Best Music for Studying: What the Research Says

For most adults, the best music for studying is instrumental music played at a comfortable volume. Music with lyrics is the one to avoid when you're reading or memorising, because in the studies we read it made those tasks harder. The studies we read found no sign that any music helps you learn more, though we read only a few and the evidence is thin. Silence holds up well as the thing to compare against.

This guide is for adults studying for a degree, a professional qualification, a language or a licence, or reading for work. It covers what the research found, how lyrics, lo-fi and classical compare, and a simple way to test what works for you. This is general information, not medical advice.

The short version is that background music doesn't reliably help or hurt thinking in general. It depends on the task.

A 2011 meta-analysis pooled studies of background music in adult listeners. Taken together, music had no overall effect, and the authors judged this was most probably gains and losses in different studies cancelling each other out. When they looked only at studies that compared music with no music, a clearer pattern showed up. Music disturbed reading and had small negative effects on memory. It did have a positive effect on emotional reactions, and it helped with sport.

The same authors said few studies had numbers that could be used, which made specific effects hard to detect, and called for better-quality studies. So be wary of any strong claim about "the best study music", including ours.

What the research does point to is the kind of task. In the studies below, music cost people most on reading and memory. Its effect on mental arithmetic was too uncertain to count. Our suggestion, not a finding: routine jobs like tidying notes or formatting references probably leave more room for a soundtrack.

This is the one finding that holds up across the studies we read.

In a 2023 study at the University of Porto, 136 people taking a psychology course did four tasks online over two sessions of about 30 minutes: remembering a list of words, remembering pictures, reading comprehension and mental arithmetic. They did each task three times. Once in silence, once with instrumental lo-fi hip-hop and once with popular songs that had lyrics in their own language. They set their own comfortable volume first. 105 of them gave their age, and those 105 were 18 to 58, average about 21, and nine in ten were women.

Songs with lyrics made people worse at remembering words, remembering pictures and understanding what they read. The effect was small, but it showed up on three of the four tasks. The cost on arithmetic was too uncertain to count. The instrumental lo-fi did not credibly help or hurt on any task.

People also knew the lyrics were getting in the way. Their own ratings of how well they were learning dropped with lyrics. Some of them felt the instrumental music helped, even though their scores didn't move.

An older study found the same thing about lyrics, with a twist about taste. In 2014, 30 adults at a Welsh university, aged 19 to 65, read passages and answered multiple-choice questions under four conditions: quiet, songs with lyrics they'd picked from their own collection, songs with lyrics they disliked, and an instrumental metal track. Scores were best in quiet and with the instrumental track. Both kinds of song with lyrics brought scores down, and the songs people liked hurt as much as the ones they didn't.

Neither study is large, and both were short experiments, not weeks of real coursework. A small effect is still worth acting on, though, because the fix costs nothing. If you're reading or memorising, switch to something without words.

Lo-fi. Instrumental lo-fi hip-hop measured neutral in the Porto study. That's useful. It means a lo-fi playlist is unlikely to cost you much on reading or memory tasks. It isn't evidence that lo-fi helps, and it's one study. Our guide to lo-fi and binaural beats goes into lo-fi in more depth.

Classical. Classical music is a common pick for studying, partly because of the "Mozart effect". That idea came from a 1993 study in which scores on a spatial test rose after people listened to 10 minutes of a Mozart sonata. In their summary of the research, the authors of the 2014 Welsh study note that later work linked the result to the lift in mood and alertness people get from music they enjoy, rather than to Mozart. It was also measured after listening, not while working. We found no good evidence that classical music played in the background helps you study. Instrumental classical at a low volume is a reasonable pick for the same reason lo-fi is: no words.

Ambient and nature sounds. Rain, waves and ambient drones have little direct evidence for studying either way in the sources we read. They have no lyrics, which counts for something. Whether they suit you is a question for the test below.

If you're curious about beats and frequencies, our guide to alpha waves for studying covers that research separately. We're leaving it out here.

It's tempting to think music you love will help because it puts you in a good mood. The Welsh study suggests that doesn't carry over to reading. The songs people chose were the most familiar and better liked than the other music, and they still hurt comprehension as much as songs people disliked.

Those same people rated quiet as the least distracting condition and thought they'd done best in it. In the Porto study, people also spotted the cost of lyrics. So your own sense that a playlist is distracting is worth trusting.

On volume, both studies used an ordinary, comfortable level. In the Welsh study that meant 65 to 75 decibels through headphones. So they tell you nothing about loud music, and we didn't read one that does. Our default is to keep it low enough that you'd still hear someone say your name.

People differ, and an average can hide that. That's why the most useful evidence is the kind you collect yourself.

You don't need a lab. You need one kind of task and a way to count what you got done.

1. Pick one task you do often. Reading a chapter, writing a section, drilling flashcards, working practice questions. Keep it the same all week.
2. Choose three sound conditions. Silence, instrumental music, and whatever you usually play.
3. Work in 25-minute blocks. One block per condition, in a different order each day, so tiredness doesn't always land on the same one.
4. Count, don't rate. Write down pages read, words written, cards learned or questions answered. A count beats a feeling, because instrumental music can feel helpful without changing anything.
5. Check at the end of the week. If one condition clearly wins, use it for that task. If they're all about the same, pick the one you enjoy, since it makes no measurable difference for you.

Our guide to alpha waves for studying has a longer study plan if you want more structure. For ways to organise the time itself, see our guide to focus techniques.

Based on the evidence above, here's a short, honest list.

• Instrumental lo-fi. Tested against silence and songs with lyrics in the 2023 study, and it came out neutral.
• Instrumental piano, classical or ambient. No words, so no competition with your reading. Keep it quiet.
• Steady noise, if you want sound without music. If you'd rather have a constant hum than a melody, try it in your test week.
• Silence, for the hardest reading. It was the best or joint-best condition in both studies.
• Your favourite songs, for the easy jobs. Save lyrics for tidying notes, formatting or filing.

If you want a short reset between study blocks, NSDR (non-sleep deep rest) is guided rest where you lie still with your eyes closed, stay awake and follow a voice. Think of it as a ten-minute pause before you start focused work. For focus, the results are mixed. One 10-minute NSDR trial found faster reaction times and better accuracy afterwards, a second found a short-lived gain, and a third found no effect.

If you're weighing up paid focus-music apps against free options, our comparison of free and paid focus music covers that.

This is general information, not medical advice. NSDR is not a treatment for any condition.

Is it better to study in silence or with music?

It depends on the task and on you. For reading and memory tasks, silence or instrumental music did best in the studies we read, and songs with lyrics did worse. Routine tasks were not tested, and music may matter less there. A week of testing your own output will tell you more than any average.

Is lofi good for studying?

Instrumental lo-fi did not credibly help or hurt in a 2023 study of people on a psychology course doing memory, reading and arithmetic tasks. That makes it a safe choice. It isn't evidence that lo-fi improves studying.

Does classical music help you study?

We found no good evidence that it does. The "Mozart effect" was a short lift in spatial test scores after listening, and later work linked it to mood and alertness from enjoyable music, not to Mozart. Quiet classical works as background for the same reason lo-fi does, because it has no lyrics.

Should I listen to music with lyrics while studying?

Not for reading or memorising. In the two studies we read, songs with lyrics lowered reading comprehension, and in one of them songs people liked hurt as much as songs they disliked. Writing wasn't tested, but it uses words too, so we'd keep lyrics for routine jobs like formatting or tidying notes.

How loud should study music be?

Quiet enough that it stays in the background. The studies in this guide used a comfortable volume, around 65 to 75 decibels through headphones in one of them, so they don't tell you what louder music does. If you notice yourself following the music, turn it down or switch it off.

Does music help you remember what you study?

None of the studies we read showed that background music improves memory. A 2011 meta-analysis found small negative effects on memory when music was compared with no music, and lyrics hurt word and picture memory in a 2023 study.

• Kampfe J, Sedlmeier P, Renkewitz F (2011). The impact of background music on adult listeners: a meta-analysis. Psychology of Music 39(4):424-448. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735610376261
• Souza AS, Leal Barbosa LC (2023). Should we turn off the music? Music with lyrics interferes with cognitive tasks. Journal of Cognition 6(1):24. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37152835/
• Perham N, Currie H (2014). Does listening to preferred music improve reading comprehension performance? Applied Cognitive Psychology 28(2):279-284. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.2994
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