If music be the food of love ... then it also lowers cholesterol

[WhiteTara]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5375698.ece
Take a tune and come back to see me in the morning. Doctors have found that prescribing music can improve heart health and lower cholesterol levels.

Their research found that if a patient listens to 30 minutes a day of their favourite music, it does more than relaxing them mentally – it also benefits them physically by expanding and clearing blood vessels.

Doctors have tried the method on some patients in America and it has been welcomed by British experts. It is believed to work by triggering the release into the bloodstream of nitric oxide, which helps to prevent the build-up of blood clots and harmful cholesterol.
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“The music effect lasts in the bloodstream for only a few seconds but the accumulative benefit of favourite tunes lasts and can be very positive in people of all ages,” said Michael Miller, director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at Maryland University, who carried out the research.
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He also warned that listening to stressful music, which for many in the experiments included heavy metal and rap, can shrink blood vessels by 6% – the same effect, according to previous experiments, as eating a large hamburger.

[Dorian Gray]

1. How about listening to the music

for 45 minutes WHILE working out! :)

[AndyTiedye]

2. Dancing

is good exercise and a lot more fun than "working out".

[Quantess]

3. what constitutes stressful music?

"He also warned that listening to stressful music...can shrink blood vessels by 6%"

For me, "stressful music" would be top-40 pablum. Compared to that, rap and heavy metal make me relaxed, LOL.

[supernova]

4. Good question

The only music I find stressful is:

1) Current pop-country clap trap. Absolutely soulless.
2) The format that used to be known as "beautiful music." You know, the fake classical, featuring string arrangements of popular hits and watered down versions of classical originals. :puke: inducing.

I regularly rotate between collage alternative, commercial rock (not too bad, not too Top 40), and the local real classical station, plus me iPod of course.

[Quantess]

5. When I listen to radio, it's usually "alternative".

But then, I'll hear something and think "wow, the crap kids are listening to these days sure sucks!" and I change the channel. I'm in my late 30s and I'm sick of songs I've already heard a thousand times, so classic rock stations are even more likely to be "stressful".

People will say I am wrong, but classical music, especially when played loudly, is the most stress inducing of all, more so than Slayer, Tool, or gangsta rap.

I really think it is subjective to each individual which music is truly relaxing and which is stressful.