Heart Rhythms Helped with Music Therapy
Tempo may be key to how well music soothes the savage breast - meaning an Irish jig and a Debussy nocturne may not be created equal when it comes to improving well-being.
 New research shows that slow music produces a relaxing effect, while musical pauses further modulate heart rhythms and circulation patterns in a beneficial way, according to a report in Heart, a British Medical Journal publication.
The effects were most striking for those people who have musical training.
Calm music with a slow tempo can [affect] respiration to produce slower breathing, says Dr. Peter Sleight, study author and a researcher at the University of Oxford in England.
Slower breathing has been linked to lower blood pressure and may help the lungs work more efficiently.
For their new research, Dr. Sleight and his colleagues investigated physiologic responses to six different types of music in 12 musicians and 12 non-musicians.
The music selections consisted of raga (Indian classical music), Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (slow classical), rap (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Vivaldi (fast classical), techno, and Anton Webern (slow, dodecaphonic music).
Each participant listened to different sequences of music for two minutes at a stretch, followed by the same selection for four minutes. The sequences included a two-minute pause.
Music with faster tempos and simpler rhythmic structures resulted in increased ventilation, blood pressure, and heart rate, the researchers found.
When the music was paused, heart rate, blood pressure, and ventilation decreased, sometimes even below the starting rate.
Slower music caused declines in heart rate, with the largest decline seen with raga music.
The pause effect occurred regardless of the type of music but was stronger among musicians, who are already trained to measure their breathing with the music.
Overall, a person's musical preference was less important than the music's pace, the researchers say.
"Stress has its impact on cardiovascular disease," says Dr. Vincent Marchello, a physician at Metropolitan Jewish Health System. "Music can not only reduce stress, but it can enhance the therapy that one gets."
Earlier research has shown that reading rhythmic poetry like Homer's The Odyssey aloud can synchronize the body's heart and respiration rates.
Similar positive effects have been linked to the Catholic rosary prayer and the yoga mantra. Indeed, Dr. Sleight's team has published similar effects from yoga and repetitive prayer.
Music, also, has been shown to have beneficial properties including reducing stress, improving athletic performance, and enhancing motor function in people with neurological impairments.
Up until now, however, there had been no comprehensive comparisons of how different types of music and the way in which they are presented might affect autonomic (involuntary), cardiovascular, and respiratory functioning.
The authors also speculate that different types of music could play a role in modulating (affecting the rate and quality of) breathing in a medical setting.
In some settings, music already plays such a role: Dr. Marchello's staff uses music to successfully calm the behavior of agitated Alzheimer's patients.
And in the post-surgery cardiac rehabilitation ward, Dr. Marchello says, "Music can improve rehab therapy sessions and can make the therapy sessions more efficient and shorten the time needed to get better."
In such cases, however, age and preference may make a difference. Elderly cardiac patients typically respond to light "muzak" and classical music, while those 55 to 60 years old seem to benefit from slightly faster music, Dr. Marchello notes.
"What you're trying to do is make therapy time more efficient and maybe have longer sessions," says Dr. Marchello. "Music is one thing we do to motivate patients. It has to be what they prefer."
Always consult your physician for more information.
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Music therapy is the specialized use of music by a credentialed professional who develops individualized treatment and supportive interventions with people of all ages and ability levels to address their social, communication, emotional, physical, cognitive, sensory and spiritual needs, according to the Certification Board for Music Therapists.
The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) states that music therapists assess emotional well-being, physical health, social functioning, communication abilities, and cognitive skills through musical responses.
They also design music sessions for individuals and groups based on client needs using music improvisation, receptive music listening, song writing, lyric discussion, music and imagery, music performance, and learning through music.
The AMTA states that music therapists participate in interdisciplinary treatment planning, ongoing evaluation, and follow up.
A range of individuals may be helped including persons with mental health needs, developmental and learning disabilities, Alzheimer's disease and other aging related conditions, substance abuse problems, brain injuries, physical disabilities, and acute and chronic pain, including mothers in labor.
Music therapists work in psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitative facilities, medical hospitals, outpatient clinics, day care treatment centers, agencies serving developmentally disabled persons, community mental health centers, drug and alcohol programs, senior centers, nursing homes, hospice programs, correctional facilities, halfway houses, schools, and private practice.
The idea of music as a healing influence which could affect health and behavior is as least as old as the writings of Aristotle and Plato, the AMTA says.
The 20th-century discipline began after World War I and World War II when community musicians of all types, both amateur and professional, went to veterans hospitals around the country to play for the thousands of veterans suffering both physical and emotional trauma from the wars.
The patients' notable physical and emotional responses to music led the doctors and nurses to request the hiring of musicians by the hospitals.
It was soon evident that the hospital musicians needed some prior training before entering the facility and so the demand grew for a college curriculum.
The first music therapy degree program in the world, founded at Michigan State University in 1944, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1994. The AMTA was founded in 1998.
Persons who complete one of the approved college music therapy curricula (including an internship) are then eligible to sit for the national examination offered by the Certification Board for Music Therapists.
Music therapists who successfully complete the independently administered examination hold the music therapist-board certified credential (MT-BC).
Always consult your physician for more information.
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