Indian classical music with incremental variation in tempo and octave promotes better anxiety reduction and controlled mind wandering—A randomised controlled EEG study

•Music with more incremental variations in tempo and octave reduces anxiety.•Stable music show increase in higher frequencies and right brain asymmetry.•Varying music show decrease in lower frequencies and midline power.•Both music intervention did not show the reduction in HRV seen with silence. St...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Explore (New York, N.Y.) Vol. 17; no. 2; pp. 115 - 121
Main Authors:	Sharma, Sushma, Sasidharan, Arun, Marigowda, Vrinda, Vijay, Mohini, Sharma, Sumit, Mukundan, Chetan Satyajit, Pandit, Lakshmi, Masthi, N.R.Ramesh
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States Elsevier Inc 01-03-2021
Subjects:	Anxiety reduction EEG Music therapy Octave Tempo Anxiety reduction Octave Tempo EEG Music therapy
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Summary:	•Music with more incremental variations in tempo and octave reduces anxiety.•Stable music show increase in higher frequencies and right brain asymmetry.•Varying music show decrease in lower frequencies and midline power.•Both music intervention did not show the reduction in HRV seen with silence. Studies have reported the benefits of music-listening in stress-reduction using musical pieces of specific scale or ‘Raaga’. But the influence of lower-level musical properties (like tempo, octave, timbre, etc.) lack research backing. Carnatic music concerts use incremental modulations in tempo and octave (e.g.: ‘Ragam-Tanam-Pallavi’) to elevate the mood of audiences. Therefore, the current study aimed to examine the anxiolytic effect of this musical property. A randomised controlled cross-over study with 21 male undergraduate medical students was followed. 11 participants listened to ‘Varying music’ (VM: instrumental music with incremental variations in tempo and octave) and 10 listened to ‘Stable music’ (SM: instrumental music without such variations), thrice daily for 6 days, both clips recorded in Raaga-Kaapi and silence being the control intervention. Electroencephalography (EEG) and Electrocardiography (for heart rate variability or HRV) were done on all 6 days. Beck's Anxiety inventory and State-trait anxiety scale were administered on Day-1 and Day-6. A significant anxiety score reduction was seen only in VM. VM showed marked decrease in lower frequency EEG power in bilateral temporo-parieto-occipital regions compared to silence, whereas SM showed increase in higher frequencies. Relatively, VM showed more midline power reduction (i.e., lower default mode network or DMN activity) and SM showed greater left-dominant alpha/beta asymmetry (i.e., greater right brain activation). During both music interventions HRV remained stable, unlike silence intervention. We speculate that, gradual transition between lower-slower and higher-faster music portions of VM induces a ‘controlled-mind wandering’ state involving balanced switching between heightened mind wandering (‘attention to self’) and reduced mind wandering (‘attention to music’) states, respectively. Therefore, music-selection has remarkable influence on stress-management and warrants further research.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-News-1 ObjectType-Feature-3 content type line 23
ISSN:	1550-8307 1878-7541
DOI:	10.1016/j.explore.2020.02.013