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The World Cup is here to fill your summer with passion, heartbreak—and a mood-boosting playlist. Here’s how sport songs and anthems impact the brain, from a neuroscientist. —————

Olé, Olé, Olé!

Since the first World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930, rhythm, chanting, and song have been central to the games. 

Back in those early days, it took weeks for teams to travel to the competition by boat, and they supposedly passed the time by listening to onboard musical acts. Players were welcomed to those inaugural games at Centenario Stadium to the tune of "Uruguayos Campeones” (Uruguay Champions), widely considered the first official World Cup anthem.

Since then, many tracks written for the tournament—from “Waka Waka" by Shakira and “Wavin’ Flag” by K’Naan—have impacted pop culture and unified fans around the world. This year, music will play an even greater role in the games, and there will be a musical halftime show during the final match for the first time. 

Sound is a way to strengthen collective identity, build anticipation, and flood the body with feel-good hormones. Here’s the science behind music’s connection to sports—and what it teaches us about the brain’s reward system.

Why Music is Played at Every Major Sporting Event 

Head to any sporting match and you’ll likely hear music before players walk out, during timeouts, and at the game’s conclusion. Crowds will also chime in with coordinated chants, cheers, and team anthems—collective soundtracks that speak to music’s ability to bring people together. 

“[Sports music] is essentially a social bonding thing. It’s a way to connect and synchronize ourselves,” says Daniel Bowling, Ph.D., Spiritune Scientific Co-Founder and a leading expert in the neuroscience of music.

Bowling explains that when fans sing together, they become synchronized not just behaviorally, but physiologically and emotionally. 

When people engage in music together, their heart rates, breathing patterns, and movements tend to sync up. These subconscious reactions can lead to what’s known as self-other merging, which Bowling describes as “the dissolution of boundaries.” 

“It’s when you start to act and behave in the same way as everybody else around you. You're joining together, and you're losing your individualism, in a sense,” he adds. Research shows that this merging is a key ingredient of social bonding. 

In social settings, music can also simulate the production of oxytocin, the hormone of attachment that may further strengthen feelings of affiliation with those around us. 

It’s easy to see why sporting events, which are often stressful and emotionally taxing occasions, rely on music to build camaraderie. By connecting to rhythm, sports fans also connect to each other. 

Where Musical Reward Comes In

Beyond syncing us up with others, music can also connect us to ourselves and our emotions. The concept of “musical reward” describes how music stimulates our brain’s internal reward system in a similar way to other biological rewards, such as food. 

Bowling explains that researchers have studied this reward primarily by asking people to describe how certain songs make them feel and, more recently, by analyzing brain activity while music is playing.

Music that is pleasing, familiar, or follows a predictable rhythm seems to be most likely to evoke a positive response in the brain and body. If we anticipate what’s going to happen next in an anthem or chant, and then those expectations are met, the brain is more likely to reward us with feel-good hormones like dopamine. Some people may even tear up, get the chills, or feel almost euphoric as a result.

In this way, neuroscience helps explain why so many beloved sports anthems follow a predictable pattern: Their repetition is pleasing to the brain, and it may be more emotionally salient for a bigger group of fans.

Reaping Music’s Rewards Outside the Stadium

Rhythm is one of the most important musical elements for triggering positive responses in the brain, Bowling explains. “It doesn’t necessarily need to have a drum beat, but it needs to be systematically structured in time so people can follow it,” he says.

Similar to a moving song after a late-in-the-game goal, Spiritune’s music can activate the brain's pleasure and reward pathways. Each Spiritune track is composed using precise parameters for rhythm and groove. These sonic components are combined with tenets of music therapy to create music tailored to the listener’s goals—whether it’s to feel more energized, sleep better, or turn the mood around after a tough loss in the Knockout Stage.

We also pride ourselves on creating music that is broadly accessible and appealing to people with different backgrounds and preferences. Each track showcases the unifying elements of music to help listeners feel better quickly. 

Even after Shakira, Madonna, and BTS sing their last halftime note and this year’s World Cup festivities end, Spiritune will allow the camaraderie, emotional resonance, and reward of music to stay at your fingertips.

Like what you're reading? Sign up for Spiritune’s newsletter to get a monthly music therapy download straight to your inbox. Haven’t tried Spiritune yet? Download it today with a free trial!

Music goes hand in hand with culture. It’s long served as a tool to share stories, celebrate victories, and call for change. One of the few types of expressions that transcends language, it remains an invisible string that connects people around the world. 

Music’s power is universal, but each place has its own way to share it. Today, we’re traveling the globe to explore a few moving examples of expression through sound. Read through to learn about the history, significance, and meaning behind each one, or just press play and let the tunes do the talking.

1. The sweeping stories of ‘pansori’ in South Korea

Pansori is a traditional Korean practice that pairs singing with the spoken word. In a typical performance, one drummer and one vocalist work together to express an emotional, rhythmic story on stage. 

To reach a passionate, emotional timbre, pansori vocalists look to nature as a teacher. Some are said to spend weeks studying in the mountains, singing next to waterfalls to emulate the waters’ sonic intensity in their storytelling. 

“Pansori vocalization amplifies the dramatic effect of every single object and character surrounding the story," said Ahn Sook Sun, one of South Korea’s most renowned pansori performers. Storylines often touch on themes of love, sacrifice, and honor, exploring the human conditions in ways that are moving and cathartic for audiences.

Learn more and watch a performance here.

2. The science-backed soundscapes of ‘forest bathing’ in Japan

Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, originated in Japan as a way to help overworked city dwellers unwind in the natural world. Doctors began to study the impacts of slow, mindful forest walking on people’s physical and mental health in the 1980s, and have since concluded that it can reduce stress while measurably improving sleep quality and immunity. These days, there are over 50 forest therapy bases throughout Japan where people can go to benefit from Shinrin-yoku alongside a certified guide.

Shinrin-yoku differs from a typical walk or hike because of its emphasis on the five senses, with sound playing a major role in the experience. Guides will often prompt people to close their eyes and give the forest’s soundscape their full attention, honing in on how different songs of the outdoors make them feel. There’s a range of research to suggest that nature soundscapes are uniquely restorative, and just listening to an audio recording of forest environments seems to be enough to have a calming effect on the body and mind.

Immerse yourself in the sounds of the forest here.

3. The meditative tones of ‘ragas’ in India

The English translation of raga is “color,” and this Indian classical music is thought to paint the mind with different emotional hues. Each note is intentional, with certain tones corresponding to particular times of the day or year. Raga Yaman is a serene evening melody, for example, while Raga Desh is romantic and associated with the rainy season. Raga music can be played with a variety of instruments, including the sitar, tabla (hand drums), and bansuri (flute). 

“Many raags [ragas] are designed to work like a prescription, enhancing a particular mood, time of day, season, emotion or ambience,” writer Jameela Siddiqi noted in Darbar, an Indian classical music platform. 

Modern science continues to validate the ancient music’s power, with EEG recordings showing that just a few minutes of listening to ragas evokes feelings of joy and calmness, or sadness and tension, in listeners. 

Listen to a moving morning raga here.

4. The enduring spiritual power of ‘Gnawa’ music in Morocco

Gnawa is a spirited and expressive type of Moroccan music with roots in the 16th century. Named for the Gnawa people, who arrived in Morocco by way of West Africa, it was traditionally played during healing ceremonies to evoke and communicate with spirits and ancestors. Today, it retains a deep cultural significance in the country, where master practitioners share Gnawa—a United Nations Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity practice—with the next generation. 

It combines chanting and traditional instruments, such as the guembri (a three-stringed lute) and the qraqeb (a metal castanet). Songs use repetitive rhythms to evoke a trance-like state. As one listener described to CBS, attending a performance is "like being on the edge of time.”

Watch a NYC-based Gnawa group, Innov Gnawa, perform here.

5. The grounding quality of the ‘six healing sounds’ in China

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the six healing sounds are vocalizations meant to energize different organs in the body. The practice of Qigong combines these sounds with breathwork and gentle movement in order to calm the nervous system and clear energetic blocks. Dating back to roughly the 5th century AD, it’s one of the oldest sonic practices in the world.

Watch a demonstration of the practice here.

While musical traditions may sound vastly different around the world, many of the elements that make music emotionally powerful are surprisingly universal. Across cultures, humans respond to core acoustic features like rhythm, tempo, tonal simplicity, repetition, and dynamic shifts in remarkably similar ways.

At Spiritune, our compositions are designed around these universal principles. 

Drawing from neuroscience and music therapy research, we intentionally use tonal, rhythmic, and energetic elements shown to support relaxation, focus, emotional regulation, and more across diverse populations. Rather than relying on genre or personal taste, our approach focuses on the underlying acoustic qualities of music that the human brain and body naturally respond to.

“Music may differ across cultures, but the emotional and physiological mechanisms behind how humans respond to sound are deeply shared,” says Jamie Pabst, founder and CEO of Spiritune. “At Spiritune, we’re inspired by musical traditions around the world and use universal acoustic principles to create therapeutic music experiences that can help people feel better no matter where they’re from.”

In many ways, music has always been one of humanity’s oldest forms of medicine — a universal language capable of connecting us not only to our cultures, but also to ourselves.

Like what you're reading? Sign up for Spiritune’s newsletter to get a monthly music therapy download straight to your inbox. Haven’t tried Spiritune yet? Download it today with a free trial!

Houston, we have a playlist. Learn about the role that sound played on the Artemis II mission, and how you can use it to supercharge your workdays down on Earth.

Earlier this month, the Artemis II team extended the limits of humanity, traveling further from our home planet than anyone has ever been. So far away from home, almost nothing feels familiar: Living quarters are tight, cramped, and noisy; food is dehydrated; showering is impossible; and every movement must be maneuvered to a zero-g environment. Yet, even hundreds of thousands of miles away, the coos of Chappell Roan’s “I know you wanted me to stay…” kept the crew tethered to Earth.

Like many who came before them, the Artemis II astronauts listened to music daily in order to stay motivated, comfortable, and connected to friends and family. Their space playlist is a powerful reminder of music’s ability to bring people together and help them excel individually. Here are a few lessons we’re taking away from a record-breaking mission—and the music that helped tune it.

A Song to Start the Day

This isn’t the first time that music has been sent to space. NASA has a long tradition of broadcasting songs to astronauts, often in the mornings to start their days on a high note. The first recorded instance of this was a special recording of “Hello Dolly,” made for the 1965 Gemini 6 mission. The lyrics, “While the earth's turning, the midnight oil was burning,” welcomed the two-person crew back after their 26-hour mission.

The Artemis II team started every “morning” (as much as mornings can exist without sunrise) in space with a song chosen by their crew, friends, and families. Their wake-up playlist featured a mix of newer pop tracks and familiar classics, with Tokyo Drifting and Under Pressure said to be among the team’s favorites. Their last day of the expedition fittingly started with “Run to the Water” by Live, a departure from the classic return song, “Going Back to Houston.” 

Previous space missions have also included live musical performances. “In December, 1965, Guptain Schirra and Major Stafford, using a harmonica and small bells, performed in space for the earthlings, radioing their version of ‘Jingle Bells,’” notes an article from the 1968 archives of The New York Times.

According to NASA, space psychologists have long recognized music as a tool for maintaining morale on long-haul journeys. Now, the International Space Station is rumored to have two guitars, a keyboard, and a saxophone, and crewmembers are welcome to bring their own instruments aboard as well. 

How to Bring Music into Your Daily Missions

We’re not all astronauts jetting through space at 60,000 miles an hour (thank goodness!). But music can still set us up for success each day, much like it did for the Artemis II team. It can be a particularly helpful tool during the workday, especially if you work in a job that toggles between periods of focus and creativity.

Here are a few research-backed ways music can enhance your work—whether you’re testing deep space systems or just an Excel spreadsheet.

1. It improves mood, which can prime us for productivity.

As Spiritune’s Founder and CEO Jamie Pabst writes in an article for Fortune, “Studies have shown that listening to music can improve negative moods and reduce stress. When we’re in a relaxed, positive state, our brains are primed for productivity: We’re better at attending to and focusing on the work at hand and we get more done.”

A growing body of research reinforces that listening to music helps regulate people’s emotional responses and feel less burdened by stress, even during challenging times. In turn, this shift in mood reduces one’s risk of burnout and disengagement.

“Music stands out in this context because it is one of the easiest and most accessible ways to boost mood and decrease stress, particularly while on the job,” Pabst adds. Take a page from NASA’s book and curate a morning tunes playlist that puts you in a good mood to set yourself up for a more positive workday.

2. It sparks creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

The next time you’re stuck on a problem, try taking a break to listen to a song or musical track. Research suggests it could help your brain make new and unexpected connections.

One study found that those who listened to upbeat music while performing a task tended to approach it more creatively than those who worked in silence. The study authors suspect this was due to music’s ability to shift participants’ perspectives and adopt more flexible thinking. “When getting stuck in a rut, it can be helpful to, instead of digging deeper, dig elsewhere,” they write. 

3. It enhances focus and flow.

In a workplace context, music can be a practical tool for masking distracting noise, allowing us to reach a focused “flow state” more easily. 

“There is also good evidence to support that music can improve executive function, particularly when it comes to performance on cognitive tasks that involve sustained attention, response inhibition, repetition, and flow, which is critical when we want to execute tasks efficiently and operate at our best in the workplace,” Pabst notes on Fortune. 

4. It zooms out our perspective.

Many astronauts note that their time in space gives them a new outlook on life on Earth—a phenomenon known as the “overview effect.” Looking at the planet from afar reminds them just how precious and fragile life is, and how connected we are to everyone and everything else on our Pale Blue Dot. 

While music can’t entirely recreate this feeling, it is known to evoke its own sense of awe, gratitude, and connection. If you’ve ever gotten the chills listening to a song or felt moved to tears by certain lyrics, you know how sounds prompt us to reflect on our lives and put our problems into perspective—a skill that’s valuable at work and beyond.

Getting on the Right Track

Playing certain music as you work can help you focus on the task at hand, make creative connections, and enjoy a better mood—but not all tracks are created equal.

As one randomized controlled study that Spiritune was involved in showed, instrumental music tends to be better for enhancing mood and cognition than music with distracting lyrics. A song’s tempo, groove, and complexity can also impact how it helps or harms our workdays.

Spiritune’s music therapist-designed tracks are created to be enjoyable and not distracting, making them the perfect desk companion. Research shows that they increase positive mood and decrease negativity during mentally demanding tasks, and help sharpen cognitive ability without sacrificing accuracy—all after just 10 minutes or less.

Companies from The World Bank and Crunch Fitness to McLaren IndyCar  and Galileo Health are now using our science-backed tracks to help their employees combat stress, taking a dent out of the $225 billion in lost productivity and absenteeism each year.

"Spiritune is my own personal go-to for stress relief and focus. I also refer it to all my anxiety/depression patients. I'm so glad this is a resource we can officially share with our team and patients," says Sophie Piso, a Behavioral Health Coach with Galileo.

Back Down to Earth

Since the Apollo II crew returned to our orbit on April 10, they’ve reunited with their families, readjusted to gravity, and started recovering from a grueling mission in an unfamiliar place. But music is undoubtedly one element of their time in space that they’re continuing to enjoy. 

Take a note out of their book and consider how you can more intentionally work music into your toughest workdays, using sound as a way to bring yourself back down to Earth.

Like what you're reading? Sign up for Spiritune’s newsletter to get a monthly music therapy download straight to your inbox. Haven’t tried Spiritune yet? Download it today with a free trial!