The Joy of Movement

by Kelly McGonigal

  The brain responds to music it enjoys with a powerful adrenaline, dopamine, and endorphin rush, all of which energize effort and alleviate pain. For this reason, musicologists describe music as ergogenic, or work-enhancing. Throughout history and across cultures, music has been used to make labor less difficult and more rewarding. The endorphins released by music not only make tasks easier but can also bond a group that works together. Bennett Konesni, who runs Duckback Farm in Belfast, Maine, has traveled the world studying work song traditions, spending time with musical fisherman in Ghana, dancing farmers in Tanzania, and singing shepherds in Mongolia. He and his Maine farm crew sometimes sing when they plant seeds and shuck garlic. “It’s not like The Sound of Music,” he told me. “You wait for your brain and body to need it.” When Konesni launches into a work song, “Something changes pretty quick. I don’t feel my muscles in the same way. The pain disappears, like I’ve taken Advil. I start to sweat more because I’m working harder, but I also find I’m working faster.” As the physical discomfort recedes, pleasure takes over. “I start to feel this euphoria and timelessness, and I can’t tell you how many minutes have gone by.”

  Thanks to its ergogenic effects, music can help people transcend their own apparent physical limitations. In one experiment, middle-aged patients with diabetes and high blood pressure listened to upbeat music as they completed a cardiovascular stress test. During the test, patients first walked and then ran on a treadmill for as long as they could, while the experimenter regularly ramped up both the speed and incline. Most people get winded by minute six and give up within eight. When accompanied by music, however, patients soldiered on for an average of fifty-one seconds longer. That’s almost a full minute at their highest level of effort. A cardiovascular stress test is the gold standard for determining how strong your heart is and what you can endure. Music redefined what their hearts were capable of.

  Many athletes have learned to exploit this benefit. In carefully controlled experiments, adding a soundtrack helps rowers, sprinters, and swimmers shave seconds off their times. Runners can tolerate extreme heat and humidity longer, and triathletes can push themselves farther before reaching exhaustion. Moving to music even leads athletes to consume less oxygen as they exert themselves, as if the song itself supplies some of the energy they need. Findings like this led the authors of a scientific review in the Annals of Sports Medicine and Research to conclude that music is a legal performance-enhancing drug.

  In 2007, the U.S. governing body for running competitions barred the use of personal music players at official races. They claimed it was primarily for safety, but many assumed it was to prevent an unfair performance advantage from having the right playlist. This may be a legitimate concern. In 1998, Ethiopian athlete Haile Gebrselassie managed to convince event organizers to play the pop song “Scatman” over the sound system during the indoor 2,000-meter race. He had practiced to that song and knew it was the perfect track to synchronize his stride to. He ended up breaking the world record.

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  If music is a performance-enhancing drug, then Brunel University sports psychologist Costas Karageorghis is one of the world’s leading suppliers. He works with Olympic, national, and collegiate athletes to create custom playlists for training and competitions. He’s helped create the soundtracks for Run to the Beat, a music-driven half marathon, and O2 Touch, a mixed-gender touch rugby program played to music. He’s also responsible for shaping the algorithms that determine what songs you hear in the workout playlists of several prominent streaming services.

  Karageorghis grew up in what he describes as a “poor but colorful enclave” of South London, in an apartment above a secondhand record store. Every morning he was jolted awake by the booming bass of the shop’s subwoofer. After getting out of bed, he liked to look out his window at the people walking by. As soon as they came within earshot of the music—often the reggae sounds of Bob Marley or Desmond Dekker—they smiled and started to walk with a lilt in their step. It seemed to Karageorghis that adding a soundtrack to an ordinary stroll was transformative—creating what he calls “an auditory elation.”

  As a teenager, Karageorghis excelled in track and field, and one year he competed in junior track and field at the annual Grand Prix in London. He found himself in the warm-up area with legendary 400-meter hurdler Edwin Moses. Moses was listening to soul music on an early Sony Walkman. At the time, personal listening devices were rare, and Moses was the only athlete using music to prepare. Karageorghis remembers thinking how innovative this was, and how brilliant it was that Moses was able to create his own bubble to get into the right mindset.

  Now personal music players are ubiquitous, and Karageorghis is the one helping athletes choose the songs they listen to. He starts by trying to figure out each athlete’s musical tastes. What are their favorite songs? Who are their favorite artists? He’ll review their music library track by track, asking them to explain why they like specific songs. He’ll put them on a treadmill to find out which tracks increase their speed. He’ll test their handgrip strength to discover if a song boosts their ability to push through fatigue. Karageorghis is looking for a power song—one that resonates so strongly that it alters the athlete’s mood and physiology. He can often tell right away when he’s hit on an effective track. “You immediately observe a rhythm response,” he says. The athlete starts bobbing his head or tapping her toes. There are also the telltale signs of physiological arousal, such as dilated pupils and piloerection, when the hair on your skin stands on end. This is how Karageorghis knows the song is triggering an adrenaline rush.

  Power songs tend to share certain qualities that make them stimulating: a strong beat, an energetic feel, and a tempo of around 120 to 140 beats per minute, which seems to be a universally preferred cadence for human movement. Power songs also have strong “extramusical” associations: the positive emotions, images, and meaning the song triggers in the listener. These associations can be based on the lyrics, the performers, one’s own personal memories, or pop culture—for example, if a song was in the soundtrack to a film or if it served as an official song for a major sporting event.

  Of all a song’s qualities, lyrics are the most important for pushing us to work harder and for reducing fatigue, pain, and perceived effort. If you look at popular workout playlists, you’ll see song after song with lyrics that emphasize qualities like perseverance and determination. This is one reason Eminem’s “Till I Collapse” remains the most popular workout song of all time. Effective power songs often have lyrics that relate to physical activity itself, with words like work, go, or run. After Karageorghis mentioned this, I looked through my music library and realized he was right—some of my own power songs are “Let’s Go” by Travis Barker, “Work” by Stella Mwangi, and “Move (Keep Walkin’)” by TobyMac.

  Many athletes respond to music that inspires heroic imagery. One of Karageorghis’s studies found that listening to “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor (the theme song to Rocky III) helped participants work harder and enjoy themselves more during a strength challenge performed to exhaustion. No doubt part of the song’s power lies in its association with a fighter who won’t quit and its lyrics about rising to a challenge. Recordings of brain activity revealed that the song distracted participants from their effort, allowing them to push past the first signs of discomfort that typically make us quit before we reach our actual physical limits.

  I can still remember the first time I heard what would become one of my go-to power songs. I was in an indoor cycling class when “Warrior” by Australian pop singer Havana Brown came on. The track has a hard-driving beat and a female vocalist singing about dancing to the beat of a drum, backed by male voices shouting what sounds like “Go! Go! Go!” By the time we got to the first chorus, it was like the song had entered my body. I felt a wildness I associate with intoxication or infatuation. It was like I had discovered an unknown reserve of energy, and once I wa
s plugged into that reserve, the energy surged through my blood, helping me push the pedals faster and with more force. I turned the resistance wheel up not because the instructor told us to, but because I wanted to feel the pedals push back. I wanted to sense my own power and strength as I overcame the resistance. The best way I can describe it is that the song set my brain on fire. It kindled all the right neurons, triggering a primal response that tapped into my very identity; it wasn’t lost on me that the Gaelic meaning of my name, Kelly, is “warrior.”

  Karageorghis’s research shows that at moderate levels of intensity, music reduces perceived effort, making the work feel easier and more enjoyable. But at higher intensities, when you’re struggling to continue, it no longer reduces that perceived effort. Instead, it colors your interpretation of what you’re feeling, adding a positive meaning to the physical discomfort. When you hear Eminem rap about finding your inner strength or Beyoncé tell you that a winner don’t quit on themselves, the sweat, the fatigue, the burning in your lungs—they all become evidence of your determination, fortitude, and stamina. In this way, the right playlist can transform your experience of exercise. In a study at the University of Otago in New Zealand, researchers asked women to say out loud what they were thinking as they ran on a treadmill. The women’s minds often returned to sensations of effort. For one woman, breathing harder and sweating might be interpreted as meaning I am getting stronger or I am doing something good for my body. To another woman, the same sensations might lead to thoughts of I am too out of shape to do this. These interpretations in turn predicted how much the women enjoyed working out. When they took a positive view of the sensations of effort, they felt much more pleasure. This was most true when they reached what’s called the ventilatory threshold, the point at which you have to breathe harder to fuel your heart. Music is one way to shape the meaning of what you feel when you work hard. When you choose songs that inspire you, every burst of effort can also empower the story you want to tell about who you are and who you are becoming.

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  When Amara MacPhee woke up from surgery in the cardiothoracic unit at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, the pain was excruciating. There were tubes running in and out of her body and machines beeping. She couldn’t sit upright. MacPhee remembers being utterly overwhelmed and thinking, This is going to be way harder than I thought it would be.

  A month earlier, forty-year-old MacPhee had been in the best shape of her life, thanks to the classes she was taking at 305 Fitness in New York City’s West Village. MacPhee loved the high-energy music, the live DJ, and the studio’s disco lights. She also relished the community spirit. She liked that when the class made it through the hardest part of the workout—a nonstop cardio section called the sprint—the instructor would say, “High-five your neighbor, tell them congrats!”

  One Saturday morning in September 2016, MacPhee found herself coughing through class. She thought maybe it was allergies. The following Tuesday, she had an even harder time breathing in class and had to take more water breaks than usual. Maybe I’m getting bronchitis, she thought. She went to her doctor, assuming she’d get a prescription for antibiotics and be better in a week. Instead, her doctor kept her stethoscope over MacPhee’s lower left side for what felt like a long time. “I want to send you for a chest X-ray,” she said. When the results came back, MacPhee’s doctor traced the image with a pencil, saying, “This is your heart. These are your lungs.” Then she circled a big gray spot between MacPhee’s left lung and her rib cage. “I need to send you to the hospital for a CAT scan.”

  The scan revealed a mass the size of a grapefruit. MacPhee had a benign thymoma, a rare growth that starts in the cells of the thymus, an immune organ behind the sternum. The pressure on her left lung had been making it hard to breathe. MacPhee’s tumor was not cancerous, but she would need to undergo open heart surgery to remove it.

  The first time she tried to get out of bed after the surgery, her legs felt like rubber. She had to lean to the side because it hurt too much to stand up straight. When her physical therapist told her it was time to try walking, she managed to stagger down the hall to the nurses’ station and back to her room. “It seemed like a never-ending hallway,” MacPhee remembers. “I felt like I had run a marathon.”

  A few days later, her husband arrived at the hospital with a surprise. “Listen to this, I promise, you’ll like it,” he told her. She put in an earbud and heard a song she recognized as a 305 Fitness warm-up track. “Sadie sent it for you!” her husband said. One of MacPhee’s instructors had put together a playlist of her favorite tracks from class. She told her husband she wanted to try walking again.

  MacPhee’s husband helped her out of bed. She was still in her hospital gown, robe, and socks with skids on the bottom. With one hand, she dragged the rolling stand that held her IV drip. With her other hand, she held on to her husband for support. She kept one earbud in, the other out so she could hear her husband encouraging her. The hallway was still cold and depressing, but the playlist—including Rihanna’s “We Found Love” and RuPaul’s “Sissy That Walk”—transported her. They were her power songs. MacPhee felt like she was in class instead of the hospital. “It made me feel like I was surrounded by people cheering me on. It made me feel, You can do this.”

  Three weeks after surgery, MacPhee posted a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. on Instagram: “If you can’t fly, run. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl. But by all means, keep moving.” Seven weeks after surgery, she made it back to 305 Fitness. It was Thanksgiving weekend, and she was grateful to be moving again. As she celebrated with the community that had helped her pull through, it was all she could do to hold back the tears. At the end of class, her instructor Sadie announced, “I just want to say a special shout-out—Amara had some major surgery, and we missed her.”

  In our conversations, MacPhee referred to 305 Fitness as her Fit Fam, a phrase that brought my thoughts back to collective joy, and how moving together can forge strong bonds. Music can enhance these effects, whether it’s accompanying the synchronized step-touches in a group exercise class or the muscular bonding of athletes in training. When I asked sports psychologist Costas Karageorghis if he had a favorite story from his career, he surprised me with a tale not about the power of music to make Olympians run faster, but its ability to bring people together. In 1997, the collegiate track and field club that Karageorghis managed was fraught with team conflict. Some of the athletes were avoiding each other on the bus and in hotels, and the discord was bringing down the entire team. Karageorghis had the idea to create a motivational video that highlighted the athletes who were not getting along. He combined footage of them in races, including cooperating in relays, and set it to the song “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge. Right before each meet, Karageorghis would play the highlight video for everyone. The team came together, and that year—for the first and only time in the club’s history—they defeated their rival in the national championship.

  This could have been just another example of Karageorghis motivating his athletes with music, but there was more to the story that he was eager to share. One member of that year’s team worked as a DJ at the student union bar, where Karageorghis would sometimes stop for a drink at the end of his day. Whenever the DJ saw him there, he would play “We Are Family.” Karageorghis’s athletes would take the drink out of his hand and force him onto the dance floor. “I felt at one with the athletes,” he remembers, and twenty years later, the song brings back all those feelings of belonging. A few days after he told me this story, Karageorghis sent me a photo of a red T-shirt bearing the Brunel University logo and the words We Are Family. He had made the T-shirts for the track and field team back in 1997, and he had held on to his all these years.

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  At the 2017 annual Stanford Dance Marathon, members of the Stanford community danced for twenty-four hours to r
aise over a hundred thousand dollars for the families and patients at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. The marathon took place on the basketball court of the athletic center, which had been decorated with balloons and student-made banners. Many participants accessorized their official Dance Marathon T-shirts with tutus and face glitter. The Stanford mascot, a nine-foot-tall dancing redwood tree, stopped by with the university cheerleaders to support the dancers. A steady stream of deliveries from a local pizza joint, Mexican grill, and bagel shop made sure everyone was fed.

  The organizers had arranged for entertainment throughout the event to keep the marathoners engaged. Alongside a roster of live DJs, musical acts, and dance performances, I was scheduled to lead a one-hour dance party with easy-to-follow choreography and a playlist that would keep people moving and smiling. The dancers filled the court at least ten rows back. With no stage, only the first couple of rows could see me, and without a microphone, I couldn’t verbally cue the moves. I had to trust that the dance steps would trickle back, and for the most part, they did.

  As the big finale, I had chosen “You Can’t Stop the Beat” from the film version of the Broadway musical Hairspray. Reviewers called the song jubilant, joyous, and contagiously elating—exactly how I feel when dancing to it. The piece is marked by fast percussion, cheerful trumpets that add a syncopated beat, and an upward melodic motion. The singers’ perfectly harmonized voices praise not only the pleasures of shaking and shimmying on a Saturday night, but also the values of self-acceptance, equality, and social progress. I hoped that even if the marathon dancers didn’t know the song, they would connect to its infectious energy. And to my delight, that’s exactly what happened. The whole group caught on to the steps quickly, and they moved in unison, clapping and sashaying as if they had rehearsed the routine for hours. Many of the dancers knew the words, and I watched as students in the front row turned to their friends, smiling as they sang along. Later, an event organizer would tell me it was one of the most talked-about highlights of the marathon.