, which I'm probably most known for is diving to the bottom of all five of the world's oceans. If I'm going to spend money, I'm not going to spend it on a ten million dollar birthday party. I'm going to spend it funding some people that are trying to move the needle forward on technology. It was kind of like Ocean's Eleven where I basically got to go around the world and say, who is the best person for expedition management? Who would be the best ship captain? And because this was such an ambitious undertaking, they wanted to do it. That, I think, is the way to spend wealth. I enjoy exploration, I enjoy pushing technological boundaries, but I like putting myself on the pointy end of the spear. And I don't leave it to other people. I want to be at the control. When I went down for the first time in the fully assembled Saab, any number of things could have gone wrong because we had never put all the pieces together. Mine was designed and tested to a crush depth of 15,000 meters. That thing was a tank. And things did go wrong eventually. You can operate in a very dangerous world. You just need to be aware and you need to mitigate those risks.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What did Victor find in the darkness where even light cannot reach? To find out, listen to episode 1089 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. By the way, if you are really into music, folks, this book is probably even more enjoyable than it was for me. I definitely also enjoyed it, but there's a lot of music terms and concepts.

[Co-host]

That went over my head and I.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Think if you're really a music fan, you're gonna love this book.

[Co-host]

Along with the science that's in it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All things Daniel Levitin will be in the show [e-mail], advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show, [e-mail] deals Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, our newsletter, Wee Bit Wiser, comes out every Wednesday. Ish has something practical, something that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships in under two minutes. And if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It's a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com News is where you can find it. And don't forget about six minute networking as well. Over at sixminutenetworking.com I'm ordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and this show. It's created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi.

[Co-host]

Remember, we rise by lifting others.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The fee for the show is you share it with friends. When you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. So if you know somebody who's interested in music, interested in the science of music, or alternative healing type stuff, maybe share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply.

[Co-host]

What you hear on the show so.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.