Why Learning Guitar Is Good for Your Brain

When you pluck a guitar string, you create more than beautiful music — you launch a neurological frenzy inside your brain. After years of practice, your brain has developed unique wiring that allows your fingers to fly across the fretboard without conscious thought. While learning any new skill creates neuroplasticity in the brain, there are aspects of playing guitar that make it uniquely beneficial for your mental health.

Let’s break down what happens to your mind when you start playing guitar.

Playing Guitar Is Good for the Brain 

Studies have shown that playing music is one of the only activities that exercises your entire brain. As a guitarist, you are turning your visual, auditory, and motor cortex parts of your brain into overdrive each time you practice and improve your guitar skills. The process of learning a new song with free online guitar lessons requires your eyes to read the diagram, your fingers to translate that visual information into hand movement, and your ears to listen and correct any mistakes.

Your brain will also retain information you practice longer. While learning a solo or chord progression, your brain will file that information into your short-term and long-term memory banks. You can think of this practice as exercise for your brain — in fact, it helps combat cognitive decline in older adults.

Reduce Stress, Improve Mood 

Next, did you know that playing guitar helps relieve stress? Focused practice induces a flow state, which is when you are so in-tune with your work that you lose track of time. Being in flow causes a reduction in cortisol, also known as the stress hormone. Certain types of music can also bring you great joy by releasing dopamine throughout your brain.

Lastly, the guitar can be an excellent tool for people with difficulty expressing their emotions through words. Instead of falling back on a bad habit when life gets you down, pick up the guitar! Learn some new free guitar lessons online and vent through your instrument of choice.

Boost Creativity — and Confidence 

Every time you play guitar, you solve problems. Whether you are struggling through a difficult transition or writing your first melody, your brain is thinking outside the box to find solutions. Solving problems increases confidence every time you tell yourself, “I figured it out, I can do this.”

Whenever you learn a new technique like sweep picking or complex fingerstyle exercises, your brain feels a small sense of accomplishment. The more you learn with the guitar, the more you will feel confident in other areas of your life.

Enhance Motor Development 

Left alone, our hands are clumsy instruments that lack the fine motor skills of fingers. Playing guitar requires incredible coordination between your fretting and picking hands. Your fretting hand must develop the “independence of digits,” which means every finger must move completely independently of the others. Your picking hand has an entirely different job to do because it needs to maintain rhythm and tempo.

Excellent hand-eye coordination and fast reaction times are developed through years of playing guitar. Not only will your brain get better at sending information to your fingers, but those exercises will become memorized as muscle memory.

How To Learn To Play Guitar Online 

Luckily for you, the age of expensive and intensive guitar lessons is over. You no longer need to scour the internet to find local guitar teachers in your area. With online guitar lessons, you can learn at your own pace. If you don’t understand a concept in the video, you can always re-watch that section to ensure you got it down.

You may be asking yourself, “Where do I start?” Well, honing in on your goals can help you better decide. If you know exactly what you want to learn on the guitar, search for a course that drills that down. If you are just starting, try learning from free guitar lessons online to get your feet wet.

Regardless of what route you choose, you must practice consistently! Try to pick up your guitar for at least fifteen minutes a day instead of three hours on the weekend. Your brain and fingers will thank you! 

Join Team Shred Shed

At The Shred Shed, we want to help people learn guitar the way we wish we had learned when first starting. No practice routine is one-size-fits-all, and so we pride ourselves on creating custom workouts for every skill level that have you making massive leaps in your playing.

We have seen far too many students get stuck in the YouTube rabbit hole. Learning guitar from dozens of different sources can lead to bad technical habits that you will have to undo later. Let us be the guide that you have been searching for online. Subscribe to our guitar lessons online to see if we are the right fit for you. If you want structured lessons to truly shred or write songs, go premium and take your playing to the next level!