Music After Cardiac Surgery: The Abbott Northwestern Experiment

Today we wanted to highlight an institution’s endeavors to validate a particular value that we hold as a company: that music should be used a tool to enhance traditional methods of care in hospitals.

At the Abbott Northwestern Hospital, doctors conducted a study to determine music’s effect on stress, anxiety and pain levels for heart patients immediately after undergoing cardiac surgery. This jumping off point highlighted a substantial problem in hospitals: surgery patients really do suffer from acute or chronic stress, anxiety and pain. These problems can manifest themselves in myriad ways that likely don’t help the surgical procedure. Sleeping habits, blood chemistry, and post operational healing, for example, can all be negatively affected by stress and anxiety.

The study found a significant confirmation of the hypothesis; music really does reduce anxiety, stress and pain even in a high-stress situation like a post cardiac operation.

Music was found to reduce pain.

The results of the study are encouraging for all those who look to expand the use of music in medicine. However, for this study’s practical impact to take root, practitioners face looming obstacles such as music selection standards, audio equipment, music licensing fees, responding to patient musical feedback, training personnel, etc…

These questions are important and the medical world is taking steps forward daily toward resolving them. Music therapy organizations and companies like Genote™ commit enormous amounts of research and study to bridge the gap between doctors’ practice and music’s application in medicine. One day, music will work side by side with medical institutions for the benefit of the patients and the employees.

After all, if music has been scientifically proven to reduce pain and discomfort after surgery, why shouldn’t it be in every hospital?

We are happy that the Abbott Northwestern Hospital continues to develop their research on music and pain in the clinical experience.

Learn more about how music can benefit hospitals and patients at www.genotelab.com

3 Powerful Ways Health Music Can Enhance Athletic Performance

What if I told you that listening to expertly selected music compositions, in specific moments of your physical exercise could  improve your health, recovery and physical results?

Music is made up of both many individual components and, especially,relationships between those components. Like in chemistry, where different components create chemical reactions, in music, different  elements, such as tempo, rhythm, instrumentation, can trigger different reactions from people like modify breathing patterns, generate positive emotions and many other effects on psychophysiological parameters.

I want to share with you some tips on how integrating Health Music in your daily physical exercise routine will improve your health and recovery. Whether you are an amateur or a professional, you can witness real change. Each of the therapeutic areas described below can be found in Genote with a variety of Health Music protocols to tackle and improve your training and personal health.

We can summarize that major psychophysiological mechanisms, dedicated to  increasing physical performance  are linked to music’s ability to regulate arousal, and direct and increase our capacity to focus while increasing positive emotional responses and feelings.

Stress Reduction

Practice, strenuous training, and physical activity are often associated with physical and mental stress related to fatigue, change of habits or pressure by competitions and required improvement. However, even if there is a positive side of stress, like cold eustress that allows us to be more reactive and ready to perform, having high levels of continued stress might cause serious health issues. Listening to music can decrease stress and anxiety, cortisol levels, heart rate and blood pressure in people of all ages. Genote Health Music is the largest collection of therapeutic sound and music protocols made available for health, and it is so powerful in reducing stress and anxiety that is currently incorporated both in medical interventions and mental health institutions.  

Sleep and Recovery

Recovery is one of the basic principles of training methodology (Rushall & Pyke, 1990). Athletes work hard to prepare and perform successfully. Unfortunately, many ignore or forget the performance benefits and the injury protection derived by including recovery within their daily training programs.  Listening to music after intensive exercise has been proven to decrease  the time needed to recover (Eliakim et al., 2013). Additionally, the College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia discovered  how music was found to decrease anxiety related to illness and medical procedures by increasing the speed and the quality of physical recovery.

Supercompensation theory, showing the role of recovery in athletic performance.

Focus and Motivation

Because music stimulates the reward system, changes mood and enhances focus, it is no  surprise that it has been used to attend  important competitions and performances. In a study conducted by Dr. Karageorghis and Priest a,b, in 2012 they showed how music lead a range of positive effects, in lowering the perception fatigue, increasing motivation and enhancing perceived energy levels of athletes during physical exercise. Studies also show how music can increase visual perception and visual attention in patients with damage in areas related  to perception.   

The Yerkes–Dodson law originally developed by psychologist Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson in 1908, dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point.

Training is a matter of balance, motivation and consistency. It is important to keep in mind the direct effect of your routine in the efforts of enhancing your athletic performance. Recovery is a key aspect in building athletic performance. Optimized recovery allows high intensity training and better focus in the execution.