Music as a drug

Read a neat article on the science behind musical nostalgia. Here's an excerpt I found particularly interesting:

But memories are meaningless without emotion—and aside from love and drugs, nothing spurs an emotional reaction like music. Brain imaging studies show that our favorite songs stimulate the brain’s pleasure circuit, which releases an influx of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and other neurochemicals that make us feel good. The more we like a song, the more we get treated to neurochemical bliss, flooding our brains with some of the same neurotransmitters that cocaine chases after.


http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/08/musical_nostalgia_the_psychology_and_neuroscience_for_song_preference_and.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru

I find this interesting and it explains why those of us who suffer with depression (or to put it medically, a lack of serotonin flow) are SO into music.

This explains why I feel like I need to listen to music to "make it" through my work day.

That's interesting.

Hits those "pleasure centers" in the brain that may be lacking.

The average person may hover around a 7 or 8 on "contentment, joy, happiness" - some of us hover around a 3 to 4 on a good day... that's where vices come in. People "self-medicate" with pleasures that drive their "3" up to a 7 or 8.... music, drugs, food, sex, shopping, organizing, etc.

I find my favorite songs of all time always have a way of bringing my emotions higher.
And listening to new stuff or albums I've never heard is an attempt to find more songs that fall into that category of lifting the spirits, as they say.

Hey, it helped King Saul 

Very true. I can be a 2 and hear some favorite music and be lifted up.

That's true. Folk metal and symphonic metal usually work really well for me. I just feel a lot better.