Researchers in Finland found that exercising to fast-paced music at 120 to 140 beats per minute helped participants work out 20% longer than those exercising in silence. Average time to exhaustion increased from 29.8 minutes without music to 35.6 minutes with personally chosen tunes, despite heart rate and lactate levels remaining similar. Lead author Andrew Danso explained that music appears to alter the “experience of effort,” helping people endure discomfort longer. “Many people struggle to stick with hard training, because it feels exhausting too quickly,” Danso said. “Our research shows that letting people choose their own motivating music may help them accumulate more quality training time.”