Music Therapy Shows Promise in Treating High Blood Pressure

Saturday, June 21, 2008 by: Sherry Baker

(NaturalNews) If you have hypertension, listening to soothing music for a half hour a day while breathing deeply can significantly reduce your blood pressure without drugs. That's the conclusion of a new study just presented at the American Society of Hypertension's Twenty Third Annual Scientific Meeting and Exposition (ASH 2008).

The research, the first to examine the anti-high blood pressure impact of music listening on ambulatory blood pressure (ABP), documented that patients with mild hypertension who listened to just half an hour of classical, Celtic or Indian (raga) music a day for four weeks experienced significant reductions in 24-hour ABP.

"Listening to music is soothing and has often been associated with controlling patient-reported pain or anxiety and acutely reducing blood pressure," study investigator Pietro A. Modesti, MD, PhD, an internal medicine specialist in the department of critical care medicine at the University of Florence, Italy, said in a prepared statement for the press. "But for the first time, today's results clearly illustrate the impact daily music listening has on ABP. We are excited about the positive implications for both patients and physicians, who can now confidently explore music listening as a safe, effective, non-pharmacological treatment option or a complement to therapy."

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