Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Now I know I'm known for explaining how not to do certain things. Just look at my books,

how not to die. The one I'm working on right now, how not to die it. But what I actually

have to share with you is quite positive and boils down to this. What's the best way

to live a healthy life? Here are some answers.

If music be the food of love, play on, as Shakespeare said. Today we're going to explore

the sound that soothes the savage beast and makes us feel better in the bargain. Music can do

so much. You can sometimes beat out anti-anxiety drugs that can reduce allergic reactions and

listening to your favorite tunes can significantly affect your testosterone levels. Here's the story.

We've been playing music since back during the Paleolithic era, 40,000 years ago, with music as

therapy documented at least since biblical times. The first such experiment was published in

the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1914, phonographed in operating room. As a means

of calming and distracting patients from the horror of the situation as they lie awake during surgery.

Now that we have anesthesia, music is used to calm nerves before surgery. Normally we use

valium type drugs like medazolam, sold as Versed, but it can have a variety of side effects,

including sometimes making people even more agitated. So this study was performed to see if

relaxing music has a greater anxiety reducing effect than a standard dose of the drug. So they whipped

out some Kenny G and the music worked significantly better than the drug, lower anxiety scores,

lower heart rate, lower blood pressure. Perhaps the first report of any anti-anxiety therapy working

not just as good as, but better than benzodiazepine drugs. And the difference in the side effects of

relaxing music compared to the drug is obvious, right? There were none. Soft jazz causes no post-operative

hangover. So the researchers suggest we should start using music instead of medazolam.

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