• Question: Can music affect my pulse?

    Asked by caseym to Ed, Katie, Sam, Steve, Vera on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Katie Marriott

      Katie Marriott answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      It depends in wat way you mean. The beat of the music wouldn’t change the speed of your pulse. However, I think music can affect our mood which can in turn affect our pulse. If you hear a piece of music that you really like it can release chemicals in the body that makes our hearts beat faster due to us feeling happy..

    • Photo: Ed Morrison

      Ed Morrison answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      Yes, I reckon so in the way Katie describes. Why don’t you try and experiment with your classmates – play them some fast, exciting music on some headphones and measure their pulse. Play some others some slow, sad music and see if there is a difference?

    • Photo: Steven Daly

      Steven Daly answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      I think that it is possible that the pulse could be affected by a strong emotional response to music yes.

    • Photo: Sam Tazzyman

      Sam Tazzyman answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      I would be very surprised if music didn’t affect the pulse – it causes such a strong emotional responses, as you can see when films use their soundtracks to heighten our emotions and try to make us cry, or laugh, or feel scared.

    • Photo: Vera Weisbecker

      Vera Weisbecker answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hmm, a few of my answers seem to have been deleted so apologies if this shows up twice.
      But in addition to the others, I once heard that exposure to the body to strong rhythm (specifically, putting someone in a barrel full of water and beating a stick against the barrel at heartbeat rate) for a few days will cause the heart to stop when the beating stops – sounds strange to me though…

      I also once heard that nightclub music has it’s rhythm slightly above normal heart rate to hype people up – again, no idea if that ist true!

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