Music can make you laugh or cry, rile you up or calm you down. Some say it’s good for the soul. It just might be good for the heart, too. Make no mistake – daily doses of Mozart won’t clean out your arteries or fix a faulty heart valve. But music can help ease your recovery from a cardiac procedure, get you back to normal after a heart attack or stroke, relieve stress, and maybe even lower your blood pressure a tad.

The Sound of Healing

Music and healing once went hand in hand. The Chinese character for medicine includes the character for music. In ancient Greece, music was used to ease stress, promote sleep, and soothe pain. Native Americans and Africans used singing and chanting as part of their healing rituals.

In Western medicine, the connection was gradually broken when the art of medicine gave way to the science of medicine. It’s slowly being restored as music therapists demonstrate the value of music for treating people with everything from Alzheimer’s disease to chronic pain and substance abuse problems. Since 1980, researchers have turned their attention to the effects of music on the cardiovascular system. Most have looked at single variables, such as changes in blood pressure, heart rate, or blood flow through arteries. A few have looked at more holistic effects.

Contradictory results shouldn’t really be a surprise. One of the biggest hurdles to studying the effects of music on the heart is music itself. It isn’t a single, repeatable “therapy” like a statin or stress-reducing breathing exercises. Soothing music, like Debussy’s “Clair de lune” or George Winston’s “Moon,” have different effects on the heart and body than something more rousing, like “Seventy-Six Trombones” from ITAL**The Music Man**, Puccini’s “Nessun dorma,” or almost anything from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Music is also highly personal – what you find soothing might sound to someone else like fingernails on a blackboard.

One thrust of current research in music therapy is to see if specific sounds or tempos affect the heart regardless of the listener’s musical preferences. Finding a relaxing melody that slows the heart rate, reduces blood pressure, and improves blood flow for opera buffs and rock-and-roll fans alike would make it easier to offer music therapy.

Music in Play

Today, music therapy is being used for people undergoing a cardiac procedure, those recovering from a heart attack or learning to cope with heart failure, or other cardiovascular conditions.

At the Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic, for example, the Healing Enhancement Program offers music therapy for people having heart surgery. “We encourage patients to listen to music before, during, and after surgery,” says Susanne Cutshall, RN, a clinical nurse specialist who heads the program. Studies there indicate that music helps ease pain and anxiety and blocks out distracting or disturbing hospital sounds.

The program’s team is working with Chip Davis, founder and leader of the rock group Mannheim Steamroller, to create relaxing music that includes sounds from nature. “This soothing music makes you feel like you are outside in a large, open space instead of confined to a hospital room,” says Cutshall.

Another important application of music therapy is helping people cope with a cardiovascular condition, whether they are recovering from a heart attack or living with angina, heart failure, or claudication. “Heart disease can be very stressful, and makes some people feel as though they have little control over their lives,” says Suzanne Hanser, EdD, MT-BC, who chairs the music therapy department at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Music therapy can alleviate stress, provide a pleasant coping strategy, and impart a feeling of control, she says.
In a trial conducted at a community hospital in Ohio, Hanser and her colleagues found that adding music therapy to standard cardiac rehabilitation led to better control of blood pressure along with better general and mental health than rehab alone. In her work with other cardiac patients, Hanser has seen improvements in sleep, reductions in stress, and the melting away of anxiety. As one patient wrote her, “I can’t read notes or play a musical instrument, yet I love music. My body just seems to unwind as I listen.”

A third direction is being pioneered by Milford Graves, an internationally acclaimed jazz musician and professor at Bennington College in Vermont, who has studied the music of the heart for years. Using a custom-built stethoscope, sensors that pick up the heart’s electrical activity, and computer software, Graves studies the musical rhythms of an individual’s heartbeat. With this equipment, Graves identifies normal and abnormal heart tones. For the latter, he creates a counter-rhythm aimed at retraining the heart that is delivered through acupuncture needles.

“Just as you can tell almost instantly when a violin or piano is out of tune, Milford Graves can do the same with the heartbeat,” says Baruch Krauss, MD, an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, who once studied with Graves. How well this works has yet to be formally tested.

Tuning In

There are several ways to let music into your heart. One is to work with a music therapist. If you can’t find one through your cardiologist or medical center, try the American Music Therapy Association (phone, 301-589-3300; e-mail, findMT@musictherapy.org). Think of a music therapist as a guide, someone who can help you find the music that evokes from you the most relaxing responses as well as the most positive ones. He or she may help you become a more active listener, using music to help you ward off negative thoughts, release anxiety, and summon energy. A music therapist may also encourage you to make music with bells, drums, your voice, or other instruments.
Do-it-yourself music therapy is another option. Find some music that makes you feel good. Pick some calm, relaxing pieces, as well as a few stimulating ones. If you are feeling stressed, sit and listen to the soothing music for 20 minutes or so. If you need a pick-me-up, play something energizing. Observe how the music makes you feel, and give in to those emotions. “The goal,” says Hanser, “is to stop thinking of music as a treatment and make it an essential part of your everyday life.”

Source: Harvard Heart Letter