Abstract
Sport-related concussion is a serious public health issue affecting millions of individuals each year. Among the many negative side effects, emotional symptoms, such as stress, are some of the most common. Stress management is repeatedly cited by expert groups as an important intervention for this population. It was shown that music has relaxing effects, reducing stress through the activation of brain areas involved in emotions and pleasure. The objective of this study was to explore the effects of a music-listening intervention compared with silence on experimentally induced stress in concussed and non-concussed athletes. To this aim, four groups of athletes (non-concussed music, non-concussed silence, concussed music, and concussed silence) performed the Trier Social Stress Test, for which both physiological (skin conductance level) and self-reported stress measurements were taken. No significant difference was found in the pattern of stress recovery for self-reported measurements. However, the skin conductance results showed greater and faster post-stress recovery after listening to music compared with silence for concussed athletes only. Taken together, these results suggest that music could be an efficient stress management tool to implement in the everyday life of concussed athletes to help them prevent stress accumulation.
Highlights
Concussion sustained in the context of competitive sports has been the subject of a growing body of literature, notably in regard to return-to-play guidelines as well as its long-term effects on health [1]
We hypothesized that athletes who listened to music would show lower stress levels during the post-stress period when compared to a silence condition
Only the CM group returned to its baseline level, suggesting a full post-stress recovery. These results indicated that recovering from exposure to a stressor while listening to music was more effective in reducing skin conductance level than recovering in silence
Summary
Concussion sustained in the context of competitive sports has been the subject of a growing body of literature, notably in regard to return-to-play guidelines as well as its long-term effects on health [1]. A concussion is a complex pathophysiological process affecting the brain It is induced by biomechanical forces, typically by a direct blow to the head, face, neck or elsewhere on the body with an impulsive force transmitted to the head, resulting in a loss of consciousness, amnesia, and/or neurological symptoms (e.g., confusion/disorientation) [1]. There are various physical (e.g., headache), cognitive (e.g., difficulty concentrating) and emotional (e.g., anxiety) symptoms that are associated with concussion [8,9]. Such clinical symptoms are generally resolved within an acute phase of 10 to 14 days following the trauma [1]. Previous research found that psychological reactions, such as stress and anxiety, were associated with developing and maintaining symptoms that persisted beyond the expected 10–14 day recovery period, suggesting a failure of normal clinical recovery [1,13,14,15]
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