I love music – nothing more recharging and relaxing for me than music, I use it for when I want to relax, and when I want to energise – I‘m still happy to be down in the mosh pit but equally sat listening to a concert.
I’m also interested in science, and follow up on interesting links.
Recently, the audience and performers were tested for stress before and after a concert at Gloucester Cathedral. Samples of their saliva were tested along with a review of a questionnaire, completed both before and after the concert. The performers were the Eric Whitacre Singers.
The experiment was to measure the biological effect of attending a concert. They found that the benefits included reducing psychobiological stress in the audience. For the performers their levels of the stress hormones – cortisol and cortisone increased in the 1st part of the concert but had returned to normal by the interval and overall for the performers it was “inherently relaxing”
This may be what people would expect, but we can’t just assume, we need to have evidence to back up what seems intuitive.
Daisy Fancroft, researcher is looking into if music can help with the long term reduction in stress. It has already been found that if people take part in weekly drumming sessions it can lead to reductions in levels of depression and anxiety.
So feeling stressed, try out different music and find out what works best for you.
