How Music affects Performance?!

In Olympic venues, you may often see athletes using headphones before or even during the competition. Music serves various purposes for athletes:

• Boosts mood, energy, and happiness while reducing negative emotions (Bishop et al., 2007)
• Regulates arousal levels as an excitatory or calming agent before events (Bishop et al., 2007)
• Modulates neurotransmitters to alleviate stress and anxiety (Salimpoor et al., 2011; Wu et al., 2017)

Even without intentionally listening to music, through imagery, sounds often blend in.

Yuto Horigome, the skateboarding gold medalist at the 2024 Paris Olympics, said, “The key to the final move is to not play any music, to focus as much as possible on myself, recalling all the hard practice I have done. My family, friends, and fans, all the people who truly support me, their support is the key to me being able to complete the final move.”

Yuto Horigome’s playlist as the skateboarding gold medalist at the 2024 Paris Olympics:

NAMEDARUMA〈Buds Montage〉

Utada Hikaru 〈Automatic〉

Utada Hikaru 〈Pink Blood〉

Namie Amuro 〈Baby Don’t cry〉

Kanye West 〈Father stretch My Hands〉

Lil Ｗayne 〈YM Wasted〉

Kendrick Lamar〈Money Trees〉

Playboi Carti 〈2024〉