The article "The Heart Effect: Startling New Information About How Music
Affects Your Health" talks about fitness, it was written by Art Turner.
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 noraml 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 muisc is a powerful relaxation
tool. Music can decresae anxiety levels, lower blood pressure
and heart rate, and change stress hormone levels. It affects
your respiration, reduces muslce 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 chagnes your heart rate, breathing, and
blood pressure.
But as they analyzed their data, they found
something new, somtehing no one had expected to find.
Dr. Bernardi and his colleagues were interested in expanding the
use of music to reudce 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 rnadom order.
Random two-minute pauses were inserted in
each piece of music.
Here's what they found: fast musical tempos increased heart
rate, blood prsesure and respiration. Slow tmepos 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 mtater if the music was classical, rap, techno,
romantic or an Indian raga. Only one thing made a difference to
their cadriovascular 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' vtial signs returned to normal,
in some cases stabilizing at healthier levels than before the
music. The reserachers say this suggests that listening to any
kind of music--fast or slow--could benefit your heart.
Finally, the study found that msuicians 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 prsecription for helping maintain your
cardiovascular health could be to take music lessons.
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