Music which makes you high

Like taking drugs, hearing music can modulate serotonin and dopamine levels in your brain. These levels fluctuate in two distinct phases: when you anticipate hearing pleasurable music, and when you consume it. Though the high you experience from listening to a song you like is only a fraction of what you feel after taking an illicit substance, the hedonic reward systems that are activated in this listening process are tightly linked to those associated with eating food, taking drugs and having sex.

You can read more about their findings here. The headphones are fundamentally important, as they are the only way to properly deliver the two distinct beats into each ear. So, in the middle of the workday, I closed the curtain, turned off my phone, got comfortable on the couch, closed my eyes and went on sonic bender. It went like this:. Acid: Each track is layered with the beats — which are barely perceptible because of their ultra-low frequencies — and accompanied by a sort of white noise and a layer of either music or other sound effects.

The effect of this ten minutes of ambient noise was a mellow, meditative, and slightly spaced out feeling of deep relaxation. Physically, the track made me feel slightly dizzy. Cocaine: This track produced a very pleasant all over tinging sensation in my body and kind of made me want to dance, which seems approximately correct in terms of mimicking the effects of actual cocaine. All of these sensations went away the moment the track ended.

Ecstacy: This most noticeable and somewhat distracting element of this track was the sound of two people having sex, complete with eventual climax and what sounded like spanking. A lot of spanking. Did I get the feeling of all-encompassing universal love and cosmic interconnectedness generally facilliated by good MDMA? No, not really.

Was it sexy? For sure, but less in the way that deep, meaningful intimacy is sexy and more in the way that watching porn is sexy. Humans have had music on the brain for most of our existence—cultures all over the world create, listen to, and experience pleasure from music.

Their findings thus far suggest that our enjoyment comes from the same two-phase reward process—a dopamine-driven anticipatory phase, followed by a dopamine- and opioid-influenced consummatory phase—that kicks into gear when you eat a tasty treat or experience a rush after an intense workout. This neurological reward system also gives drugs their appeal.

Controlling it might be key to fighting these behaviors. To that end, scientists have previously tested the effects of drugs that block opioid receptors, such as naltrexone and naloxone, and discovered that the blockers do indeed reduce feelings of pleasure after physical activity and eating, and show potential for treating dependence on alcohol and opioid drugs.

Now a new study in Scientific Reports has tested the effect of naltrexone on musical enjoyment. Researchers at McGill University instructed a 15 students to choose two pieces of music that they loved—songs that make them feel chills—and bring them to the lab.

The study looked at people who got chills or "musical frisson" in response to music, although it turned out they had the dopamine response to songs they really liked whether they got chills or not. Listening to music they loved increased dopamine by 6 to 9 percent, Salimpoor said. That's less than they'd get after taking a drug like cocaine, but more than for food.

As everyone knows, one guy's favorite song might make someone else gag, so study subjects listened to their own favorites. Other people's favorites were used as "control" or neutral music.