A recent poll suggests listening to music can be more effective than caffeine in improving mood and focus.

It’s no secret that music gets us through the life’s biggest moments. Breakups, setbacks, celebrations and commiserations all call for an appropriate soundtrack – songs to help us think, reflect, run faster or get us “pumped”. But is listening to music just an aesthetic choice, or does it genuinely help us cope on a more biological level? A new study suggests that the song you put on your iPod in the morning really can help you battle those Monday blues.

In collaboration with Spotify, the music streaming service that has quickly become many millennials’ preferred method of listening, leading market research company Ipsos Connect has released a poll that suggests music is significantly “more likely to motivate millennials who feel they have little motivation”. According to their online survey, which involved 500 Australians aged 18 and over, including 331 adults under the age of 35 who described themselves as having “too little motivation on typical Mondays”, the majority of Australians need energy boosts most critically on early Monday mornings and again in the mid-morning. Though there are several methods that appear...