The Recovering Choir Director

The Daily Mail (UK) reports:

Dr Alan Watkins, a senior lecturer in neuroscience at Imperial College London, revealed that teaching people to control their breathing and applying the musical structure of chanting can help their emotional state.

He said: “We have recently carried out research that demonstrates that the regular breathing and musical structure of chanting can have a significant and positive physiological impact.”

The research involved five monks having their heart rate and blood pressure measured throughout a 24-hour period.

Results showed their heart rate and blood pressure dipped to its lowest point in the day when they were chanting. [FULL ARTICLE]

No studies as of yet have been conducted on the stress levels of Catholic ‘netizens’ when they argue about exactly how Gregorian chant’s “pride of place” ought to be manifested at the parish level…