嗜好の異なる音楽が副交感神経活動に及ぼす影響

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of music on parasympathetic nervous activity (PSNA). Data was obtained using power spectral analysis of heart rate variability (HRV). In order to examine the influence of music on the parasympathetic nervous activity, two kinds of music, comfortable and uncomfortable music, were used for this experiment. The results showed significant differences between the normal resting state PSNA and PSNA while listening to music. The PSNA increased significantly while listening to the comfortable music, whereas it decreased when the subjects were exposed to the uncomfortable music. Regarding heart rate, no significant differences were found between the subjects normal resting state and their state while listening to music. These findings suggest that the PSNA index obtained from power spectral analysis of R-R intervals reflects the effect of music on feeling. Furthermore, the PSNA index method was able to detect changes in autonomic activity that could not be detected by monitoring heart rate. This suggests that the PSNA index is a more useful tool than heart rate for expressing feeling as a numerical value. Since the PSNA is considered to increase when people relax, the index could be a useful parameter for examining the relaxation effects of nursing interventions. However, due to the small sample size of this trial, further research is needed to make firm conclusion.