Music is not merely a source of entertainment, but like vitamins, can do a world of good to our body and heart.
All musical activities use the whole brain, report modern neurologists. Music is intrinsic to all cultures and nations, helpful for learning languages, enhancing memory, and sharpening one’s attention or attentiveness. It is also quite helpful in coordinating the body parts as it (relaxes the mood.
Music can be immensely beneficial if only we know what type of music should be heard at different times and in various situations.
Rhythm is a vital aspect of our musical experience which demands our focus when we look for non-musical response to a musical stimulus: Rhythms are known to organise the physical movements in time and hence are useful in overcoming dullness, depression, lethargy and numbness in body movements, as they affect breathing rate and electrical resistance of the skin. Music is known to affect the amplitude and the frequency of the brain waves too, as observed in an electro-encephalogram.
The potential beat connection between one’s heart, health and the music listened to has been in the scientific crucible for quite a long time as the scientists are looking at how songs of various tempos (fast, medium or slow) could influence the way we exercise, say in a gym or to address our anxiety, dullness, post-surgical recovery, and many such non-musical goals in our life.
Researchers from the Pavia University, Italy, found that music with quicker tempos made people breathe faster which increased their heart rate and blood pressure, while slower tempos produced the opposite effects. It lowered the heart rate and blood pressure. The effect of such music on the heart rate could logically synchronise to assist relaxation and meditation by slowing down the heart-rate. Unfortunately, the scientific literature on such a relationship appears somewhat sparse, whereas the holistic system of Nada Yoga and Raga Chikitsa appear to endorse that slower music as contained in slokas and chants (recited very slowly) and the raga music tested for soothing both the head and the heart seems workable towards such a non-musical goal.
Coming to western hits, one could observe that Mike Perry’s ‘The Ocean’ (90 bpm), Shawn Mendes ‘Treat You Better’ (83), and Twenty One Pilots ‘Ride’ (75), down to slow-motion ballads such as Adele’s ‘One and Only’ (S-2) and Ruth B’s ‘Superficial Love’; (43.5) leading one even to take it all the way down to zero beats per minute tracks such as ‘Sleep Rain’ and ‘Clean White Noise’. 70-75 beats are known to be clinically ideal for resting, as they vibe close to the normal heart rate of 72 bpm.
As a result of various such studies, music is now being used as a rehabilitation medicine for the sufferers of blood pressure. In cardiovascular units, slow and quiet music is played which relaxes the patients and lowers their blood pressure and heart-rate. Resting heart-rate is known to vary between individuals: 60 to 100 bpm (beats per minute) which depend upon one’s physical fitness level, genetics, types of medicines or treatments undergone, emotions and even air temperature. Medical resources typically say that 60 to 100 beats per minute is the healthy range for resting heart rate. Maximum heart-rate, on the other hand, tends to top out at 200 in young and healthy people and decreases with age and/ or sickness like fever and so on.
It is strange that most of the world’s music falls somewhere in the span of 60 and 100 beats at times, even touching up to say 200 beats per minute. However, as one graphs the frequency of bpms for the top 10,000 streamed hit songs, the most common tempos are unfortunately not in the resting heart-rate-zone of 60 to 100 beats, but usually higher, between 120 to 130 bpm. This would mean that the modern lifestyle and the way the urban population walks, or talks get synchronised unknowingly to such tempo automatically. This observation is based on the following 2016 hit songs, selected at random: ‘7 Years’ (120), ‘Close’ (124), ‘No Money’ (126), ‘This is what you came for’ (124).
Some recent research has looked at the correlation between musical tempo and treadmill exercise — as revealed by many gym-goers wearing earbuds in any given gym, listening to higher tempo and higher intensity genre music while working out. Hip-hop, rock, and pop are those Bollywood numbers as influenced by them, rather than yoga music, which addresses the mind more than the body.
Few system musicians (LCD sound aside) would claim to intentionally manipulate the tempo specifically to influence a listener’s physiology. But because so many of the activities we like to accompany with music — exercising, relaxing, dancing, walking, doing chores, and so on — are rhythmic in nature, music can temporarily influence those actions in a limited way.
To achieve better health results, it is essential that music therapists join with medical experts in demystifying not only rhythms and tempo, but also the other healing components in music such as oscillating notes, inflexions, pitch variations, timbre, accentuation, rallentando, rubato, synchresis and so on and so forth.
This article was published in Bhavan’s Journal – June 30, 2019 – Pages 75 to 77
Edited by Geeta Shreedar, Nov. 27, 2021