Effect of music on blood pressure in healthy young men

Abstract

It is widely believed that listening (.0 music quietly is relaxing and therefore tends to reduce blood pressure (BP). To test this hypothesis we performed a cress-over study in 30 healthy Sinhalese male volunteers (non-smokers) aged between 23 and 25 years. None ol" them, were on any medication and all were requested not to consume coffee or a similar beverage for at least two hours prior to the test. Each individual rested silting for five minutes before the ex¬periment, and then listened to light classical music of his choice while sitting quietly for 30 minutes. BP was measured before and after listening to music. He was then allowed to engage in normal activities for one hour and the experiment was repeated, this time without music, where the person just sat quietly for 30 minutes in the same room. The systolic and diastolic BP differences were recorded for each person. Subjects were not allowed to fall asleep during the experiment and all experiments were performed between 1 and 4 pm to reduce the possible effect, if any, of diurnal variation in BP. There was no difference in diastolic BP either with or without music. Systolic BP dropped by a mean of 8 rnm (range 4-10) when listening to music and by a mean of 7 mm (range4-10) when sitting quietly without music (P>0.5, Mann-Witney U test). We conclude that listening to light music by itself does not reduce BP signifi¬cantly in normal individuals. Any reduction that occurs is probably a result of the subject sitting quietly while listening to the music.