Twenty-four young, healthy test subjects lay quietly in a university
lab, listening to carefully chosen music through headphones, as doctors
and technicians hovered around them meticulously measuring their vital
signs. The study concluded quickly and the subjects returned to their
normal everyday lives. But as the researchers began sifting through the
data, something new and interesting began to emerge.
We've known for some time that music is a powerful relaxation tool.
Music can decrease anxiety levels, lower blood pressure and heart rate,
and change stress hormone levels. It affects your respiration, reduces
muscle tension, increases endorphin levels, and boosts your immune
system. The effect of music is so powerful, hospitals around the world
use music to reduce stress in patients waiting for surgery.
Now there's fresh evidence on the power of music to affect our health.
Researchers at Italy's University of Pavia recently confirmed that
music changes your heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure. But as
they analyzed their data, they found something new, something no one
had expected to find.
Dr. Bernardi and his colleagues were interested in expanding the use of
music to reduce stress in medical patients. Here's how their experiment
worked: the docs recorded the vital signs of 24 test volunteers (12
musicians and 12 non-musicians) for five minutes. Then the volunteers
listened to six different styles of music in random order. Random
two-minute pauses were inserted in each piece of music.
Here's what they found: fast musical tempos increased heart rate, blood
pressure and respiration. Slow tempos reduced them. Pretty standard
stuff. But then the shocker: the style of music and the volunteers'
personal musical preferences made no difference at all. The only thing
that mattered was the tempo.
It didn't matter if the music was classical, rap, techno, romantic or
an Indian raga. Only one thing made a difference to their
cardiovascular systems--whether the music was fast or slow. This means
that the music you hear, whether you've chosen it or not, whether you
like it or not, is going to affect your health.
There's more: during the silent pauses between musical selections, the
test subjects' vital signs returned to normal, in some cases
stabilizing at healthier levels than before the music. The researchers
say this suggests that listening to any kind of music--fast or
slow--could benefit your heart.
Finally, the study found that musicians were more sensitive to the
effect than non-musicians. Musicians may have learned to breathe in
time to the music, to become more alert during fast passages, and to
relax when the music slows down. Whatever the reason, a good
prescription for helping maintain your cardiovascular health could be
to take music lessons.
