How can music affect your heart rate?

How does music affect the heart rate and blood pressure?

• Answer:

  Recent research suggests slow music influences a person's relaxation, and that musical pauses modulate heart rhythms (in a good way). The study was published in "Heart," a British Medical Journal publication, and used a variety of musical genres, from techno to raga to classical. The researchers found that music with faster tempos resulted in increased ventilation, heart rate, and blood pressure. When the music was paused, ventilation, heart rate, and blood pressure decreased, sometimes below the beginning rate. Slower music caused declines in heart rate, with raga music influencing the largest decline. Overall, researchers agreed that the style of music wasn't as important as its pace. Music has also been shown to reduce stress, benefit athletic performance, and enhance motor function in people with neurological impairments. So turn up the volume and chill out.