Transcript of Use This Hack To Immediately Boost Your Mood | Mel Robbins Clips

I want to start by talking about how you can use music as a hack to put you in a better mood almost instantaneously. It turns out, according to research, that when you listen to songs that you liked when you were growing up, or songs that were like the anthem during certain periods of your life, research shows that simply listening to these old songs puts you in a better mood. I think you know this. You know this, right? Because you've experienced I've experienced this before. But when I share the research with you and we really unpack this and what's happening in your body and your brain, I really want you to lean into this because it's a powerful tool that you can use in your day-to-day life. Okay? So just picture this. You're driving in your car, you're just cruising down the highway, you're thinking about work, or you're thinking about your grocery list, or you're wondering, Oh my God, did anyone need to feed the dog? Your mind is just busy turning over these thoughts, and all of a sudden, One of your favorite songs from high school comes on the radio. For me, oh, boy, there was a phase early in high school, I was so into The Cure and the specials.

Friday, I'm in love. I don't even want to say I'm a terrible singer. You guys know my daughter's a singer. You'll turn this off if I sing, so I'm not going to be singing. But then there was a phase where everybody in my high school in Western Michigan was way into Bruce Springsteen, born in the USA, came out, I believe, when I was in high school. And And there was also this whole body of music that's now called Yatt Rock. That's that easy, soft rock stuff that my parents were constantly playing. It was always in the house or in the car or in the boat. You know that song, If you like piña coladas? I'm so embarrassed. I am so embarrassed when I sing because I think I have a terrible voice. But when you even think about those lyrics, If you like piña coladas, Aren't you immediately transported back in time? I mean, first, if you think about your favorite song, stop and think right now. What was one of your favorite songs when you were in high school? Maybe even had a poster hanging in your room. You played it over and over and over again.

If you had siblings, they were like, Turn it off. Oh, my gosh, you knew all the words. If you think of that song, you immediately start thinking about all the memories that you have from that period of your life. And what's so interesting about this to me is you don't have to think to yourself, Oh, I'm going to think about that time I took a road trip with friends, and now that the song is on. No, no, no, no. Your mind, naturally, just hearing the song goes there. I cannot not hear that song, rather. If you like Piña Coladas, I don't even know what the heck the name of the song is. You know that song, right? And not immediately just go back to being in middle school. And Nights in Michigan, where I grew up. It just naturally goes there. You think of your song, maybe you're thinking about a road trip with friends, or the day you went to see that band in concert, or a school dance where You were just so excited because you had a huge crush on that person, and that song was playing in the sweaty gymnasium in middle school, or I don't remember what song it is.

Maybe you guys can remember this, but there was a song when I was in middle school. Gosh, I was racking my brain trying to figure this out. I'm hoping you will write in and tell me what this was. It was a song that would play near the end of every middle school dance. And I'm talking early '80s, everybody. It is a song that is probably Really eight minutes long. And this song would come on, and so help me God, I cannot remember what it is. But if you were dancing with somebody that you really liked, you were so excited. I mean, because you You were going to hold them close. This was going to be like that hip-rocking circle for eight minutes long. Oh, yeah, you won the lottery because you get to be with this. But if you were with the wrong person, this is like a slow death march in a circle with the wrong long person. God, I wish I could remember that. You know what it is? It starts out slow, and then it builds, and it's so long, and it was at the end of... Anyway, I'll give you another example.

When I was in eighth grade, my dad fulfilled his lifelong dream of renting a motorhome and taking his family on a cross country road trip where we visited all of these national parks. And we had three eight track cassette tapes in that motorhome. We had Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits. We had the band America and Their Greatest Hits, and we had Hooked on Classics. And I'm going to tell you something. If Hicked On Classics comes on, I can feel myself just hearing that music. I feel myself in the motorhome cruising down I-90 toward the Corn Palace in Iowa, playing Jim Remy with my mom and my brother in the back while my dad drove. I mean, it's immediate. You know what I'm saying? You've got these songs, right? There's research around what's happening because you don't have to think. Your body and your brain remembers. And here's another one. So I haven't talked to you guys about this, but I am all fired up because my daughters and I just went to see Taylor Swift in concert. Holy cow. I got to do a whole episode about everything that I learned from Taylor Swift, but that's a whole 'nother' thing.

It was insane what a sensory experience that concert was, because her first album debut came out when Kendall was, I think, seven years old. I mean, Kendall picked up a guitar in order to learn how to play Taylor's music. Her music was the soundtrack of my life as a young mom and of their life growing up. When you got two girls, that's what was playing. And so fast forward, almost two decades later, here we are in concert, screaming our brains out. And it's almost like as all the music was playing, I was both in the concert with my adult daughters, but I could also feel in my body like I was in a car, like in 2010, driving carpool to a lacrosse tournament and Cruel Summer's playing. You know what I mean? I'm drunk in the back of the car. Holy cow. What about you? What was some of the favorite music from your past? Is there a particular song that brings up fun memories for you? Maybe it was the song that played the summer you graduated from high school, or the song that your dad always played, and every time you hear the song, you immediately think of him.

Or maybe it was your first dance song, right? Every time our first dance song comes on the radio, Barry White, Can't Get Enough of your Love, That's What Chris and I, First Dance, I'm like, Whiting Song, and I'm right there. Well, I want to explain the research to you, because according to researchers, You and I can use the happy associations from these songs of our past to lift our mood in the present. How cool is that? And you've experienced it just by accident. But I want you to get intentional about this, because check this out. The researchers dove deep into understanding why memories associated with songs immediately change your mood. And they say that you and I tend to have more memories associated associated with older songs than newer ones. And there's a term for this. It is called neural nostalgia. In other words, these songs from our past where we have really positive memories and positive emotional associations with them. I'll give you another one, the Steve Miller Band, that album with the horse head on the cover. I played that, oh my gosh, sophomore summer in college. And these songs from your past that you and I have positive associations with.

It's like reminding you of a time in life when you had less stress, when maybe you had a little less on your plate, you were a little more innocent, you felt a little more hopeful. You have happy memories that are intrinsically linked with music from your past. So the fancy way that scientists talk about this is they call this music evoked autobiographical memory, which means you have emotional emotions that are crazy strong driving to the grocery store simply because you hear a song from the past. And what's also cool is, let's just say you're driving to the grocery store, right? And all of a sudden, the song that was the defining song of your high school summer, or your college years, or being a young parent, or being in your 20s in the city, all of a sudden hits the car. Your body changes immediately. And you know what else happens? Vivid memories. You immediately remember living in the city post-college with your friends. You immediately remember that summer that you took that road trip. You immediately remember your childhood and something you were doing. And we're going to get into the science of why this is the case.

And I am so fired up about this topic because I just experienced this with the Taylor Swift concert. Not only at the concert, by the way, but But a week before our daughter Kendall found a playlist of the set that Taylor was going to play. Again, Kendall is the super fan, and so she was like, You got to listen to the playlist. I'm like, I know all these songs. She's like, I know, but she got to listen to the playlist. I'll tell you what, Even listening to the setlist before the concert, as I'm driving my errands and I'm going here and there, it flooded me with a decade and a half of memories raising my girls. And the same thing is going to happen to you. I mean, you've experienced this. There's nothing cooler than it being a beautiful day, and the windows are down in the car, and the song is coming on, the speakers, and the wind is blowing, and you feel this feeling of freedom and joy. So let me explain what's going on inside your brain when you hear music that you associate with great memories. It's so cool because what's happening is biological.

See, the music is activating a part of your brain called the limbic system, and the limbic system is located beneath the brain surface, and it's involved in learning, but it also is in charge of memory and emotional responses. And I find it personally fascinating that the research shows that the limbic system is involved and activated when you are listening to music from your past, and all of a sudden, all these memories are triggered, and it made me think about something. So in the world today, we talk a lot about trauma, right? And when you hear the word trauma, you immediately think negative past experience, right? And if you've ever had a traumatic experience, one of the things that happens is all of a sudden, you'll be living your day-to-day life, and boom, some negative memory pops into your mind from the past. And I can give you a quick example. So one traumatic experience for me is that I was in a car crash where the car rolled, and I can remember being in that in that car like it was yesterday. I can literally close my eyes. The memory is so seared into my mind and into my body that I know exactly what it felt like to be in that car as it rolled.

Now, here's an interesting thing. That accident happened when it was snowing, and there was a particular sound that I heard as the car was rolling, and it's the sound of snow crunching. You know how snow's like... And To this day, I'm talking decades later, if I walk down a sidewalk and the snow crunches under my feet, I have the sensation of immediately being back in a car that's rolling. It's a form of negative neural nostalgia, right? We've just been learning about how songs can take you back to the positive. So here's what I want you to understand that I think is super cool. The same mechanism in your body that records negative traumatic experiences, right? And you then get triggered, and you remember them, or you feel things from your past. It's the exact same recording system that records the positive ones. And it explains why you remember positive memories when it was like something super emotional. It's because the high state of emotion, being in a car crash, high state of emotion, right? When you're in a high state of emotion, the limbic system is activated and it's It's trying to remember everything. The emotions are on fire, and it's trying to protect you.

Oh my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, which is why it records it. It's why I remember the sound. Same thing with positive. Same thing with positive. You're in a high positive emotional state. Think about graduation from high school. Think about graduation from college. Think about your wedding day. Think about when your first child was born. Think about some of the most positive experiences, even positive experiences like, you are seeing your your favorite band play. I will never forget what it was like to be in that stadium with my daughter screaming every single word of those Taylor Swift songs. I was in such an activated, excited It was in this positive state that my limbic system was on fire recording the memory. And it's the reason why, for example, you can remember things like... I bet you can remember what what day it was and details about your high school graduation years later, right? You could almost put yourself back there. Highly positive state. But I bet you cannot remember what you did the Thursday before graduation, can you? Of course not. If you've ever been in a car accident, you know exactly what you were doing right before the accident happened.

But you don't know what you were doing two days before. And there's a reason why. The heightened emotional state that your body went into is what triggers the recording of the memory. That's why this works. I hate the fact that... It's good that we have a word for negative trauma, but I wish we had a really amazing pump-up word for the positive recording, because it's the exact same thing. It's only with your best memories, not your worst. And what this research is telling you is that this neural nostalgia that gets created because of the heightened emotion and also repetition mission that's also part of the research when it comes to the encoding of these memories, and you listen to the song over and over and over, and you're having these happy days, and it's the best summer of your life, and oh my God, that it's the heightened emotion that locks in the memory. That's why this works. Isn't the science so cool? And this explains why neural nostalgia is such a hugely cool thing and can be a remarkable tool for you to help you lift your mood or to help you change your mindset.

Because you know You know that song that you heard at one of your favorite concerts? Boom, it can put you right there. For example, for me, one of the best concerts I have ever been to in my entire life, 2017, Gillette Stadium, You Too, Joshua Tree album tour. All I have to do is hear the opening rift of the first song on U2's Joshua Tree album. What is it? Streets Have No Name. I don't even know the name of the song, but I know the rift. The guitar starts playing, and all of a sudden, it accelerates. Incredible song. And I'm transported to Gillette Stadium, July 2017. And you know a funny story about that tour? Right before the concert, I happened to be giving a speech in Vegas to 27,000 people, and I was standing backstage, one of the biggest events that I'd ever spoken at, and the whole set up and the production for that event, 27,000 people, was unbelievable. And the guy who was working for the production company who did the event in Vegas that I was speaking at also happened to be the production company that was doing You Two's tour.

And he told me this story about the fact that it was the first time, if any of you ever saw that tour, it was incredible because You Two played in front of this massive, up like, IMAX-size screen. And it was the first time that anyone had ever done a tour with a screen that size. It was 8K resolution. It was 200 feet by 40 feet tall, cinematic screen. It was the largest high-res screen at a touring show ever. And he told me the funniest story. He said that a few years before the Joshua Tree tour, you two had signed a contract to do a stadium tour, but the album that they were planning to tour wasn't ready. So they had to scramble because they had booked all the stadiums, and they decided to just do their most popular album of all time, like front to back, cover to cover. I mean, absolutely incredible. I don't know if it's a true story or not. It's just the one that he told me. I got to tell you, it was one of the best nights of my entire life. I'll tell you why. Joshua Tree, the album, was released March ninth, 1987, which was the spring of my freshman year of college.

I played that album until the needle broke on my record player. I mean, it was the album of my college experience, and so many other people, too. In fact, at the concert in 2017, it was like crazy. There was a huge thunderstorm, and right before you two came out, the sky broke open and the sun came down, and then all of a sudden, that first song played, and the 200-foot Cinematic screen started running the music videos that had played on MTV back in the day. And I looked around, everybody there was my age. It was like the world's Our biggest college reunion, all of us who had been freshmen in 1987, it was magical, it was iconic. But here's the part I want you to hone in on. Your favorite music from the past can help you hit the reset button on your mood right now. Simply putting on one of your favorite songs from high school, from college, from your childhood, from a Another time in your life that reminds you of a really good memory. The second you hit play, your mind and your body does the work. It changes you. And as we go further and further into this topic of using music as a hack, you're going to learn the science.

It's absolutely insane how this works. And I want you to understand this, because whenever you're stressed or you're feeling really low, or you're having a bad day, or you're feeling isolated or alone, I want you to be able to use this tool. I don't want you to just listen to me today as you're taking your walk, or you've invited me into your house, or your car, or you're watching me. I on the TV, if you're on YouTube. I don't want you to just nod along and be like, Yeah, I've experienced this, Mel. I know exactly what you mean, and I know exactly what my song is. Because these songs that transport you are a hack and a tool to make your life better. I want you to make a playlist, because any time that you want to shift in your mood, you don't have to wait for lightning to strike. You can put a song on that you love, and you can let the song do the work. And it could be exactly what you need. And oftentimes, You don't need to want it to work. Seriously. Have you ever had somebody that's really sad?

You're like, Oh, come on, let me cheer you up. And then all you do is you put their favorite song on. They look at you and they're mad because they don't want to feel better. And the song turns turns on, and by the time the song's done, they're feeling better. That's why this is such a great hack, because you don't have to feel like it. You just have to put on the music that will lift your mood. And This is for when you want an immediate shift. I want you to consider this research when you're feeling like, I don't know. Put the song on and let the research and your brain do the work for you. In fact, I've got a little hack for you. If you ever want people to help you do the dishes, all you got to do is play music. My trick is I've got this disco playlist that I use to make people help me with the dishes. Yep, you have a big dinner party, you got your family around, you got a backyard barbecue. Boom. Hit the disco playlist. Mine begins with Y-M-C-A. And people, like young men, When that starts playing, people cannot sit at the table while you're bussing.

Everybody starts picking up their plates and wiggling toward the kitchen, and you will all of a sudden have put on a playlist disco that activates brainwaves inside of everybody, and now they're moving, and they're grooving, and they're motivated, and they're helping you, and it becomes a dish party instead of a chore that you have to do. Your favorite music from the past can help you reset button on your mood right now. What was some of the favorite music from your past? Maybe it was the song that played the summer you graduated from high school.