What Your Music Says About Your Personality

 

First of all, if whatever you listen to makes you happy, things are fine. Actually, research has shown that your favourite music can reduce pain better than ibuprofen. Apparently, putting your preferred songs on loop increases tolerance for painful stimuli and decreases anxiety more significantly than other techniques such as silence conditions or visual distractions. Nevertheless, let’s put that fact aside for the moment: after some research, this is what the following genres of music tell about you!

 

Are you listening to the likes of Adele, Sam Smith or Ed Sheeran, all serving us vocals and dreamy guitar pop realness? Yes, you’re that person who adores sugary love songs, jams to bops and passionately yells along to ballads with power voices. That’s all fine: people who prefer conventional or upbeat music tend to be very creative, outgoing, gentle and the least prone to depression! There you go.

 

As a fan of hip-hop and rap, your destiny is clear: you love to be social, and like to go out and party. You radiate an energetic and rhythmic aura, and the world is too small for you. Interestingly - seen objectively - noise like rap can even help hyperactive people focus better: people diagnosed with ADHD turn out to need more noise for optimal cognitive performance. This is opposed to other people whose work performance decreases while listening to music, but who do feel happier while working :). 

 

As a jazz lover, you've entered a stage of joy and satisfaction in your life: every Saturday night, you pour yourself a glass of whiskey, sit down at the couch near your vinyl LP player, and get in a trance with your favorite musicians. You're a deep thinker, and you use music to exercise your brain rather than your body. You're extremely open to new experiences and 'head wherever life takes you.' Deep!

 

Are you a Heavy Metal lover? Don’t worry; you don’t have to be some tattooed, hairy freak. In fact, you’re unlikely to be very outgoing or hard working and tend to have a low self-esteem… that doesn’t sound stereotype! Even if hard rock is not particularly your thing, there’s one note: angry music improves accomplishments. It focuses attention on rewards, increases persistence, makes us feel in control and more optimistic about achieving our goals. So next time before you’re taking your exams…

 

Don’t you mind a regular cry? Then, probably, one of your favourite playlists contains a bunch of sad sing-along songs serving a daily mood. In particular, your typically haunting Scandinavian-ish kind of ballad or cry-along movie soundtrack does the job. It does not have to be a bad thing though! If you're ever in a mental breakdown, organise a nightly cry session with your playlist and a Ben & Jerry's 500ml cookie dough starting package (personal advice) and come back stronger than ever the next morning.

 

Are you a follower of artists like Billie Eilish, Troye Sivan, or Lorde? Are you down for rhythmic, avant-garde electro-pop? It’s more than clear: you’re that strong, independent, empowered soul digging the melodramatic vibes. As it turns out, people into this genre seem to be very extroverted and attractive (yay!), and especially intelligent and progressive. Moreover, no surprises over here, but you people have taste.

 

There is this stereotypical idea of classical music enjoyers being extremely smart. And it's true; what's even worse is that they know it. People listening to Beethoven et al. are undoubtedly reflective and complex, and see life as a 'theatrical experience', which is a bit questionable if you know that these people are usually older and make quite some money. Don't let it influence your taste though: after all, classical music is shown to be the best music to listen to while studying, and that's the tea.

 

EDM spans a wide range of genres, but I’ll keep it to the hereby-introduced term ‘déjà vu’-dance songs: drops and melodies we have all heard a thousand times before. It’s the daily bunch of songs on your mother’s favourite radio station, and the ones you as a dance lover sing and dance along to during one of the yearly festivals you attend. A couple of things turn out: you’re creative, outgoing, but not the gentlest person on the festival grounds to say the least. You’re that one person standing in a crowd and hitting back people who try to push themselves on their way to the front line.

 

Of course, this article wouldn’t be finished without some personal advice. So, if you’re in for a clear skin, good mental health status and daily life advice, stream nobody other than: Dutch queen Anouk, serving highly-needed daily pieces of positivity and survival tips.

 

We asked you on our Instagram which music is your favourite! We made a little pie chart for you to see: