Music & stress

[jenk]

...from Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream, on music:

Music with a quick tempo in a major key has been shown to produce in listeners many of the physical changes associated with joy: excitement, rapid heart beat, release of endorphins, goosebumps. Music of slow tempo in a minor key elicits changes linked with sadness, an experience of "negative" emotion that, oddly enough, is considered rewarding by most people and sought out as pleasurable and comforting.
[...S]cientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute asked a group of musicians to choose music that evoked such powerful responses, and then took PET scans of their brains as they listened to their choices.

The parts of the brain stimulated? Those associated with pleasure - food, sex, and drugs. The author notes that other studies link listening to music with lower blood pressure.