April 29, 2022 • 24 mins
On this episode of the Fitness Disrupted podcast, Tom uses a recent study to talk about how music can have a positive effect on our exercise and to illustrate the broader concept of how we should find and use the things that give us enjoyment in life to motivate us to get the most out of our activities and to do them more frequently.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio.
I am Tom Holland and this is Fitness Disrupted. I
love music. I love all kinds of music. I know
(00:21):
many people say that, yeah, someone, you know, what's your
favorite kind of music? I listen everything, and then you
play something and they go, I hate that, right, that's
genre I do. I love music. I have been playing
instruments since I was young. Drums is my primary instrument,
still play today. Took some time off played in bands,
(00:42):
though play some guitar. I just love it and I
love combining it with exercise. But I love playing it.
I love listening to it. And as today's show will
show you in a recent study, a meta analysis that
(01:04):
look back at a bunch of other studies, music in
our lives can really improve our lives. And that's what
this show is about. This show is about finding all
of the myriad ways to improve our lives, and we
when we start to combine those ways, right. Dozens of
(01:25):
things throughout the day, and oftentimes they're called little things,
they're not. I started my day today with well later
in the day, got up earlier, but one of my
morning activities was walking the dogs in the woods. As
I've talked about the biophilia hypothesis, how we are meant
(01:47):
to be in nature and how being in nature has
huge impact on our quality of life, and that's super
important and it's so simple. Yet people torture themselves with
deprivation diets and exercise they don't like and programs they
are not going to do for a lifetime. And so
(02:08):
this study, this show is yet another another example of
something that we can just add to our repertoire when
we want to how we want to to improve our
quality of life. And that goes for in the moment
as well as in the future, and that's so important,
(02:35):
and it's essentially free, right, I mean, depending on what
you're doing and how you are getting your music, if
you're playing your music, but this also goes for singing.
So this study is going to talk about a couple
different ways of consuming or participating in music. Listening to it,
playing it, we're singing. Those are three of the ways.
(02:58):
And I love that that it's not just one way,
and it's a very broad kind of finding and you
can see the limitations in that. But as I will
get do in the end, what's the downside? What are
the side effects? What are the negative side effects of
doing what I'm going to talk about listening to music,
(03:19):
performing music, singing quick break. When we get back, I'm
gonna get right into it. And the study just came
out March JAMA Journal of the American Medical Association. Association
of Music Interventions with Health Related Quality of Life, A
(03:41):
systematic review and meta analysis. All right, awesome fun something
you can just take in and apply right away. We'll
be right back and we are back talking about music
(04:02):
and quality of life. It sounds so simple as I
was writing the title for the shows like make it
sex here. No, that's it, music and quality of life.
I have had music in my house forever as an
adult with kids. Uh grew up in a crazy family.
(04:23):
But when I had my own house, it was and
has been filled with music. From the moment I get
up to the moment we go to bed, there's always
music playing. When I get up and get the house
ready for breakfast and preparing breakfast for the kids, I
have music playing. So when they come downstairs, there's music,
(04:44):
and there's different music for different times. Sometimes it's classical,
sometimes it's rock. It changes, but the house is always
filled with music, and it changes everything, at least for
me and has this study shows potentially for everyone in
certain ways. And when we go on vacation, as we
(05:04):
just did, I bring a portable speaker, and wherever we
are in the world as a family, there's music. And
when I travel for my events, my iron Man's, my ultras,
my marathons, getting ready to run across the Grand Canyon
and back again, scaring the heck out of me. But
I bring the music to help get me in the
(05:24):
right frame of mind. It is everywhere with me. My dogs,
two puppies. One of the many ways I trained them,
and I would argue the reason they are so well
behaved today is music. They went to bed and still
(05:45):
do with a speaker behind them playing classical music since
they were puppies, since we got them barely audible. That's
how much I believe in the power of music. And
as someone who's in fitness, I have every way of
delivering music to myself based on whatever activity I am doing.
(06:05):
Known to man, one of my favorite things years ago
that came out We're I'm gonna give the brand name.
It's changed over time, and they generally go in and
out like they don't last these products sunglasses with music
built in. So at first you had these sunglasses with headphones,
and some of you may know what I'm talking about,
(06:27):
many of you probably don't. Where there were little headphones
that came off the frames and you would download music
right into the frames and then you could run or
do whatever you were doing, go for hikes. Hesitate to
say biking because I don't want people biking with music,
(06:48):
but you could do that too. I would only encourage
that if you're mountain biking, but even then you want
to be aware, but I don't want to get in
the safety side. It takes away from the fun of this.
So it also goes to swimming. If you've listened to
prior podcasts or read my books, you know I'm not
the strongest or biggest fan of swimming. And when they
(07:13):
came out with a truly amazing iPod shuffle that was
waterproof and the headphones worked, changed my life for swimming.
And let me say just once, there are many times,
by the way that I do all of those things
without any music, but I like everything else, have the variations.
The first time I ran across the Grand Canyon, I
(07:34):
brought headphones I never listened to music. This time I
might help me in the last couple of miles because
of everything I've talked about in prior podcasts about music,
including this one. Music is so powerful, and what I
love about it too is we have the options, just
like everything else, whether it comes to cardio or strength
(07:57):
or nutrition, to find what you like. If I told
you had to listen to Metallica because that's so powerful,
Like what's the best music to listen to to? You know,
to get the best, the most out of your workout.
That's the same question. And I love all these questions,
but like the second level questions as I call them,
like protein, what's the best protein? What's the protein you
eat consistently? What's the best music? It's music that you enjoy.
(08:21):
What's the best form of cardio? It's the cardio you
enjoy and will do every day. So that goes for
music too. You get to choose and you get to
change it. And I even like to experiment when I'm
doing a hard interval workout, let's say on the treadmill
or stationary bike, it's gonna be angrier, heavier music. If
(08:41):
I'm going for a long workout, it's gonna be more relaxing,
sometimes classical, and I play around like looking at my
heart rate? Is my heart rate affected by the music itself?
Kind of a study of one, all right, but there
is such power in music. And when we talk about
(09:05):
people not enjoying exercise goes right to what this study
is gonna show. It's not that you don't enjoy exercise,
that you haven't figured out what you like yet found
it and you haven't made it more fun using all
of these tools that you can. I am really kind
of nervous about running across the Grand can and again,
(09:28):
and this time I think I will use music. It's
a different trail, well half a different trail, but I'm
super excited that it scares me, and I'm soper excited
to bring music to help me and all the other things.
You know, this pack. One of the things that scares
me is how heavy the pack is, but it's filled
with all of the different things are going to help
(09:50):
me get across and enjoy it and enjoy it. And
like I said, I may use the music, I may not.
I think back to my second Iron Man ever Germany,
where I wore they don't well, they still have them,
but they're not as popular as they used to be.
A fuel belt, you know, a belt that has the bottles.
(10:10):
They still have to see them in races and stuff,
but different ways and and you know, different things have
come along since then. But my point is they were
filled at the beginning of the race, and I never
used them, but they were there in case I needed
to or wanted to. And that goes for all of
these things I talked about that can help with our exercise,
our nutrition, and our quality of life. All right, let's
(10:31):
get right into this study again. March Jama. Association of
Music interventions with health related quality of Life a systematic
review and meta analysis. So again they're gonna look back
at a bunch of studies. That's what a systematic review is.
In a meta analysis, the abstract is this increasing evidence
(10:53):
supports the ability of music to broadly promote well being
in health related quality of life, and of course there's
an acronym for that, h r q o L. However,
the magnitude of music's positive association with h r q
o L is still unclear, particularly relative to established interventions.
(11:16):
Limning inclusion of music interventions in health policy and care,
and that sentence, the final sentence part of that sentence
limiting inclusion of music interventions and health policy and care.
That drives me a little nuts with all of these studies.
I mean, I get it. This is that's what studies
are for. Does it work? How much do you need?
Where does it work? When does it work? But as
(11:37):
I will finish this podcast by saying, what's the downside?
What are the negative side effects? I hear the myriad
negative side effects on every single commercial. It's like two
to three minutes now of the side effects. What's the
negative side effect to music intervention? Why are they not
prescribing it more? All right? And let me just give
(11:59):
a quick will give their definition of what health related
quality of life is. It's a broad concept, capturing and
individuals or groups perceived physical and mental health over time.
H r q o L is closely related to and
frequently used interchangeably with well being. All right, that's problematic
(12:21):
too if you're hard science type person researcher. It's vague,
it's hard to study, right, and so these things are
generally given less attention. And I would argue that's a
problem in and of itself. All right, So again, meta
(12:42):
analysis they looked at for this twenty six studies, which
included seven hundred and seventy nine participants older mean ah
round sixty plus or minus eleven years. I think it
was but older, so that that's a factor, right. The
music interventions included, as I said in the intro, people
listening to music. That was ten of the studies, music therapy,
(13:06):
seven studies, singing, eight studies, and gospel music. I love
that one study. And again, I just love the gospel
music thing because I have so much. I have thousands
and thousands and thousands of songs on my you know, playlists,
and that with streaming services. Forget it from from all
(13:27):
the years of teaching. I talk group fitness for decades,
you know, group cycling, boot camps, all that stuff. I
have every remix of every song you've ever heard for
thirty minutes, forty minutes. I used to torture classes. I
used to say, like, hey, if you don't like Prince,
you might want to leave now, because I have a
thirty minute remix that that you know, has about fifty
(13:50):
of his songs. But you know, so many different ways here.
It's not just one. It's not just listening to music
all right, and so what was the objective. The objective
of this study was to synthesize results of studies investigating
outcomes of music interventions in terms of h r q
(14:12):
o L health related quality of life as assessed by
the thirty six and twelve Item Health Survey short forms
so questionnaire. They actually throughout observational studies and they asked
people questions, and you know, there was a mental components
summary of it score and a physical components summary of it.
(14:33):
These are scores that are both calculated using norm based
scoring methods. And you're talking about like bodily pain, general
health vitality, you're talking about mental health scores. So I
don't want to get into that at all, um because
it's it's it's somewhat vague. But these were good instruments
that they used and included in this meta analysis. All right,
(14:55):
let's just cut to the chase, all right. All of
these interventions were associated with significant improvements in those mental
components summary scores and physical components scores. In the subgroup analysis,
the addition of music to standard treatment for a range
(15:16):
of conditions was associated also with significant improvements in the
mental component scores versus standard treatment alone. The effects sizes
did not vary between music intervention types or doses, and
no evidence of small study or publication biases was present
in any analysis and their conclusion. In this systematic review
(15:40):
and meta analysis, music interventions were associated with clinically meaningful
improvements in h R q o L. However, substantial individual
variation in intervention outcomes precluded conclusions regarding optimal music interventions
and doses for distinct clinical and public hate scenarios public
health scenarios. So, in other words, like what's the perfect amount,
(16:04):
what's the least amount of exercise, what's the least amount
of music, what's the best kind of music? I get it,
and there will be many more studies done on that,
but as of right now, I don't care. I personally
don't care. I know how it affects me, and I
love also that they say substantial individual variation, of course,
with everything, with everything, but pretty darn amazing clinically meaningful
(16:31):
improvements in health related quality of life. I end almost
every podcast by saying, that's my goal is to help
you improve your quality of life and the length of it,
and the quality of it with the length of it. Right, So,
in other words, at eighty years old. I want you
to be thriving. And I want to be thriving. And
(16:55):
that's why I look at all this research and I
distill it down and and I add the common sense
in and what are the side effects? And what are
the costs? And how much time is it gonna take me?
How much is it gonna cost me? And all of
those areas time and money, and you go, this makes sense.
(17:15):
And then to go back to what I said at
the start as well, when people say they don't enjoy exercise,
this goes to all those shows I've done on the
psychology of this. That's why I went back to get
my masters, and not just exercise science, but the sports psychology,
and why I just finished another certificate Harvard Extension School
(17:39):
in human behavior. And so when we take all of
these things that can help us do what we need
to do and enjoy it, listen the interesting thing again,
I love music more than anything else. When I actually
(18:00):
but not always, as I said, when I walk the dogs,
nothing nothing, I want to be immersed in nature. I
want to hear the birds, I want to hear the
nothingness where I was this morning in the woods, no cars,
no anything, the occasional person, and usually if I see
(18:20):
that person off in the distance, I will take a
different trail because I just want complete silence for as
long as I can. And so it's not that all
or nothing proposition we hear all the time that you
have to do it this way. Watched another social media
person who said, you know, don't do this exercise. No,
it's an exercise that I don't like. But I would
(18:43):
say don't do it. I say, I'm not going to
do it frequently. And so when you take all of
these things in combination, all of these things that we
consider small, or people consider small, I don't, that's where
the power comes from. That's where the health behavior change
over time and forever as something you are going to
(19:07):
do forever comes from. You find what you enjoy. You
take this science and you apply it to your own
life so that you can what do that new acronym
probably for you h r q o L health related
(19:27):
quality of life. And I encourage you as I do
if you're not doing it already at music to so
many other aspects of your life, not just exercise makes
a huge difference. And that's what the research is showing
(19:48):
and what I'm doing with my family in the morning
is I'm combining so many different things, the healthy breakfast
with the music, and I want to set the tone
for the day. That's my goal with my kids and
my family is to start the day to frontload it
as best as possible psychologically and physiologically, huge, healthy breakfast,
(20:13):
positive music, sending them out ready for the day, fueled
up physically and mentally. All right, we'll be right back,
(20:36):
and we are back talking about music and quality of life.
Let me finish up by saying, you know, people ask
me about supplements things like that, and sure, lots of
supplements that we can and should add potentially to our
healthy eating patterns and diets once we have those established.
But we know that there's really no downside to the
(20:59):
music right, only side, only upside. And so when you
start to take all of these things, the breakfast, the music,
the positive thinking, the getting outside in nature, all of
these seemingly small things, this is where there is no deprivation,
there is no struggle. It's just a process. And remember
(21:23):
the show if you haven't heard or listened to that
I did on Association versus disassociation. You know, most people
want to dissociate during exercise, and that's okay. Top athletes
can't afford to, which is why generally don't see them.
Like top marathoners. Wearing and headphones also illegal for safety reasons,
(21:44):
but they need to monitor their bodies. So we do
what we need to do to enjoy it, to do
it frequently, to get the most out of it. And
this is yet another study that says, hey, music is important.
Music can to abuse the word, literally improve your quality
of life. And there you go. My first Boston Marathon nineteen,
(22:09):
brand new sports walkman who's old enough, huge yellow cassette
started the race with it. I still remember. I can't
remember people I met a week ago, but I can
remember the first song that was on when the gun
went off, Living Color, Cult of Personality, and that like
(22:30):
three pound walkman. I was so heavy that like at
mile eight, I saw ten year old kid at the
side of the road cheering everyone on. I ran up
to him and said, hey, you want a walkman, and
I gave it to him because there was no way
I was carrying it the rest of the way. And
that made it much harder. That made it much harder,
(22:54):
and so all of you twenty somethings who now have
the cordless headphones and the iPod. I don't even make
eybut shuffles anymore. I don't think but your phone and
the delivery. And I actually now have my watch. I
have a watch. Crazy bought this watch because I could
store music on it. Are you kidding me? Don't even
have to bring my phone, which is awesome because I
don't want that distraction oftentimes. But there you go. Use
(23:18):
music to improve your quality of life, fill your house,
fill your head with happy, motivating music that you like.
All right, that's it. Do you want to reach out?
Love to hear from you. Tom h Fit is Instagram
and Twitter. You can direct message with me right through there.
(23:39):
I love to hear from you, Tom h Fit. Please
follow the show, subscribe, whatever you can do based on
how you listen to the show. Greatly appreciated. You can
also go to Fitness Disrupted dot com. Email me through
the site. My most recent book is The Micro Workout Plan.
Thank you for buying that. I greatly apreciate reviews of
(24:00):
that on Amazon as well. It's time to ask for
little favors and stuff, but that really helps authors. So
if you have a couple of minutes and you read
the book and you like it super greatly appreciated. Remember,
I have the greatest job in the world helping all
of us with our best lives because we control three things,
(24:21):
how much we move, what we put into our mouths,
and our state of mind. And now you know one
of the ways to improve that state of mind, just
do music. I am Tom Holland that this is Fitness Disrupted.
Believe in yourself. Fitness Disrupted is a production of I
(24:43):
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of I Heart Radio.
I am Tom Holland and this is Fitness Disrupted. I
love music. I love all kinds of music. I know
(00:21):
many people say that, yeah, someone, you know, what's your
favorite kind of music? I listen everything, and then you
play something and they go, I hate that, right, that's
genre I do. I love music. I have been playing
instruments since I was young. Drums is my primary instrument,
still play today. Took some time off played in bands,
(00:42):
though play some guitar. I just love it and I
love combining it with exercise. But I love playing it.
I love listening to it. And as today's show will
show you in a recent study, a meta analysis that
(01:04):
look back at a bunch of other studies, music in
our lives can really improve our lives. And that's what
this show is about. This show is about finding all
of the myriad ways to improve our lives, and we
when we start to combine those ways, right. Dozens of
(01:25):
things throughout the day, and oftentimes they're called little things,
they're not. I started my day today with well later
in the day, got up earlier, but one of my
morning activities was walking the dogs in the woods. As
I've talked about the biophilia hypothesis, how we are meant
(01:47):
to be in nature and how being in nature has
huge impact on our quality of life, and that's super
important and it's so simple. Yet people torture themselves with
deprivation diets and exercise they don't like and programs they
are not going to do for a lifetime. And so
(02:08):
this study, this show is yet another another example of
something that we can just add to our repertoire when
we want to how we want to to improve our
quality of life. And that goes for in the moment
as well as in the future, and that's so important,
(02:35):
and it's essentially free, right, I mean, depending on what
you're doing and how you are getting your music, if
you're playing your music, but this also goes for singing.
So this study is going to talk about a couple
different ways of consuming or participating in music. Listening to it,
playing it, we're singing. Those are three of the ways.
(02:58):
And I love that that it's not just one way,
and it's a very broad kind of finding and you
can see the limitations in that. But as I will
get do in the end, what's the downside? What are
the side effects? What are the negative side effects of
doing what I'm going to talk about listening to music,
(03:19):
performing music, singing quick break. When we get back, I'm
gonna get right into it. And the study just came
out March JAMA Journal of the American Medical Association. Association
of Music Interventions with Health Related Quality of Life, A
(03:41):
systematic review and meta analysis. All right, awesome fun something
you can just take in and apply right away. We'll
be right back and we are back talking about music
(04:02):
and quality of life. It sounds so simple as I
was writing the title for the shows like make it
sex here. No, that's it, music and quality of life.
I have had music in my house forever as an
adult with kids. Uh grew up in a crazy family.
(04:23):
But when I had my own house, it was and
has been filled with music. From the moment I get
up to the moment we go to bed, there's always
music playing. When I get up and get the house
ready for breakfast and preparing breakfast for the kids, I
have music playing. So when they come downstairs, there's music,
(04:44):
and there's different music for different times. Sometimes it's classical,
sometimes it's rock. It changes, but the house is always
filled with music, and it changes everything, at least for
me and has this study shows potentially for everyone in
certain ways. And when we go on vacation, as we
(05:04):
just did, I bring a portable speaker, and wherever we
are in the world as a family, there's music. And
when I travel for my events, my iron Man's, my ultras,
my marathons, getting ready to run across the Grand Canyon
and back again, scaring the heck out of me. But
I bring the music to help get me in the
(05:24):
right frame of mind. It is everywhere with me. My dogs,
two puppies. One of the many ways I trained them,
and I would argue the reason they are so well
behaved today is music. They went to bed and still
(05:45):
do with a speaker behind them playing classical music since
they were puppies, since we got them barely audible. That's
how much I believe in the power of music. And
as someone who's in fitness, I have every way of
delivering music to myself based on whatever activity I am doing.
(06:05):
Known to man, one of my favorite things years ago
that came out We're I'm gonna give the brand name.
It's changed over time, and they generally go in and
out like they don't last these products sunglasses with music
built in. So at first you had these sunglasses with headphones,
and some of you may know what I'm talking about,
(06:27):
many of you probably don't. Where there were little headphones
that came off the frames and you would download music
right into the frames and then you could run or
do whatever you were doing, go for hikes. Hesitate to
say biking because I don't want people biking with music,
(06:48):
but you could do that too. I would only encourage
that if you're mountain biking, but even then you want
to be aware, but I don't want to get in
the safety side. It takes away from the fun of this.
So it also goes to swimming. If you've listened to
prior podcasts or read my books, you know I'm not
the strongest or biggest fan of swimming. And when they
(07:13):
came out with a truly amazing iPod shuffle that was
waterproof and the headphones worked, changed my life for swimming.
And let me say just once, there are many times,
by the way that I do all of those things
without any music, but I like everything else, have the variations.
The first time I ran across the Grand Canyon, I
(07:34):
brought headphones I never listened to music. This time I
might help me in the last couple of miles because
of everything I've talked about in prior podcasts about music,
including this one. Music is so powerful, and what I
love about it too is we have the options, just
like everything else, whether it comes to cardio or strength
(07:57):
or nutrition, to find what you like. If I told
you had to listen to Metallica because that's so powerful,
Like what's the best music to listen to to? You know,
to get the best, the most out of your workout.
That's the same question. And I love all these questions,
but like the second level questions as I call them,
like protein, what's the best protein? What's the protein you
eat consistently? What's the best music? It's music that you enjoy.
(08:21):
What's the best form of cardio? It's the cardio you
enjoy and will do every day. So that goes for
music too. You get to choose and you get to
change it. And I even like to experiment when I'm
doing a hard interval workout, let's say on the treadmill
or stationary bike, it's gonna be angrier, heavier music. If
(08:41):
I'm going for a long workout, it's gonna be more relaxing,
sometimes classical, and I play around like looking at my
heart rate? Is my heart rate affected by the music itself?
Kind of a study of one, all right, but there
is such power in music. And when we talk about
(09:05):
people not enjoying exercise goes right to what this study
is gonna show. It's not that you don't enjoy exercise,
that you haven't figured out what you like yet found
it and you haven't made it more fun using all
of these tools that you can. I am really kind
of nervous about running across the Grand can and again,
(09:28):
and this time I think I will use music. It's
a different trail, well half a different trail, but I'm
super excited that it scares me, and I'm soper excited
to bring music to help me and all the other things.
You know, this pack. One of the things that scares
me is how heavy the pack is, but it's filled
with all of the different things are going to help
(09:50):
me get across and enjoy it and enjoy it. And
like I said, I may use the music, I may not.
I think back to my second Iron Man ever Germany,
where I wore they don't well, they still have them,
but they're not as popular as they used to be.
A fuel belt, you know, a belt that has the bottles.
(10:10):
They still have to see them in races and stuff,
but different ways and and you know, different things have
come along since then. But my point is they were
filled at the beginning of the race, and I never
used them, but they were there in case I needed
to or wanted to. And that goes for all of
these things I talked about that can help with our exercise,
our nutrition, and our quality of life. All right, let's
(10:31):
get right into this study again. March Jama. Association of
Music interventions with health related quality of Life a systematic
review and meta analysis. So again they're gonna look back
at a bunch of studies. That's what a systematic review is.
In a meta analysis, the abstract is this increasing evidence
(10:53):
supports the ability of music to broadly promote well being
in health related quality of life, and of course there's
an acronym for that, h r q o L. However,
the magnitude of music's positive association with h r q
o L is still unclear, particularly relative to established interventions.
(11:16):
Limning inclusion of music interventions in health policy and care,
and that sentence, the final sentence part of that sentence
limiting inclusion of music interventions and health policy and care.
That drives me a little nuts with all of these studies.
I mean, I get it. This is that's what studies
are for. Does it work? How much do you need?
Where does it work? When does it work? But as
(11:37):
I will finish this podcast by saying, what's the downside?
What are the negative side effects? I hear the myriad
negative side effects on every single commercial. It's like two
to three minutes now of the side effects. What's the
negative side effect to music intervention? Why are they not
prescribing it more? All right? And let me just give
(11:59):
a quick will give their definition of what health related
quality of life is. It's a broad concept, capturing and
individuals or groups perceived physical and mental health over time.
H r q o L is closely related to and
frequently used interchangeably with well being. All right, that's problematic
(12:21):
too if you're hard science type person researcher. It's vague,
it's hard to study, right, and so these things are
generally given less attention. And I would argue that's a
problem in and of itself. All right, So again, meta
(12:42):
analysis they looked at for this twenty six studies, which
included seven hundred and seventy nine participants older mean ah
round sixty plus or minus eleven years. I think it
was but older, so that that's a factor, right. The
music interventions included, as I said in the intro, people
listening to music. That was ten of the studies, music therapy,
(13:06):
seven studies, singing, eight studies, and gospel music. I love
that one study. And again, I just love the gospel
music thing because I have so much. I have thousands
and thousands and thousands of songs on my you know, playlists,
and that with streaming services. Forget it from from all
(13:27):
the years of teaching. I talk group fitness for decades,
you know, group cycling, boot camps, all that stuff. I
have every remix of every song you've ever heard for
thirty minutes, forty minutes. I used to torture classes. I
used to say, like, hey, if you don't like Prince,
you might want to leave now, because I have a
thirty minute remix that that you know, has about fifty
(13:50):
of his songs. But you know, so many different ways here.
It's not just one. It's not just listening to music
all right, and so what was the objective. The objective
of this study was to synthesize results of studies investigating
outcomes of music interventions in terms of h r q
(14:12):
o L health related quality of life as assessed by
the thirty six and twelve Item Health Survey short forms
so questionnaire. They actually throughout observational studies and they asked
people questions, and you know, there was a mental components
summary of it score and a physical components summary of it.
(14:33):
These are scores that are both calculated using norm based
scoring methods. And you're talking about like bodily pain, general
health vitality, you're talking about mental health scores. So I
don't want to get into that at all, um because
it's it's it's somewhat vague. But these were good instruments
that they used and included in this meta analysis. All right,
(14:55):
let's just cut to the chase, all right. All of
these interventions were associated with significant improvements in those mental
components summary scores and physical components scores. In the subgroup analysis,
the addition of music to standard treatment for a range
(15:16):
of conditions was associated also with significant improvements in the
mental component scores versus standard treatment alone. The effects sizes
did not vary between music intervention types or doses, and
no evidence of small study or publication biases was present
in any analysis and their conclusion. In this systematic review
(15:40):
and meta analysis, music interventions were associated with clinically meaningful
improvements in h R q o L. However, substantial individual
variation in intervention outcomes precluded conclusions regarding optimal music interventions
and doses for distinct clinical and public hate scenarios public
health scenarios. So, in other words, like what's the perfect amount,
(16:04):
what's the least amount of exercise, what's the least amount
of music, what's the best kind of music? I get it,
and there will be many more studies done on that,
but as of right now, I don't care. I personally
don't care. I know how it affects me, and I
love also that they say substantial individual variation, of course,
with everything, with everything, but pretty darn amazing clinically meaningful
(16:31):
improvements in health related quality of life. I end almost
every podcast by saying, that's my goal is to help
you improve your quality of life and the length of it,
and the quality of it with the length of it. Right, So,
in other words, at eighty years old. I want you
to be thriving. And I want to be thriving. And
(16:55):
that's why I look at all this research and I
distill it down and and I add the common sense
in and what are the side effects? And what are
the costs? And how much time is it gonna take me?
How much is it gonna cost me? And all of
those areas time and money, and you go, this makes sense.
(17:15):
And then to go back to what I said at
the start as well, when people say they don't enjoy exercise,
this goes to all those shows I've done on the
psychology of this. That's why I went back to get
my masters, and not just exercise science, but the sports psychology,
and why I just finished another certificate Harvard Extension School
(17:39):
in human behavior. And so when we take all of
these things that can help us do what we need
to do and enjoy it, listen the interesting thing again,
I love music more than anything else. When I actually
(18:00):
but not always, as I said, when I walk the dogs,
nothing nothing, I want to be immersed in nature. I
want to hear the birds, I want to hear the
nothingness where I was this morning in the woods, no cars,
no anything, the occasional person, and usually if I see
(18:20):
that person off in the distance, I will take a
different trail because I just want complete silence for as
long as I can. And so it's not that all
or nothing proposition we hear all the time that you
have to do it this way. Watched another social media
person who said, you know, don't do this exercise. No,
it's an exercise that I don't like. But I would
(18:43):
say don't do it. I say, I'm not going to
do it frequently. And so when you take all of
these things in combination, all of these things that we
consider small, or people consider small, I don't, that's where
the power comes from. That's where the health behavior change
over time and forever as something you are going to
(19:07):
do forever comes from. You find what you enjoy. You
take this science and you apply it to your own
life so that you can what do that new acronym
probably for you h r q o L health related
(19:27):
quality of life. And I encourage you as I do
if you're not doing it already at music to so
many other aspects of your life, not just exercise makes
a huge difference. And that's what the research is showing
(19:48):
and what I'm doing with my family in the morning
is I'm combining so many different things, the healthy breakfast
with the music, and I want to set the tone
for the day. That's my goal with my kids and
my family is to start the day to frontload it
as best as possible psychologically and physiologically, huge, healthy breakfast,
(20:13):
positive music, sending them out ready for the day, fueled
up physically and mentally. All right, we'll be right back,
(20:36):
and we are back talking about music and quality of life.
Let me finish up by saying, you know, people ask
me about supplements things like that, and sure, lots of
supplements that we can and should add potentially to our
healthy eating patterns and diets once we have those established.
But we know that there's really no downside to the
(20:59):
music right, only side, only upside. And so when you
start to take all of these things, the breakfast, the music,
the positive thinking, the getting outside in nature, all of
these seemingly small things, this is where there is no deprivation,
there is no struggle. It's just a process. And remember
(21:23):
the show if you haven't heard or listened to that
I did on Association versus disassociation. You know, most people
want to dissociate during exercise, and that's okay. Top athletes
can't afford to, which is why generally don't see them.
Like top marathoners. Wearing and headphones also illegal for safety reasons,
(21:44):
but they need to monitor their bodies. So we do
what we need to do to enjoy it, to do
it frequently, to get the most out of it. And
this is yet another study that says, hey, music is important.
Music can to abuse the word, literally improve your quality
of life. And there you go. My first Boston Marathon nineteen,
(22:09):
brand new sports walkman who's old enough, huge yellow cassette
started the race with it. I still remember. I can't
remember people I met a week ago, but I can
remember the first song that was on when the gun
went off, Living Color, Cult of Personality, and that like
(22:30):
three pound walkman. I was so heavy that like at
mile eight, I saw ten year old kid at the
side of the road cheering everyone on. I ran up
to him and said, hey, you want a walkman, and
I gave it to him because there was no way
I was carrying it the rest of the way. And
that made it much harder. That made it much harder,
(22:54):
and so all of you twenty somethings who now have
the cordless headphones and the iPod. I don't even make
eybut shuffles anymore. I don't think but your phone and
the delivery. And I actually now have my watch. I
have a watch. Crazy bought this watch because I could
store music on it. Are you kidding me? Don't even
have to bring my phone, which is awesome because I
don't want that distraction oftentimes. But there you go. Use
(23:18):
music to improve your quality of life, fill your house,
fill your head with happy, motivating music that you like.
All right, that's it. Do you want to reach out?
Love to hear from you. Tom h Fit is Instagram
and Twitter. You can direct message with me right through there.
(23:39):
I love to hear from you, Tom h Fit. Please
follow the show, subscribe, whatever you can do based on
how you listen to the show. Greatly appreciated. You can
also go to Fitness Disrupted dot com. Email me through
the site. My most recent book is The Micro Workout Plan.
Thank you for buying that. I greatly apreciate reviews of
(24:00):
that on Amazon as well. It's time to ask for
little favors and stuff, but that really helps authors. So
if you have a couple of minutes and you read
the book and you like it super greatly appreciated. Remember,
I have the greatest job in the world helping all
of us with our best lives because we control three things,
(24:21):
how much we move, what we put into our mouths,
and our state of mind. And now you know one
of the ways to improve that state of mind, just
do music. I am Tom Holland that this is Fitness Disrupted.
Believe in yourself. Fitness Disrupted is a production of I
(24:43):
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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