An interesting idea about the relationship between music and our physiology. It feels like an obvious thing to say that music influences our responses to things – but it’s surprising that this could be true at a measurable chemical level.
This is another article that will be useful for me to consider further in my final project which I hope will have a musical component and that will use skin conductivity measures as an indicator of potential stress levels – and mitigate these levels using sound feedback…
Reference
Knight, W.E.J. Rickard, N.S. (2001) Relaxing Music Prevents Stress-Induced Increases in Subjective Anxiety, Systolic Blood Pressure, and Heart Rate in Healthy Males and Females. Journal of Music Therapy. XXXVIIII (4), 254 – 272
