Alteration in Cardiac Autonomic Activity after Music Therapy in Young Women

Music is a low cost intervention which has shown to be an efficient method of modulating emotions and autonomic nervous system activity ¹. Relaxation effect of music is due to shift of autonomic balance towards parasympathetic predominance in healthy adults ⁶. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a reliable, non invasive method used to evaluate autonomic nervous system. Effect of music on different cardiovascular parameters in different phases of menstrual cycle remains unknown. Therefore, we evaluated the effects of music on cardiovascular response in different phases of menstrual cycle in young women.

Females aged between 18–25 years having regular menstrual cycles were included in the study. Basal HRV recording was done during Menstrual phase (MP) (day 1–5); follicular phase (FP) (day 6–14) and luteal phase(LP) (day 15–28)¹³ of the same menstrual cycle. To avoid potential diurnal variations, subjects were tested (HRV) at the same time of day. ECG recording was done again in MP, FP, LP of the next menstrual cycle. On the day of ECG recording, subject was asked to listen to music for 30mins, Music intervention was given to all the 30 subjects. Raaga Malakauns and Yaman by flute recording were used for music intervention.

HR, SBP, RPP and frequency domain parameters showed significant difference after music in menstrual &follicular phase when compared to Luteal phase.

Relaxing effect of music is more during follicular phase of menstrual cycle