Singing while tensed can help avoid depression and anxiety.
Singing comforting songs helped significantly lower the blood pressure of a 76-year-old woman awaiting knee replacement surgery in the Dominican Republic, Harvard researchers report. The woman, who had a 15-year history of osteoarthritis in both knees, had been accepted into Operation Walk Boston, a philanthropic program providing total joint replacement to Dominican patients. She was admitted to Hospital General de la Plaza in Santo Domingo for total replacement of both knee joints last March.
The patient’s blood pressure on admission was 160/90 mmHg, controlled by her usual medication regimen. But two days later, on the morning of surgery, her blood pressure skyrocketed to 240/120 mmHg while she waited in the preoperative holding area. The anesthesiology team sent her back to the floor for additional blood pressure management and postponed her surgery until the following morning. Though doctors started her immediately on additional doses of anti-hypertensive medicines, her systolic pressure stayed at 200 mmHg.
With a tense atmosphere in the patient’s room and time running out before the outreach team would leave the country, the worried patient asked if she could sing.
“Softly at first, and then with increasing volume and passion, the patient sang six religious songs invoking Jesus, God and her Savior to protect the innocent and ill, bring peace, spread truth and heal souls,” the authors wrote in the April issue of Arthritis Care & Research. The patient was a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist church and sang while attending services several times a week.
After two songs, the team found her blood pressure had dropped to 180/90 mmHg. A few songs later, her systolic pressure lowered further. The lower pressures persisted throughout 20 minutes of singing and for several hours after.
“When she started singing, I noticed immediately that she looked a lot calmer – her facial expressions and body language (relaxed), which was reflected in the blood pressure measurements,” says study author Nina Niu, a second-year medical student who was part of the woman’s treatment team.
That night, doctors gave her medical orders to sing as necessary, which she did at various times throughout the night. The next morning she was cleared for surgery and underwent a successful operation with no complications or difficulty with postoperative blood pressure management.
It’s not the first look at music’s impact on health, the authors note. At least nine other studies demonstrated the positive health effects of music therapy on preoperative anxiety and blood pressure management, one of which found that listening to music was as effective as the prescription drug benzodiazepine for reducing blood pressure before surgery.
Crooning may not work for everyone, but it’s worth a try, Niu says: “It’s safe, cost-free and toxicity-free, so it’s a pretty ideal intervention.”
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Biography Claims John Lennon Was Abusive
John Lennon didn’t give peace a chance at home – where he callously abused and routinely tormented the women closest to him.
The music legend was prone to unprovoked acts of cruelty, jealous rage and perverse sexual fantasies, according to the explosive new tell-all “John Lennon: The Life” by Beatles biographer Philip Norman.
The portrait is so damning that Yoko Ono, who contributed extensively and even convinced son Sean Lennon to speak to Norman, has panned the book as “too mean.”
The fans who flocked to Strawberry Fields in Central Park on Thursday to celebrate what would have been Lennon’s 68th birthday might want to stay away from the exposé, which chronicles his callous treatment of Yoko, the physical and verbal abuse of his two sons, and his chronic infidelities.
Norman writes about the moment when Cynthia, Lennon’s first wife, discovered his affair with Yoko.
When Cynthia returned from a vacation in Greece to her home in England, she found John and Yoko seated on the floor together in matching bathrobes.
“John showed no sign of guilt or even surprise, merely looking round with a casual, ‘Oh . . . hi,’ ” Norman writes.
But the songwriter’s first pass at Yoko isn’t what love songs are made of.
Yoko was “deeply offended” by Lennon’s cheap maneuvering at a party, where he commented that she looked tired and suggested that she “lie down,” writes Norman.
“One of the Beatles’ entourage then drove the two of them to a nearby flat and, without preamble, began folding out a sofa into a bed. It was clearly an established procedure for John’s conquests.”
Yoko rebuffed the oversexed Beatle, but fell under his spell soon after.
When they first began dating, Lennon forced Yoko to write down a list of men she’d slept with so he could pore over the names, treating each like a “mortal enemy.”
He insisted that Yoko accompany him to studio sessions – a famously big no-no to the band, who had kept their studio off limits to lovers. Everywhere he went, he insisted she follow, even to the men’s bathroom.
“People said I followed him to the men’s room, but he made me go with him,” Yoko told Norman.
“He thought that if he left me alone with the other Beatles even for a minute, I might go off with one of them.”
He also admitted to Yoko that he regretted never bedding his mother, Julia, who was struck and killed by a speeding off-duty cop’s car when John was 17.
Lennon, whose sexual appetite was voracious, taunted Yoko between the sheets, saying, “You just lie there and think of England.”
He also cheated in her presence. The night of Nixon’s re-election, the lecherous Lennon was in rare form – drunk, high and distraught, and eyeing a woman at a party at a friend’s house.
Brad Pitt and George W. Bush Are Barack Obama’s Cousins
This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt’s girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.
Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates _ Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.
Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother’s side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.
“You’d think with all that singing talent in the family she’d be able to carry a tune,” Clinton’s senior adviser Philippe Reines said. “But now it makes much more sense how she snagged a Grammy.”
Clinton won for best spoken word Grammy in 1997 for “It Takes a Village.” Obama also won a Grammy in that category this year for the audio version of his book, “The Audacity Of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream.”
Genealogist Christopher Child said that while the candidates often focus on pointing out differences between them, their ancestry shows they are more alike than they think.
“It shows that lots of different people can be related, people you wouldn’t necessarily expect,” Child said.
Obama has a prolific presidential lineage that features Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison. Other Obama cousins include Vice President Dick Cheney, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Civil War General Robert E. Lee.
Obama often jokes about his cousin Cheney at campaign appearances.
Police Find Crack — In Suspect’s Butt Crack
Ramon Blair, 28, was arrested for possession of crack cocaine, which police found in his buttocks.
Florida police arrested and charged a 28-year-old man with possession of cocaine after they found crack in his buttocks.
Ramon Blair was taken into custody on Feb. 13 after an informant told officers that a man with $100 worth of crack cocaine “on his person” would be with a woman in a white four-door Pontiac with no hubcaps. Police stopped the vehicle just before 11 p.m. and found Blair, who had cocaine residue in his right nostril, according to WPBF 25 News.
Another informant told police that Blair had approximately $300 worth of crack cocaine on him, but a search on the scene turned up no results.
While in custody, officers did a more thorough search of Blair. When they asked him to undress, squat, and cough. Police then noticed what seemed to be a “wad of white paper” in Blair’s buttocks.
Blair told police that the paper — which is referred to as “paper towel” in police records — contained crack cocaine.
A Martin County sheriff’s deputy in Florida arrested Ramon Blair, 28, based on tips from informants that Blair would have hundreds of dollars of crack cocaine “on his person.” An initial search turned no results, but a more thorough search while in custody revealed that Blair had hidden the crack in, well, his crack. Blair was told to undress, squat, and cough — and police found what appeared to be a white piece of paper in his buttocks, which contained crack cocaine.
