Increased Anxiety Induced by Listening to Unpleasant Music during Stress Exposure Is Associated with Reduced Blood Pressure and ACTH Responses in Healthy Men

Abstract

The relationship between anxiety and the neuroendocrine response to stress stimuli is still not fully understood. The aim of this study was to evaluate the contribution of an acute increase in state anxiety to neuroendocrine activation under stress conditions. To do so, it was necessary to find a stress condition of the same character and intensity with and without a rise in state anxiety. We decided to examine the effects of listening to music on anxiety and to apply a new methodological approach. A group of 14 healthy volunteers participated in a counterbalanced crossover design study. The stress procedure consisted of mental (Stroop test, mental arithmetic) and physical (handgrip exercise) tasks combined with listening to music played forward (pleasant) or backwards (unpleasant). The results confirmed our hypothesis, namely the condition with listening to unpleasant music was anxiogenic, while the other was not. In case of increased state anxiety, the rise in ACTH concentrations in response to mental challenge and the increase in systolic blood pressure induced by handgrip exercise was reduced compared to the situation with unchanged anxiety. Concentrations of testosterone, oxytocin, vasopressin and aldosterone were slightly increased in response to the stress paradigm accompanied with increased anxiety. In conclusion, the present data demonstrate that an acute increase in state anxiety contributes to neuroendocrine activation under stress conditions. Moreover, the results show that listening to music may both positively and negatively influence the perception of stress and the level of anxiety, which might have functional consequences.

The role of oxytocin in familiarization-habituation responses to social novelty

“…This process was moderated by the subjects' emotionality, with the capacity to express emotions enhancing the oxytocin response to cortisol (Tops et al, 2007b). A challenge that triggered anxiety increased oxytocin in men (Jezova et al, 2013). By contrast, some studies did not find an oxytocin response to a social evaluative stress challenge (Taylor et al, 2006; Cyranowski et al, 2008).…”

“…In other words, oxytocin may enable familiarization-habituation responses to stress as implied in social novelty. Oxytocin is, for example, released in challenging situations that trigger coping efforts and anxiety, including challenges of social evaluative stress (Pierrehumbert et al, 2010; Jezova et al, 2013). Furthermore, social support following intense psychological stress can promote the release of oxytocin while attenuating the physiological and behavioral stress response toward a subsequent stressor in pair-bonded female prairie voles (Smith and Wang, 2012).…”

Music and Biomarkers of Stress: A Systematic Review

“…The two authors then reached a consensus on what studies to include in this review, which yielded 19 studies. The findings from the study quality check method [8,9] eventually led to the exclusion of three studies due to inadequate sample size and statistical reporting [5,11,12] resulting in a final selection of 16 studies.…”

Hypnosis and music interventions (HMIs) inactivate HIF-1: A potential curative efficacy for cancers and hypertension

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