Health

Classical Music Reduces Pregnancy Stress

by Terri Potratz | October 7, 2008 at 10:52 am | 216 views | 6 comments | 5 recommendations

Kaohsiung Medical University researchers in Taiwan have determined that pregnant women who listen to classical (or otherwise soothing) music are less likely to endure stress or experience depression throughout their pregnancy.

For their study, the team split the subjects into two groups, with 116 given music CDs and 120 acting as controls. The women given the music each received four CDs, containing about 30 minutes of music.

One CD features lullabies, a second contained classical music, a third featured nature sounds and a fourth was based on soothing crystal music of Chinese nursery rhymes and songs. The tempo of the music was set at 60 to 80 beats per minute, the same as the human heart rate.

The women were told to listen to at least one disc all the way through every day for two weeks -- the results showed those in the music group were far less stressed or depressed at the end of the study, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.

Before the study, the women in the music group scored 17.44 on the perceived stress scale, which ranges from zero to 30. Afterwards, the stress levels had dropped by an average of 2.15, compared with 0.92 in the control group.

If this works for pregnant women, I wonder how classical music could alter the mindset of everyone else? Perhaps it could curb depression in others as well.

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PhotoToasty

at 14:03 on October 7th, 2008

One of the violinists of the South Bank Sinfonia. Taken during their rehearsal for the Northern Trust sponsored opening classical concert of the Victor Hugo International Music Festival held in Guernsey (18-27 Sept 2008).

The concert was certainly an uplifting event!

PhotoToasty has contributed a photo to this story.

Christina 123

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:08 on October 7th, 2008

Terri Potratz, I like this story. It's good stuff. This is a view that has had some currency for a while. Personally I agree with the adage that, "music soothes the savage beast" .

Terri Potratz

at 14:47 on October 7th, 2008

Absolutely you're right Christina - music is soothing and therapeutic, we don't really need a study to tell us that. But I am curious as to whether these effects are reliable and/or substantial enough to be accurately measured.

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at 19:12 on October 8th, 2008

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at 05:28 on October 12th, 2008

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