Assignment 2 Draft

Composition 1

Research paper

Aoife Sheehy

This research paper will be covering the topics of the effects music has on people’s emotions. I will be discussing experiments that were carried out to help relieve people of chronic pains through the use of music. I will talk about the chemicals released in the brain whilst listening to music and what different types of music can do to people’s emotions. I will also talk about how listening to different types of music can affect the actions people are doing. For example, listening to certain types of music in the gym compared to listening to certain types of music when trying to fall asleep.

Chronic non-malignant pain (CNMP) syndromes have a common pattern of pain, despair, disability, and feelings of powerlessness. Patients with back, neck, and joint pain had the greatest levels of pain, depression, and impairment among CNMP patients (Hitchcock et al. 1994). Fear of pain causes people to forego familial, social, recreational, and work-related activities, which adds to impairment (Chibnall & Tait 1994, Taylor et al. 1998). (Lin et al. 2003, Turner et al. 2004). Inability to properly manage pain and accomplish daily tasks leads to feelings of helplessness (Rapacz 1992, Matas 1997, Miller 2000) and despair (Rapacz 1992, Matas 1997, Miller 2000). (Turner et al. 2004).

Medications such opioids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxants, neuroleptics, and antidepressants are commonly recommended, but their effectiveness is restricted by their negative side effects (Lister 1996). The addition of a music-listening strategy may boost analgesic benefits, reduce sadness and disability, and promote personal power views. (Siedliecki, and Good) Recent studies like these shed new light on the full effects that music therapy can have on the human mind and body, which previous studies had not addressed.

Music has been shown to help with acute pain (Mullooly et al. 1988, Good & Chin 1998, Koch et al. 1998, Good et al. 1999, 2001), cancer pain (Zimmerman et al. 1989), and procedural pain (Good et al. 1999, 2001). (Menegazzi et al. 1991). However, just one quasi-experimental research (Schoor 1993) and one clinical trial (McCaffrey & Freeman 2003) have been published on the influence of music on CNMP, and no music-CNMP investigations have looked at power, depression, or impairment. (Siedliecki, and Good)

Music had a statistically significant influence on the outcomes, with both music groups having greater power and less pain, sadness, and impairment than the control group. Between the two music groups, no statistically significant changes were detected, and power was not determined to be a mediating variable. The model that predicted a direct impact for music on power and both a direct and indirect effect for music on the combined dependent variable of pain, sadness, and disability was supported by the discovery that power was a predictor of the combined dependent variable. However, because the impact of power on depression accounted for the majority of the variation in the combined dependent variable, this might imply that emotions of depression are more sensitive to treatments that enable power than perceptions of pain and pain-related impairment. (Siedliecki, and Good)

Another experiment I investigated was one that looked into the effects music had on the human stress response. This study sought to fill the information gap and correct prior flaws caused by the limited number of research in the extant literature, as well as differences in reported findings that might be due to methodological flaws by evaluating music’s impacts on the endocrine, autonomic, cognitive, and affective domains of the human stress response because music has been shown to have a positive influence on health due to its stress-relieving properties. (Thoma et al.)

The results of this experiment were found to be that listening to music has an effect on the psychobiological stress system, according to their findings. Prior to a standardised stressor, listening to music primarily influenced the autonomic nervous system (in terms of a speedier recovery), as well as the endocrine and psychological stress responses to a lesser extent. These findings might aid in a better understanding of music’s therapeutic impact on the human body. (Thoma et al.)

The final experiment I investigated studied the effects of music on anerobic exercise performance. The goal of this research was to see how listening to music and its rhythm affected anaerobic activity. If sports enthusiasts stopped to think about it, many of them might simply assume that the most successful athletes listen to a certain type of music whilst training or warming up for a competition. However, new research shows that the type of music you listen to whilst completing anerobic exercise has no effect on the outcome of the exercise.

Six visits to the laboratory were needed by 28 male volunteers, each separated by 48 hours (about 2 days). On consecutive days, each participant completed the Running-based Anaerobic Sprint Test (RAST) while listening to “slow rhythm music,” “rapid rhythm music,” or “no music.” Wingate Anaerobic Power (WAN) tests were done 48 hours after the individuals finished RAST under three different settings. To avoid an order effect, the order of the three conditions (slow music, rapid music, and no music) was chosen at random. (Atan)

In terms of power outputs, heart rates, and blood lactates, no statistically significant changes were identified between the rapid music, slow music, and no music conditions. Based on these findings, we may conclude that music has no effect on anaerobic performance. During the RAST and WAN exercises, the style of music had no effect on power outputs. To summarize, music and its rhythm cannot improve anaerobic performance or alter the physiological response to supramaximal exercise. (Atan)

Knowing what we know now about the positive effects music can have on people we should utilise it to its fullest potential, adding it to school curriculums and work timetables to release stress and anxiety and therefore promote a better and more efficient work and school environment, that has a positive connotation with it.

Work cited:

Atan, Tülin. “EFFECT OF MUSIC ON ANAEROBIC EXERCISE PERFORMANCE”. Biology Of Sport, vol 30, no. 1, 2013, pp. 35-39. Index Copernicus, https://doi.org/10.5604/20831862.1029819.

Siedliecki, Sandra L., and Marion Good. Effect Of Music On Power, Pain, Depression And Disability. Leading Global Nursing Research, Cleveland Ohio, 2006, pp. 553-562, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2006.03860.x. Accessed 1 Nov 2021.

Thoma, Myriam V. et al. “The Effect Of Music On The Human Stress Response”. 2013, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/authors?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0070156. Accessed 1 Nov 2021.