An Experimental Research Of Psychosomatic Impact Of Music Of Hypertensive Patients

This experimental study investigated the effects of different types of symphonic music on physiological and emotional responses of hypertensive patients comparative with healthy people. Clients listened to 4 selected contrasting musical excerpts ( such as 1. Wagner - Valkiria ( 5’36” ), 2. Brahms – Symphony no 2 D major (op. 73), Part 2 : Adagio non troppo ( the first 5’ ), 3. Vivaldi – The Seasons , Part 7, Allegro ( 5’22” ) and 4.Mahler, Symphony no 5 C sharp minor , Part 4, Adagietto: Sehr langsam ( the first 5’ ). These musical pieces were selected to express different emotions and feelings ( such as : anxiety and fear, but also, heroism and courage ( piece 1), melancholy and nostalgia (excerpt 2 ), happiness and mirth ( fragment 3) and serenity ( excerpt 4 ). Values for the physiological variables of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, pulse-rate were obtained before and after listening each musical excerpt. Emotional responses were evaluated by a positive and negative affect scale and bodily sensations ( somato-visceral correlates of these emotions ) were appreciated by a psychosomatic symptoms scale. We measures these variables before and after each musical fragment. The basal personality traits were evaluated with Scale of Guilford- Zimmermann Temperament Survey. The research groups ( 52 hypertensive patients in the experimental group and 52 healthy subjects in the control group ) were similar in what concerns the age, the sex repartition and the intellectual level (medium / high), as well as the low usage of symphonic and chamber music (subjects without experience and / or minimal experience in audition of this music The results of this study emphasized for both groups a significant statistical diminution of systolic and diastolic blood pressure after each excerpt musical audition comparative with initial values. The pulse-rate correlated with the tempo of music, both at hypertensive and healthy people. All subjects experienced, in general, positive emotion and feelings during musical audition ( calmness, relaxation, happiness, courage, confidence ) correlated with the structural aspects of the music . Some subjects of both groups ( 13,46% of experimental group and 9,61% of the healthy people ) developed psychosomatic symptoms in the time of the Wagnerian excerpt audition . A little number of subjects from both groups presented bodily sensation during unexpectedly changes of tonality from the end of the second excerpt. We observed a positive correlation between the psychosomatic symptoms and following factors : basal emotional instability, recent affective distress and negative emotions experienced or perceived in the time of the first and the second musical excerpt audition . In conclusion symphonic music had a series of favorable psychic and psychosomatic effects, on the organism. These effects were used in the frame of music therapy to obtain a psychic and somatic relaxation, with large applications in psychiatry and psychosomatics.