Music can beat out anti-anxiety drugs, Mozart can reduce allergic reactions, and how listening to your favorite tunes can significantly affect your testosterone levels.
Music as Medicine
4.6/5 - (46 votes)
We’ve been playing music since back during the Paleolithic times, 40,000 years ago, with music as therapy documented at least since Biblical times. The first such experiment was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1914. Phonograph in operating Room “as a means of calming and distracting patients from the horror of the situation” as they lie awake during surgery.
Now that we have anesthesia, music is used to calm nerves before surgery. Normally we use Valium-type drugs like midazolam, sold as Versed, but it can have a variety of side effects–including sometimes making people even more agitated. So this study was performed to see if relaxing music has a greater anxiety-reducing effect than a standard dose of the drug. So, they whipped out some Kenny G., and the music worked significantly better than the drug: lower anxiety scores, lower heart rate, lower blood pressure. Perhaps the first report of any anti-anxiety therapy working not just as good as, but better than benzodiazepine drugs. And the difference in the side effects of relaxing music compared to the drug is obvious. There were none. Soft jazz causes no post-operative hangover, so the researchers suggest we should start using music instead of midazolam.
Music may be effective in reducing anxiety and pain in children as well — undergoing minor medical and dental procedures, helping with blood draws, getting their shots — even reducing the pain of spinal taps, though evidently Mozart is powerless against the pain of circumcision.
But it doesn’t take a randomized controlled trial to demonstrate that listening to music can be relaxing. Tell me something I don’t know. Ok, this I did not know. If you take someone with a latex allergy and inject their skin with latex, they get a big, red, angry bump. But, if you repeat the test after they’ve been listening to Mozart for 30 minutes, they develop a much smaller bump. They had less of an allergic reaction. And if you think that’s wild, Beethoven didn’t work; same reaction before and after. Schubert, didn’t work either, nor did Haydn, or Brahms; both failed to reduce the allergic skin responses. Thus, the reducing effect on the allergic responses may be specific to Mozart. So, Mozart’s looking pretty good—but wait a second, maybe Mozart suppresses the immune system in general? That wouldn’t be good, so they also injected a chemical that causes reactions in everyone, not just allergic people, and Mozart had no effect. So it seems to just suppress the pathological allergic reaction, and if that isn’t crazy enough for you, they drew people’s blood after the music and stuck their white blood cells in a Petri dish with a little latex and measured the allergic antibody response. The white blood cells from the person exposed to Mozart had less of an allergic response, even outside the body, compared to cells taken from Beethoven blood. That is cool.
Music may even impact our metabolism. It all started with this study, which found that the resting energy expenditure—the resting metabolic rate, the amount of calories burned just lying around—was lower in preemies when they piped in Mozart, which may explain why infants exposed to music put on weight faster, so much so they were able to go home earlier. Gaining weight faster is great for premature babies, but not necessarily for adults. Could listening to music slow our metabolism and contribute to weight gain? No, this study found no effect on adults. But, they used Bach, not Mozart, and Bach doesn’t work for babies either. A drop in energy expenditure on Mozart, but not on Bach. This would suggest that it may be more of a “Mozart-specific effect” than a universal “music effect.” What if you just listen to music of your choice—does it affect your metabolism or not? We didn’t know, until now. And it turns out that listening to music appears to actually increase our metabolic rate, such that we burn an average of 27.6 more calories a day even just lying in bed, though that’s only about six M&Ms worth. Better to use music to get up and start dancing or exercising. Music can not only improve exercise enjoyment, but performance as well – a way to improve athletic performance that’s legal.
Male body builders may be less enthused by this effect, though. After listening to music for just 30 minutes, testosterone levels drop 14% in young men and go up 21% in young women. All kinds of music or just some types of music? 30 minutes of silence had no effect, same testosterone levels before and after. But a half hour of Mozart suppressed testosterone, as did jazz, as did pop music, as did Gregorian chants (no relation). What about a half hour of people’s personal favorites? Testosterone levels cut in half. Testosterone decreased in males under all music conditions, whereas testosterone increased in the females. What is going on? Well, in men, testosterone is related to libido, dominance, aggressiveness, whereas women get a bigger boost in testosterone from cuddling than from sex and so, maybe we evolved using music as a way to ensure we all got along. Like a melodious cold shower to keep everyone chilled out.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Katie Schloer.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- A Yamasaki, A Booker, V Kapur, A Tilt, H Niess, K D Lillemoe, A L Warshaw, C Conrad. The impact of music on metabolism. Nutrition. 2012 Nov-Dec;28(11-12):1075-80.
- B Snell, S Fullmer, D L Eggett. Reading and listening to music increase resting energy expenditure during an indirect calorimetry test. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2014 Dec;114(12):1939-42.
- H Kimata. Listening to mozart reduces allergic skin wheal responses and in vitro allergen-specific IgE production in atopic dermatitis patients with latex allergy. Behav Med. 2003 Spring;29(1):15-9.
- H Bringman, K Giesecke, A Thörne, S Bringman. Relaxing music as pre-medication before surgery: a randomised controlled trial. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2009 Jul;53(6):759-64.
- H Fukui. Music and testosterone. A new hypothesis for the origin and function of music. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Jun;930:448-51.
- E O Kane. Phonograph in Operating-Room. AMA. 1914;LXII(23):1829.
- H R Keidar, D Mandel, F B Mimouni, R Lubetzky. Bach music in preterm infants: no 'Mozart effect' on resting energy expenditure. J Perinatol. 2014 Feb;34(2):153-5.
- H Fukui, M Yamashita. The effects of music and visual stress on testosterone and cortisol in men and women. Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2003 Jun-Aug;24(3-4):173-80.
- R Lubetzky, F B Mimouni, S Dollberg, R Reifen, G Ashbel, D Mandel. Effect of music by Mozart on energy expenditure in growing preterm infants. Pediatrics. 2010 Jan;125(1):e24-8.
- D S Adler. Archaeology: The earliest musical tradition. Nature. 2009 Aug 6;460(7256):695-6.
- N J Conard, M Malina, S C Münzel. New flutes document the earliest musical tradition in southwestern Germany. Nature. 2009 Aug 6;460(7256):737-40.
- L Marchette, R Main, E Redick, A Bagg, J Leatherland. Pain reduction interventions during neonatal circumcision. Nurs Res. 1991 Jul-Aug;40(4):241-4.
- J A Klassen, Y Liang, L Tjosvold, T P Klassen, L Hartling. Music for pain and anxiety in children undergoing medical procedures: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Ambul Pediatr. 2008 Mar-Apr;8(2):117-28.
- S Caprilli, F Anastasi, R P Grotto, M Scollo Abeti, A Messeri. Interactive music as a treatment for pain and stress in children during venipuncture: a randomized prospective study. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2007 Oct;28(5):399-403.
- O Kristjánsdóttir, G Kristjánsdóttir. Randomized clinical trial of musical distraction with and without headphones for adolescents' immunization pain. Scand J Caring Sci. 2011 Mar;25(1):19-26.
- T N Nguyen, S Nilsson, A L Hellström, A Bengtson A. Music therapy to reduce pain and anxiety in children with cancer undergoing lumbar puncture: a randomized clinical trial. J Pediatr Oncol Nurs. 2010 May-Jun;27(3):146-55.
- E Carlsson, H Helgegren, F Slinde. Resting energy expenditure is not influenced by classical music. J Negat Results Biomed. 2005 Aug 31;4:6.
- M J Stork, M Y Kwan, M J Gibala, K A Martin Ginis. Music enhances performance and perceived enjoyment of sprint interval exercise. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2015 May;47(5):1052-60.
- M Jarraya, H Chtourou, A Aloui, O Hammouda, K Chamari, A Chaouachi, N Souissi. The Effects of Music on High-intensity Short-term Exercise in Well Trained Athletes. Asian J Sports Med. 2012 Dec;3(4):233-8.
- H Chtourou, A Chaouachi, O Hammouda, K Chamari, N Souissi. Listening to music affects diurnal variation in muscle power output. Int J Sports Med. 2012 Jan;33(1):43-7.
- S M van Anders, L D Hamilton, N Schmidt, N V Watson. Associations between testosterone secretion and sexual activity in women. Horm Behav. 2007 Apr;51(4):477-82.
Images thanks to Arturo de Albornoz via Flickr.
We’ve been playing music since back during the Paleolithic times, 40,000 years ago, with music as therapy documented at least since Biblical times. The first such experiment was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1914. Phonograph in operating Room “as a means of calming and distracting patients from the horror of the situation” as they lie awake during surgery.
Now that we have anesthesia, music is used to calm nerves before surgery. Normally we use Valium-type drugs like midazolam, sold as Versed, but it can have a variety of side effects–including sometimes making people even more agitated. So this study was performed to see if relaxing music has a greater anxiety-reducing effect than a standard dose of the drug. So, they whipped out some Kenny G., and the music worked significantly better than the drug: lower anxiety scores, lower heart rate, lower blood pressure. Perhaps the first report of any anti-anxiety therapy working not just as good as, but better than benzodiazepine drugs. And the difference in the side effects of relaxing music compared to the drug is obvious. There were none. Soft jazz causes no post-operative hangover, so the researchers suggest we should start using music instead of midazolam.
Music may be effective in reducing anxiety and pain in children as well — undergoing minor medical and dental procedures, helping with blood draws, getting their shots — even reducing the pain of spinal taps, though evidently Mozart is powerless against the pain of circumcision.
But it doesn’t take a randomized controlled trial to demonstrate that listening to music can be relaxing. Tell me something I don’t know. Ok, this I did not know. If you take someone with a latex allergy and inject their skin with latex, they get a big, red, angry bump. But, if you repeat the test after they’ve been listening to Mozart for 30 minutes, they develop a much smaller bump. They had less of an allergic reaction. And if you think that’s wild, Beethoven didn’t work; same reaction before and after. Schubert, didn’t work either, nor did Haydn, or Brahms; both failed to reduce the allergic skin responses. Thus, the reducing effect on the allergic responses may be specific to Mozart. So, Mozart’s looking pretty good—but wait a second, maybe Mozart suppresses the immune system in general? That wouldn’t be good, so they also injected a chemical that causes reactions in everyone, not just allergic people, and Mozart had no effect. So it seems to just suppress the pathological allergic reaction, and if that isn’t crazy enough for you, they drew people’s blood after the music and stuck their white blood cells in a Petri dish with a little latex and measured the allergic antibody response. The white blood cells from the person exposed to Mozart had less of an allergic response, even outside the body, compared to cells taken from Beethoven blood. That is cool.
Music may even impact our metabolism. It all started with this study, which found that the resting energy expenditure—the resting metabolic rate, the amount of calories burned just lying around—was lower in preemies when they piped in Mozart, which may explain why infants exposed to music put on weight faster, so much so they were able to go home earlier. Gaining weight faster is great for premature babies, but not necessarily for adults. Could listening to music slow our metabolism and contribute to weight gain? No, this study found no effect on adults. But, they used Bach, not Mozart, and Bach doesn’t work for babies either. A drop in energy expenditure on Mozart, but not on Bach. This would suggest that it may be more of a “Mozart-specific effect” than a universal “music effect.” What if you just listen to music of your choice—does it affect your metabolism or not? We didn’t know, until now. And it turns out that listening to music appears to actually increase our metabolic rate, such that we burn an average of 27.6 more calories a day even just lying in bed, though that’s only about six M&Ms worth. Better to use music to get up and start dancing or exercising. Music can not only improve exercise enjoyment, but performance as well – a way to improve athletic performance that’s legal.
Male body builders may be less enthused by this effect, though. After listening to music for just 30 minutes, testosterone levels drop 14% in young men and go up 21% in young women. All kinds of music or just some types of music? 30 minutes of silence had no effect, same testosterone levels before and after. But a half hour of Mozart suppressed testosterone, as did jazz, as did pop music, as did Gregorian chants (no relation). What about a half hour of people’s personal favorites? Testosterone levels cut in half. Testosterone decreased in males under all music conditions, whereas testosterone increased in the females. What is going on? Well, in men, testosterone is related to libido, dominance, aggressiveness, whereas women get a bigger boost in testosterone from cuddling than from sex and so, maybe we evolved using music as a way to ensure we all got along. Like a melodious cold shower to keep everyone chilled out.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Katie Schloer.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- A Yamasaki, A Booker, V Kapur, A Tilt, H Niess, K D Lillemoe, A L Warshaw, C Conrad. The impact of music on metabolism. Nutrition. 2012 Nov-Dec;28(11-12):1075-80.
- B Snell, S Fullmer, D L Eggett. Reading and listening to music increase resting energy expenditure during an indirect calorimetry test. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2014 Dec;114(12):1939-42.
- H Kimata. Listening to mozart reduces allergic skin wheal responses and in vitro allergen-specific IgE production in atopic dermatitis patients with latex allergy. Behav Med. 2003 Spring;29(1):15-9.
- H Bringman, K Giesecke, A Thörne, S Bringman. Relaxing music as pre-medication before surgery: a randomised controlled trial. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand. 2009 Jul;53(6):759-64.
- H Fukui. Music and testosterone. A new hypothesis for the origin and function of music. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Jun;930:448-51.
- E O Kane. Phonograph in Operating-Room. AMA. 1914;LXII(23):1829.
- H R Keidar, D Mandel, F B Mimouni, R Lubetzky. Bach music in preterm infants: no 'Mozart effect' on resting energy expenditure. J Perinatol. 2014 Feb;34(2):153-5.
- H Fukui, M Yamashita. The effects of music and visual stress on testosterone and cortisol in men and women. Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2003 Jun-Aug;24(3-4):173-80.
- R Lubetzky, F B Mimouni, S Dollberg, R Reifen, G Ashbel, D Mandel. Effect of music by Mozart on energy expenditure in growing preterm infants. Pediatrics. 2010 Jan;125(1):e24-8.
- D S Adler. Archaeology: The earliest musical tradition. Nature. 2009 Aug 6;460(7256):695-6.
- N J Conard, M Malina, S C Münzel. New flutes document the earliest musical tradition in southwestern Germany. Nature. 2009 Aug 6;460(7256):737-40.
- L Marchette, R Main, E Redick, A Bagg, J Leatherland. Pain reduction interventions during neonatal circumcision. Nurs Res. 1991 Jul-Aug;40(4):241-4.
- J A Klassen, Y Liang, L Tjosvold, T P Klassen, L Hartling. Music for pain and anxiety in children undergoing medical procedures: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Ambul Pediatr. 2008 Mar-Apr;8(2):117-28.
- S Caprilli, F Anastasi, R P Grotto, M Scollo Abeti, A Messeri. Interactive music as a treatment for pain and stress in children during venipuncture: a randomized prospective study. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 2007 Oct;28(5):399-403.
- O Kristjánsdóttir, G Kristjánsdóttir. Randomized clinical trial of musical distraction with and without headphones for adolescents' immunization pain. Scand J Caring Sci. 2011 Mar;25(1):19-26.
- T N Nguyen, S Nilsson, A L Hellström, A Bengtson A. Music therapy to reduce pain and anxiety in children with cancer undergoing lumbar puncture: a randomized clinical trial. J Pediatr Oncol Nurs. 2010 May-Jun;27(3):146-55.
- E Carlsson, H Helgegren, F Slinde. Resting energy expenditure is not influenced by classical music. J Negat Results Biomed. 2005 Aug 31;4:6.
- M J Stork, M Y Kwan, M J Gibala, K A Martin Ginis. Music enhances performance and perceived enjoyment of sprint interval exercise. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2015 May;47(5):1052-60.
- M Jarraya, H Chtourou, A Aloui, O Hammouda, K Chamari, A Chaouachi, N Souissi. The Effects of Music on High-intensity Short-term Exercise in Well Trained Athletes. Asian J Sports Med. 2012 Dec;3(4):233-8.
- H Chtourou, A Chaouachi, O Hammouda, K Chamari, N Souissi. Listening to music affects diurnal variation in muscle power output. Int J Sports Med. 2012 Jan;33(1):43-7.
- S M van Anders, L D Hamilton, N Schmidt, N V Watson. Associations between testosterone secretion and sexual activity in women. Horm Behav. 2007 Apr;51(4):477-82.
Images thanks to Arturo de Albornoz via Flickr.
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Title
Music as Medicine
LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Content URLDoctor's Note
Is that crazy or what? I’m fascinated by the whole topic. There’s actually a lot more out there in the medical literature on the effects of music. If folks dig this video, I’ll dig around for a sequel.
This is my first video on the effect of sound, but I have done a few on the effect of smells:
- Enhancing Athletic Performance With Peppermint
- Peppermint Aromatherapy for Nausea
- Orange Aromatherapy for Anxiety
- Lavender for Migraine Headaches
- Wake Up and Smell the Saffron
- Lavender for Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Exposure to industrial pollutants may also affect both allergic diseases and testosterone levels:
- Alkylphenol Endocrine Disruptors and Allergies
- Dietary Sources of Alkylphenol Endocrine Disruptors
- Dietary Pollutants May Affect Testosterone Levels
Update: After this video came out, I published two more on music—Music for Anxiety: Mozart vs. Metal and The Dangerous Effects of Heavy Metal Music.
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