In daily life, music is everywhere, it is not only a form of entertainment, but also affects people's psychological state. Surging music inspires, uplifts and stirs the soul, while melodious music soothes, resonates and heals the heart. In fact, music is much more than that, it can also treat physical and psychological diseases, becoming a kind of treatment, medically known as "music therapy". Today, we will talk about music therapy and its application in the cardiovascular field.
Music brings positive changes to the body
Music therapy is the treatment of diseases through both physical and psychological approaches by listening to therapeutically targeted music.
The origins of music therapy can be traced back to the 6th century BC. The famous ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras was also a musicologist. Not only did he invent the seven-tone scale, but he also realized from the beautiful sound of strings that by listening to music, one can achieve a state of inner "spiritual harmony", which can help to cure mental illness. As a result, Pythagoras is also considered the earliest founder of music therapy.
For the human body, music is a strong stimulus that can arouse and regulate emotions and emotions, which can produce both psychological and physiological effects.
In terms of psychology, the artistic appeal of music can affect people's emotions and behaviors, guide people with emotions, adjust emotions, and restore psychological balance; In physiology, music can regulate heart rate, heart rate variability, blood pressure and respiratory rate, etc., and play a role in sedation, excitement, analgesia, and blood pressure reduction.
Try listening to music for cardiovascular disease
Music therapy, as a non-pharmacological modality, can be used to assist in the treatment of many diseases. In the cardiovascular field, music therapy has a certain effect on hypertension, coronary heart disease, before and after cardiac surgery, and cardiovascular disease combined with mental disorders.
High blood pressure Studies have found that listening to soothing music can lower heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate in people with high blood pressure. Chinese scholars have found that listening to the two music songs "Three Alleys of Plum Blossoms" and "Fishing Boat Singing Night" once in the morning and evening, each time for 30 minutes, with a volume of 20 to 40 decibels, can help control blood pressure and improve patients' negative emotions.
Coronary heart disease Studies have shown that music can alter gene expression pathways in patients with coronary heart disease, reduce stress, reduce psychological stress, and improve anxiety, pain and sleep quality in patients with coronary heart disease.
Before and after cardiac surgery A number of studies have shown that music therapy before and after cardiac interventional surgery, cardiac surgery, artificial pacemaker insertion and other surgical patients can reduce patients' anxiety, reduce postoperative pain, improve postoperative adaptability, and reduce complications.
Cardiovascular disease with psychiatric disorders Patients with cardiovascular disease often have anxious or depressive states, which in turn accelerate the worsening of cardiovascular disease. Studies have found that happy music can stimulate the brain to secrete dopamine, reduce the depressive symptoms of cardiovascular disease patients, and can also play a certain role in alleviating anxiety.
There's so much more music can do
Music therapy can not only assist in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, but also in the treatment of mental illnesses such as depression; pediatric diseases, such as autism in children; Geriatric diseases, such as cerebral infarction sequelae, Alzheimer's disease, etc. have a certain therapeutic effect.
However, music therapy is not simply listening to music, but requires scientific and systematic use of the characteristics of music to affect the human body. Therefore, the healing process requires professional music therapists to guide them. In addition, musical style may also affect the efficacy, such as the genre, instrumental, rhythm, loudness, frequency and duration of the music, etc., all need to be selected and used by the music therapist.
Text/Liu Jian (Peking University People's Hospital)