Music, a new form of alternative medicine? To reduce the level of cortisol, the stress hormone and lower your arterial pressure, listen for 25 minutes to a work by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Johann Strauss, depending on the results ofa study published in the medical journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt International. The ABBA tubes, on the other hand, are ineffective on blood pressure.
More and more scientific studies are highlighting the health benefits of music.
Researchers from the University of Granada (Spain) revealed that music therapy reduced pain in fibromyalgia patients. Those of the Royal College of Music, and the Faculty of Medicine of the Imperial College of London (United Kingdom) have shown thatlistening to live music was an effective remedy for reducing stress.
Listen to Mozart: a gentle therapy to reduce blood pressure without side effects
Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany conducted a study with 120 individuals to understand the effect of music on cortisol (the stress hormone), blood pressure and heart rate. 60 subjects were randomly assigned to listen to various compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann strauss jr, or tubes from the ABBA group for 25 minutes. Their serum cortisol concentrations, heart rate and blood pressure were measured before and after the listening session. The same variables were measured in a group of 60 subjects who rested in silence.
The results of the study showed that while cortisol levels decreased in all groups, only the music composed by Mozart and Strauss reduced the arterial pressure and the heart rate of the subjects. The tubes written by ABBA did not cause the same effect.
The researchers observed that Mozart’s Symphony No.40 in G minorhad the strongest effect.
Whatever the age or gender of the volunteers, listening to Mozart or Strauss would be an inexpensive therapy without side effects to relax and decrease stress level.
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