Effect of Classical music on heart rate variability between genders

Abstract

Background: Listening to music alleviates stress but the gender specific difference in the beneficial response elicited by the music on autonomic function is not clear. Therefore this study has been undertaken to look for the significant difference in the autonomic modulation between males and females on listening to a classical music, Rag Bilahari. Aimsand Objectives: To assess the effect of music on autonomic modulation between genders. Materials and methods: 60 medical students between the age of 17 and 20 years were divided into study group of 30 students who were to be exposed to classical music and 30 for controls who were not exposed to music. Each group had 15 participants from each gender. The study group was exposed to the preselected music for half an hour for 30 days and 5 min HRV was recorded before and after the intervention, using PHYSIOPAC- PP₄ software (MEDICAID SYSTEMS, Chandigarh) for all the participants of both the groups and the basal cardiovascular parameters of heart rate, blood pressure and the time domain parameters of HRV such as mean RR interval, standard deviation of all normal RR intervals (SDNN), root mean square of differences between adjacent normal RR intervals (RMSSD), and the percentage of adjacent RR intervals with a difference of duration greater than 50 msec (PNN50) were analysed using Kubios analyser. Results: Significant difference in heart rate being lower in females (p=0.0006) and mean RR interval being higher in females (P=0.0004) was observed in music group while parasympathetic activity was increased in both genders. Conclusion: Music listening enhances parasympathetic activity which is more pronounced in females.