Songs soothe symptoms in heart disease patients

If you have heart problems, you might want to plug in that iPod or pop in a CD of mellow songs. Hospital patients with coronary heart disease reduced their heart rates, breathing rate and blood pressure just by listening to music, a Temple University review of 23 previous studies found. The report, published in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, found that the soothing effects were greatest when these patients chose their own tunes. For example, patients' pulse rates fell by more beats per minute when they made the selections compared with those who listened to music selected by researchers. - USA Today