Do you listen to music at the gym? Today, most gym-goers like to wear head-phones and listen to self-selected music while they’re doing exercise. Why do songs from personalized playlists seem to increase motivation and make intense exercise more enjoyable when someone is walking or jogging?
Based on practical experience, a recent study provides new evidence that listening to music while running on a treadmill (跑步机) fights with mental tiredness and improves performance. According to a news release, this study is “the first to investigate the effect of listening to music playlists on long-distance running capacity and performance when mentally tired.” These findings were published online ahead of print on June 22.
For this study, researchers from the University of Edinburgh had a group of experienced runners do a high-intensity 5-kilometre treadmill run with and without self-selected motivational music after they’d performed a series of cognitive (认知的) exams designed to put them in a mentally tired state. The researchers found that “listening to self-selected music in a mentally tired state reduces the negative impact of mental tiredness on their running capacity and performance, potentially due to changed perception of effort when listening to music.”
“Mental tiredness is a common occurrence for many of us and can negatively impact many of our day-to-day activities, including exercise. Finding safe and effective ways to reduce this negative impact is, therefore, useful,” Shaun Phillips of Edinburgh’s Moray House School said in the news release.
“The findings indicate that listening to personalized motivational music may be a useful strategy to help active people improve their endurance running capacity and performance when mentally tired,” he added. “This positive impact of self-selected music could help people to better keep the quality and beneficial impact of their exercise sessions.”
【小题1】What’s the function of the questions in Paragraph 1?| A．To make a comparism. | B．To lead in the topic. |
| C．To make a prediction. | D．To ask for information. |
| A．Runners’ cognitive levels. | B．Runners’ mental states. |
| C．Runners’ running ability. | D．Runners’ music preference. |
| A．To describe the experimental process. | B．To explore ways to enhance sports performance. |
| C．To further clarify the result of the finding. | D．To explain the harmful effects of mental tiredness. |
| A．Personalized music makes runners less tired. | B．Motivational music cheers runners up. |
| C．Self-selected music maintains life quality. | D．Self-selected music treats mental illnesses. |
