enya

Music is soothing to body, mind and soul. Those of us who enjoy a certain type of music know that is so. There have also been extensive experiments showing that obnoxious music, such as heavy metal and hard rock, is damaging to living tissues. Now there is a new piece in the jigsaw. It seems that operatic music is healing and nurturing to an organism under stress and likely to experience inflammation. Classical music is good. Mice with transplanted hearts listening to soothing classical music lived TWICE AS LONG as those that were deaf or listening to pop music. Time to change the content of your iPod, I think! Masateru Uchiyama of Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, gave mice heart transplants from an unrelated donor which were therefore expected to be rejected. For a week following the operation, the mice continuously listened to Verdi’s opera La Traviata, a selection of Mozart concertos, music by Enya, or a range of single monotones. Mice exposed to opera fared best – they survived an average of 26 days, with those who listened to Mozart close behind at 20 days. Mice who listened to Enya survived for 11 days and the monotone group only seven days.

Music is soothing to body, mind and soul. Those of us who enjoy a certain type of music know that is so. There have also been extensive experiments showing that obnoxious music, such as heavy metal and hard rock, is damaging to living tissues. Now there is a new piece in the jigsaw. It seems that operatic music is healing and nurturing to an organism under stress and likely to experience inflammation. Classical music is good. Mice with transplanted hearts listening to soothing classical music lived TWICE AS LONG as those that were deaf or listening to pop music. Time to change the content of your iPod, I think! Masateru Uchiyama of Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, gave mice heart transplants from an unrelated donor which were therefore expected to be rejected. For a week following the operation, the mice continuously listened to Verdi’s opera La Traviata, a selection of Mozart concertos, music by Enya, or a range of single monotones. Mice exposed to opera fared best – they survived an average of 26 days, with those who listened to Mozart close behind at 20 days. Mice who listened to Enya survived for 11 days and the monotone group only seven days.