Study of Music Effect on Mental Stress Relief Based on Heart Rate Variability

In the modern era, mobile device and cloud database have become ubiquitous which provides unprecedented opportunity for psychologists and neuroscientists to develop personalized music therapy for mental stress relief. However few of studies go further to compare the effect of different music genres and the timing of listening to music on stress relief, and none uniquely integrates heart rate variability (HRV)-based physiological evidence together. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the impact of different music types (classic vs self-selected relaxing music) as well as timing of listening to music (before vs during vs after stress stimulus tasks) on HRV evidence-based stress recovery. Forty-eight healthy young males were randomly assigned to either preferred relaxing music or classic music group or control group (rest in silence). HRV parameters in time and frequency domain as well as self-reported stress scores were assessed. Results show that the averaged stress score in classic group is slightly lower (no statistical difference) than that in personal preferred music group, while both HRV time and frequency parameters were significantly different between the two genres. These results not only reveal that classic music is more effective than personalized relaxing music, but also indicate that physiological parameters are able to provide much more richer emotional information if compared to pure subjective assessment. Regarding the timing of listening to music, there is no mutually statistical difference, indicating that listening to music before, during and after the stressful events has a similar relief effect.

[1]  Olivia Swedberg Yinger,et al.  Chapter 7 – Music Therapy in Gerontology , 2018 .

[2]  P. Stein,et al.  Differing effects of age on heart rate variability in men and women. , 1997, The American journal of cardiology.

[3]  Incheol Jeong,et al.  A Research for evaluation on stress change via thermotherapy and massage , 2008, 2008 30th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[4]  É. Labbé,et al.  Coping with Stress: The Effectiveness of Different Types of Music , 2007, Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback.

[5]  Yann-Fen Chao,et al.  Evidence That Music Listening Reduces Preoperative Patients’ Anxiety , 2012, Biological research for nursing.

[6]  Hung-Wen Chiu,et al.  Using heart rate variability analysis to assess the effect of music therapy on anxiety reduction of patients , 2003, Computers in Cardiology, 2003.

[7]  A. K. Blangsted,et al.  The effect of mental stress on heart rate variability and blood pressure during computer work , 2004, European Journal of Applied Physiology.

[8]  Hoang ChuDuc,et al.  A Review of Heart Rate Variability and its Applications , 2013 .

[9]  N. Rickard,et al.  Mental Health Smartphone Apps: Review and Evidence-Based Recommendations for Future Developments , 2016, JMIR mental health.

[10]  Laura M. Glynn,et al.  The Role of Rumination in Recovery from Reactivity: Cardiovascular Consequences of Emotional States , 2002, Psychosomatic medicine.

[11]  Rossana Castaldo,et al.  Acute mental stress assessment via short term HRV analysis in healthy adults: A systematic review with meta-analysis , 2015, Biomed. Signal Process. Control..

[12]  Kjeld Hermansen,et al.  Heart Rate Variability in Healthy Subjects , 1992 .

[13]  É. Labbé,et al.  The effects of different types of music on perceived and physiological measures of stress. , 2002, Journal of music therapy.

[14]  C. Spielberger State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory , 2010 .

[15]  Ralf Hansmann,et al.  Restoration and stress relief through physical activities in forests and parks , 2007 .

[16]  Atlee Fernandes,et al.  Determination of stress using Blood Pressure and Galvanic Skin Response , 2014, 2014 International Conference on Communication and Network Technologies.

[17]  Radhakrishnan Latha,et al.  Effect of music on heart rate variability and stress in medical students , 2014 .

[18]  Shira Taylor Gura Yoga for stress reduction and injury prevention at work. , 2002, Work.

[19]  U. Rajendra Acharya,et al.  Heart rate variability: a review , 2006, Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing.

[20]  Alejandro de la Torre-Luque,et al.  Acute stress recovery through listening to Melomics relaxing music: A randomized controlled trial , 2017 .

[21]  G. Buela-Casal,et al.  Effects of preferred relaxing music after acute stress exposure: A randomized controlled trial , 2017 .

[22]  A. Malliani,et al.  Heart rate variability. Standards of measurement, physiological interpretation, and clinical use , 1996 .

[23]  Ulrike Ehlert,et al.  The Effect of Music on the Human Stress Response , 2013, PloS one.