Home » Gear »

Music Tunes Up Cardio Systems

June 25, 2009 8:17 am 0 comments

Share This:

Subscribe:

Author:

Tags:

Most people who have ears know that music can help us relax, but wait, that’s just beginning. Music can tune up our cardio system, literally. It can also tune it down. The Scientific American reports that researchers at the University of Pavia in Italy have found that changes in the cardiovascular and respiratory systems mirror musical tempo. The journal reports that the scientists enlisted 24 volunteers—half experienced singers, the remainder with no musical training, and had them listen to five random selections of Beethoven,
Bach, Puccini and other classical artists as well as a two-minute
segment of silence, mMusical_Notes_backgroundonitors recorded physiological signals. The
researchers found that selections with crescendos, especially those
with a series of them (think: Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody),
led to proportional constriction of blood vessels and increases in
blood pressure, heart rate and respiration. These measures decreased
during decrescendos and silent periods. The team also found that “rich”
music phrases around 10 seconds long, like those rhythms from famous
arias by Verdi, caused heart rate and other parts of the cardiovascular
system to synchronize with the music. Sciam reports that both the musicians and non-musicians experienced this
entrainment, although the musicians showed a stronger response.
Read more, and turn up the Beethoven.

Leave a Reply


Recent Posts

  • Pain Walnuts Cut Prostate Cancer Risk

    Walnuts Cut Prostate Cancer Risk

    Walnuts, of all things, appear to slow the growth of prostate cancer tumors–in mice at least. Researchers at the University of California at Davis have found that mice genetically programmed to develop prostate cancer had smaller, slower growing tumors if they consumed a diet containing walnuts. A U.C. Davis news release reports that when researchers at the school, working with colleagues at the USDA Western Regional Research Center in Albany, Calif., studied tumor size in mice fed different diets for [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain

    Research: Massage Reduces Inflammation In Tired Muscles

    Yes, it feels good, and yes, it can be pricey, but massage also does some important muscle reclamation work after a particularly tough workout. Researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario conducted genetic analysis of muscle biopsies taken from the quadriceps of eleven young men after they had exercised to exhaustion on a stationary bicycle. A McMaster news release reports on the research, for which one of their legs was randomly chosen [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain

    Exercise May Slow Prostate Cancer

    The findings are preliminary, but they are also provocative: research conducted at the University of California at San Francisco suggests that men who do vigorous exercise three times a week have an increase in the expression of certain genes that are known to suppress tumors, including some breast cancer tumors that similar to prostate cancer tumors. HealthDay reports that when researchers compared prostate genes from 70 men with low-risk prostate cancer to normal prostate genes from 70 men they found [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain

    Fat Hurts: Overweight People Feel 20 Percent More Pain

    How much more does it hurt to be fat? Twenty percent, according to researchers at Stony Brook University. And that’s just if you’re overweight. Obese people hurt even more: 68 percent more for Obese 1 group, 136 percent more for Obese 2 group, and 254 percent more for Obese 3 group, as defined by the World Health Organization. A Stony Brook news release reports that when researchers at the school analyzed data about body mass index and the experience of [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain

    Study: Heart Attack May Be Closer Than You Think

    Forget what your doctor told you about your risk of heart attack. Researchers at Northwestern University have published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine asserting that the common medical practice of focusing on the next ten years of a patient’s life has been giving people a false sense of security about their chances of having a heart attack or stroke. A Northwestern news release reports that when the scientists measured risk factors for cardiovascular disease — blood [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain

    For Back Pain, Try A Kettlebell Workout

    Kettlebells, known as “girya” in their native Russia, are basically cannonballs with handles attached to them, and they’ve been used as long as anyone can remember to train Russian athletes. Now researchers in Denmark have found something else they’re good for: pumping up core muscles so well that back pain is significantly reduced. The New York Times reports on the Danish study, in which 40 middle-aged women with back and shoulder pain were randomly assigned to one of two groups. [...]

    Read more →
  • Gear Study: People Can’t Walk And Text At The Same Time

    Study: People Can’t Walk And Text At The Same Time

    Driving and texting at the same time is understood to be dangerous, if not deadly. But what about walking and texting? Researchers at Stony Brook University put 33 men and women, all experienced texters, through a simple test to see how much texting would influence walking. A Stony Brook news release reports that the test subjects were shown a target on the floor eight meters away. Then, after obstructing vision of the target and floor, they were told to walk [...]

    Read more →
  • Pain How To Tell If You’re Overtraining

    How To Tell If You’re Overtraining

    The question of how much training is too much training is a tough one, but as Gina Kolata warns in her Personal Best column, it’s an important one, because overtraining is worse than under training. In fact, it can be worse than no training at all. Kolata quotes William Kraemer, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut, explaining that “People think a good workout is, ‘I am in a pile of sweat and puking.” Wrong. John Raglin, a [...]

    Read more →