Effects of music treatment on salivary cortisol in patients exposed to pre-surgical stress

Abstract

The response of the adrenal cortex to a stressor consisting of information about a surgery to be performed the following day was studied in 34 patients by monitoring changes in salivary cortisol. From those, 18 patients were subjected to an individually selected 1 h music program, applied immediately following receipt of the information, and the remaining 16 patients formed a reference group. Another 10 patients, not awaiting surgery, served as controls. Saliva was sampled before the stressor and 5 more samples were collected at 15 min intervals. The stressor produced a 50% rise in salivary cortisol within 15 min. In patients not exposed to music, cortisol levels gradually decreased but after one hour they were markedly higher than the initial level. Listening to music resulted in a marked reduction in salivary cortisol level and after one hour the relative decrease was similar to that observed in control (non-surgical) patients.

Cortisol and anxiety response to a relaxing intervention on pregnant women awaiting amniocentesis

“…Music is a powerful tool in evoking emotions and, by extension, listening to music can be explored for reducing the negative effects of stress. Supportive evidence can be found in the observation that listening to music resulted in a marked reduction in salivary cortisol levels in patients exposed to pre-surgical stress, both in a medical (Miluk-Kolasa et al, 1994) and in a nonmedical setting (Khalfa et al, 2003). These experiments suggested that relaxing music is more effective than silence in decreasing cortisol levels after stress induction.…”

Gender Differences When Using Sedative Music During Colonoscopy

“…All patients in the intervention group listened to sedative instrumental music with a slow tempo, with 60-80 beats/minute, which had been reported to be calming and relaxing (MilukKolasa et al, 1996;Miluk-Kolasa et al, 1994). The music was played on a CD player with earphones so the patients would not be disturbed by any other sounds and the physician and the nurses would not be disturbed by the music.…”

Reduction of Cortisol Levels and Participants' Responses Following Art Making

“…Several clinical studies have reported reductions in salivary cortisol levels after behavioral interventions to reduce stress (Aboulafia-Brakha, Suchecki, Gouveia-Paulino, Nitrini, & Ptak, 2014;Galvin, Benson, Deckro, Fricchione, & Dusek, 2006;Miluk-Kolasa, Obminski, Stupnicki, & Golec, 1993). Specifically, saliva contains free, biologically active cortisol as opposed to total cortisol present in serum or plasma.…”