It's health month on Unplggd! We'll be bringing you lots of news and products about the latest and greatest health-related tech. But you don't have to spend big bucks for body-conscious devices. You already own one of them, and you'd be surprised to learn exactly how it's helping you stay fit.

We're always rocking out to tunes when we're working out—and we know we're not alone.

We think it's because we hate the music that's wired through the speakers at our gym. But maybe, on some subconscious level, we know that listening to music can help you have a more effective workout.

Here's three reasons why:

It's the tunes.
Some really smart doctors (in a study out of Dalhousie University in Canada) have found that listening to a genre of music that motivates you—whether it's Chopin or The Pussycat Dolls—will help you work harder during your workout.

It's the volume.
Turning up the volume of your tunes also turns up your intensity, according to study from the University of Western Ontario, due to both "a surge of mood-enhancing hormones and a sonic distraction that prevents you from realizing how tired you are."

It's that song you love.
We'd also like to add a point from our own super-smart doctor-type studies: When we're near the end of our 30-minute treadmill run, watching the timer count down to the last 20 seconds, it's almost inevitable that our favorite workout song comes on. It pumps us up enough to run an extra few minutes and hear it out to the end.

(Images: Races in Places, Cult of Mac)