Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: It’s assumed that music has health beneficial effects by its potential stres-reducing life. There are some reports that chorists in choral soceity are influenced by music positively during their activities.

Research design and methods: 37 healthy volunteers who perform Turkish art music in Bahcesehir Music Society with mean age 50.3±10.3yrs, were included into this study. The state and trait anxiety status of chorists was evaluated by using a Likertscale at the time of beginning (19.00) and the end (21.00) of choir, on chorus working day. After each assesments, chorists were asked to collect saliva samples for cortisol levels to be measured later by using electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Participants were requested to repeat the same procedure at similar times of any day in their normal lives. All data was evaluated with SPSS 20 version.

Findings: Although results were within normal limits in all subjects, differences were observed on normal and chorus activity days. While mean cortisol levels (ng/dL) were detected as 248.69±140.50 and 286.11±179.50, respectively, at hours 19.00 and 21.00 on the normal day of life (Group I); the levels were observed as 260.64±114.81 and 211.44±91.67, respectively, on chorus working day (Group II) at similar hours. Saliva cortisol levels showed a 33% decrease in Group II while an increase of 21% was detected in Group I (P<0.02). Also a reduction 14% in stres scores was observed in Group II (P<0.04); especially remarkable in women, individuals with non-alcoholic, but smokers, active employeers and people who have less time engaged in music.

Conclusion: We can say that individuals who perform a two-hour Turkish art music per week, are affected positively by music different from the day of their normal life. Particularly due to fact that mucic is very popular, cheap and easly applicable in daily life, it seems promising to use music in daily life as strategy for stress reduction.