Heart Disease

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Quit Smoking

7.13 Depending on the number of cigarettes smoked each day, the risk of heart attack in smokers is two to five times more than non-smokers. Research has shown that about three years after you quit smoking (at any age), your risk of having a heart attack drops to that of someone who has never smoked. So, it is never too late to give up smoking!

Music for Healing

7.14 Belief in the curative and healing power of soothing music has existed in India since ages. Like meditation, music too has a tranquillising effect. Music works as a motivator, healer and a destresser. It calms you down when you are enraged, soothes your soul when you are disturbed. Ambient or easy listening music does not only help us to destress but also benefits physically by regulating our breathing and easing muscle tension.

7.15 Soulful soothing melodies have a powerful beneficial effect on our immune system, boosting compounds that defend the body against infections. Researchers have found that music reduced the surgery patients’ need for morphine like medicines to subside chronic and acute pain and benefitted Parkinson’s sufferers. It is believed that music stimulates the pituitary gland, whose secretions benefit the nervous system and the flow of blood.

7.16 A study from the McGill University in 2010 revealed that listening to melodious music releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain, important for more tangible pleasures associated with sex or great food. Psychologists say that there is a direct connection between music and mood and they also believe that listening to soothing music has a positive effect on respiration and blood pressure. Music reduces the level of harmful hormone cortisone, which gets elevated when a person is under stress. It is medically proven fact that music has a way of healing and calming frayed nerves, weary minds and fatigued bodies.

7.17 Music does more than relaxing mentally. Music also benefits physically by expanding and clearing blood vessels. Music is believed to work by triggering the release into the blood stream of nitric oxide, which helps to prevent the build-up of blood clots and harmful cholesterol.

7.18 Listening to soothing music has been found to aid recovery after a heart attack or stroke. The melody, rhythm and song composition may actually be doing good to your heart by releasing certain heart healthy chemicals known as endorphins. Music may infact, be helping the heart by establishing the famous mind-body-heart and soul relationship. It is also a fact that music helps us stay happy, recover from injuries and come out of setbacks much easily. “Music therapy” has begun to gain popularity not only in India but in the West too. Understandably, numerous hospitals around the world have adopted music therapy to their repertoire. Music’s therapeutic use is the latest trend that is catching on among lifestyle savvy urbanites.