| Sound therapy: Beats and rhythms sometimes relax body muscles of the listeners
Moshing at a gig or attending a classical concert aren’t just aurally stimulating'they can benefit your health, too. According to new research, listening to Be
| Sound therapy: Beats and rhythms sometimes relax body muscles of the listeners
Moshing at a gig or attending a classical concert aren’t just aurally stimulating'they can benefit your health, too. According to new research, listening to Beethoven or ‘Badly Drawn Boy’ may help heart disease and stroke patients, as well as people suffering from stress.
Earlier this month, British and Italian scientists found that meditative tunes helped to slow breathing and circulation, and that the effects were particularly positive among those who are musically trained, as they synchronised their breathing with the musical phases.
A study undertaken in Taiwan earlier this year found that listening to gentle music for 45 minutes in the evening makes for a restful night’s sleep. And this summer, Malcolm Hilton, an ear, nose and throat specialist at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, began to trial a singing course that aims to tackle snoring and obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), a condition that can cause people to stop breathing during deep sleep. The course features songs and vocal exercises that tone up the weak muscles in the soft palate and upper throat that are often to blame.
“It would be wonderful to be able to offer patients with snoring or sleep apnoea problems a self-help alternative to surgery or having to wear a nasal mask every night,” says Hilton.
Joining a choir helps to tone up the body, as well as the brain. “Singing exercises the abdominal and intercostal muscles, and stimulates the circulation,” says Helen Furness, a professional choral trainer who leads a ‘Singing for Health’ programme for over-fifties in Midlothian. “I teach the group deep-breathing exercises, which enables them to make full use of their lungs.”
At the National Society for Epilepsy’s (NSE) therapy centres, music is used in several settings.
“We play structured pieces that are 60 beats per minute'primarily Mozart and baroque'in our art area; and in our sensory room, too, in combination with massage and visualisation, to help pe