Author(s)

Kenichi Itao¹, Makoto Komazawa¹, Hiroyuki Kobayashi²

¹WINFrontier Laboratory, WINFrontier Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan.
²JUNTENDO University, Tokyo, Japan.

In this study we examined the relaxing effects of listening to music on a total of 12 women aged from their 20s to their 40s by measuring their blood flow, heart rate variability, and their body surface temperature. As a result, We found that there was a tendency for the volume of blood flow to the fingertips to significantly increase when listening to classical music, but there was a variety of changes in blood flow between each age group for healing music and J-Pop music. When measuring heart rate it was found that the LF/HF value, which is an index for the autonomic nervous system which shows tension and stress, fell significantly when listening to each type of music. Lastly, there was a trend for body surface temperature to rise when listening to classical or healing music, a rise which was particularly significant when listening to healing music. This study shows that a relaxing effect can be expected for all indices when listening to classical music. However, for healing music and J-Pop, personal musical preferences seemed to have an effect and the results were varied.

Music, Blood Flow, Heart Rate Variability, Autonomic Nervous System, Body Surface Temperature

Itao, K. , Komazawa, M. and Kobayashi, H. (2018) A Study into Blood Flow, Heart Rate Variability, and Body Surface Temperature While Listening to Music. Health, 10, 181-188. doi: 10.4236/health.2018.102015.