Totally unscientific:  music, at least for me, can alter the mood/tempo of the moment.  My bad time of the day is 3:00 pm (or so).  When I worked at National Public Radio in Washington, friends who were in the engineering area would play certain records on the loudspeakers specifically to 'wake' me up.  So from that, I've learnt good old Southern rock'n roll is the best to get me going -  Creedence Clearwater Revival, Little Feat, Alabama, Bob Seeger, the Clash, the Who, the Stones... the baroques are great for thinking, etc.  Though I do remember a mention of some study about music in stores, and once in a while wonder about that when entering a store playing music.

Hi Assaf,

I'd suggest you listen to those colossal masterpieces like Mahler symphonies and Operas. Like you, I cannot listen to music in the background and those pieces are so long it is not always simple to make time for them unless one goes to the concert.

Another question I'm curious about and would be glad to hear your view on is how do you keep your heart rate stable while listening?

(as I write you this question, I'm remembering the first time I heard Mahler 6th and how I got scared in the first movement when a chord I did not expect suddenly came and made my heart rate jump at least to 160... luckily I wasn't running at that time or it could have been dangerous:)

Hi Anita,

Well, when you come to think of it, together with music there are three tempos going on, each changing at a different pace and interval.

The most dominant is the running tempo, the second in dominance is the music one, and the third is the heart rate. While the connection between the first and the second is very notable, not sure I noticed yet the connection between the second and the third. Analyzing charts of my running heart rate, it doesn’t seem to be affected much by the different music’s I played along the run. Seems that while I’m running, my heart is focused on steady pumping of blood to supply oxygen, proving it is mostly a pump. But then, I haven't tried it with Mahler’s 6th first movement yet!

On a different note, it reminded me of a music theory that shows that over the years there is a consistent increase in the tempo in which music pieces are performed. The tempo is highly correlated to the ever increasing pace of life and to inventions that made our life pace faster: train, car, plane, etc.  So a Mozart Andante played in the time of Mozart is played today in a much faster tempo, demonstrating that we probably even walk today much faster than people used to in the past. Following the same logic, I wonder if runners prefer faster tempos.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will certainly try running with Mahler's 6th symphony and an opera or two and let you know of the results.