Positive and negative effects of music on people, animals and plants.

by Viviana Garay

For centuries, music has accompanied the development of human beings. But recently, it has been proven that music has positive and negative effects not only on people, but also on animals and plants. Some details will be described below.

To begin with, people know that music can arouse different emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, etc. For example, when we are watching a film, we can predict what is going on only by listening to the background music.
Moreover, music has the power to relax people or induce them in a deeper state. In other words, music can alter the state of consciousness (ASC´s). For instance, some people say that “The memories of home” can provoke that on people.

Furthermore, it is said that certain kinds of music can make conscious, unconscious parts of people; such as “the source of our dreams, visions, hunches, intuition and emotions”.

In addition, our mind, body, and spirit can be cured by the power of sounds and music. Some doctors say that music is a "mega-vitamin for the brain," with the capacity of influencing and improving: communication, motor function and cognition. For instance, scientists have verified that those people who are in rehabilitation and listen to music some hours per day, or are taught to play the drums or the piano can recover faster than others.
Music can also alter our mood in a heartbeat. For example, if we are happy, and we begin to listen to sad music, we start to feel sad because of the music we are listening to, and vice versa.

However, since the 70´s scientists have been researching “the effects of the beat of the music”. They have found out that slow music can diminish blood pressure, the breathing rate and the heartbeat. Conversely, faster music can accelerate the breathing rate, the heartbeat and increase blood pressure.
Besides, it has been proven that if we listen more than once to the same rhythm, the music can turn out to be disagreeable for us, conduct us to a state of sub-conscious thinking state or to a state of irritation.

Apart from this, some investigations have demonstrated that special kinds of music can affect animals and plants. For instance, when hens are exposed to “The Blue Danube" they lay more eggs; and when wheat plants are exposed to special ultrasonic and music sounds they grow faster.

What is more, an experiment carried out with rats –they were put in two different boxes connected with a tube, some listening to Bach´s music and the others listening to rock- showed that they “prefer” Bach´s music rather than rock.

Also, researches made on plants showed that Jazz, Classical music, and Ravi Shankar help to accelerate their growth. Nonetheless, rock and acid rock are harmful for them –they can die.
Taking everything into account, music is a mysterious force that exists on Earth, which has amazing effects on human beings, animals and plants. For this reason, we had better pay more attention to the kind of music we listen to.