Open your ears to Mozart’s music

If you're like the majority of youth these days, your iTunes is probably filled with Drake and Lady Gaga. But if you're looking for some real cerebral stimulation, you should look toward something a little more old school.

According to an article on the University of Indiana's website, in 1993 a study done on 36 college undergraduate students at the University of California, Irvine, found that while listening to Mozart, the students showed improvement in their ability to maneuver objects in a three dimensional space (mazes, puzzles), and the students also experienced a temporary increase in their IQ scores.

The average participant showed a jump of between eight and nine IQ points in comparison to when they took the test in silence, and the effect was found to last between 10-15 minutes.

To clarify, listening to Mozart will provide only a temporary increase in intelligence; it will not raise your overall IQ.

Although the so-called Mozart Effect is still being debated among many researchers, and many believe the findings have been wildly exaggerated as a ploy to increase the sale of Mozart's music, most experts agree that listening to Mozart definitely won't hurt.

The piece used in the study was Sonata for Two Pianos in D-major, K. 448, but some other pieces we suggest are the third movement from Piano Sonata No.11 in A-major, titled "Alla Turca," or the popular "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" (A Little Night Music), which we're sure you'll recognize upon hearing.

We're fairly certain you'll enjoy these pieces even if classical music isn't your cup of tea. But if you're up for a real challenge, you should try whipping out your old keyboard and making an attempt to learn one of these pieces, or even something less complicated.

A study done by Dr. Gottfried Schlaug, a Harvard University neurologist, found that musicians, in comparison with non-musicians, had a larger and denser corpus callosum, a connective structure in the brain that carries information between the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

"It suggested not only that musicians might be able to more nimbly react to incoming information," said Melissa Healy in a Los Angeles Times article regarding Shlaug's research, "but also that their brains might be more resilient and adaptable, allowing right and left hemispheres, which specialize in separate functions, to work better together."

This may be something you want to consider if you're looking for an intellectual boost.

To those of us who possess little to no musical talent, we're not saying you need to constantly fill your ears with Mozart's melodies, but, according to Alice Cash from Healing Music Enterprises, listening to Mozart while studying may increase your ability to retain information, and it may also help you gather your thoughts before taking a test.

So next time you're cramming for a final or working on a group project, it wouldn't be a bad idea to turn your radio dial to NPR or download some Mozart. Sure, your group mates may tease you or call you a nerd, but they won't be complaining when they get an A on the assignment.