Music: The Secret Language Of The Heart

Introduction to Barry Goldstein and Music as Medicine 0:00

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode inside of the Heart Attack and Stroke Prevention Summit. And I'm cardiologist doctor Jack Wolfson. And today I've got a friend, who is going to blow you away with the information that he has. And I've known him for 15 years. I believe, somewhere around there. And I know his beautiful bride as well, doctor Denise Warden, who is a brilliant interview and physician, in and of herself. But, this is all about you, Barry, and how you're going to help people.

Barry Goldstein's musical experience spans many styles and genres, from co-producing the Grammy Award winning track 69 Freedom Special with Les Paul, famous musician back in 2005, to providing ambient music for Shirley MacLaine, etc. in addition, he's composed music, for for television, film, major record labels and where, where what is most of most interest to me is the fact that Barry has also worked with holistic practitioners, including, Greg Braden, who who's known as the father of, know the father of biohacking, you know, Dave Astbury, and many others, including Joe Dispenza, Daniel Almond, etc.

he's got the bestselling book, The Secret Language of the heart. And really, I it's just the whole idea of, like, music and sound and vibration as medicine. So welcome, Barry, to the Heart Attack and Stroke Prevention Summit. Well thank you, Jack. Great to be here. And you know, when I, when I speak at medical conferences, I always tell people I'm not a doctor, but I am an MD, which I stand for musical director instead of, medical doctor. So I'm not a medical doctor, but I've had a lot of exposure to how music can be used as medicine, which is becoming a much more exciting topic, a lot more research surfacing within that.

And I'm looking forward to speaking with you more about that. Yeah. And I think, as you said, like MD, I was thinking you were going to say, music doctor and we're going to be talking about really using music as medicine, okay. And we're going to sit back and we're going to say nothing that either one of us is going to say, don't stop any pharmaceuticals based on what we're saying. Don't change your therapies. Talk to your doctor. That's right. You know, blah, blah, blah. But in any case, also, you know, your website we can send everybody to is Barry Goldstein music.com.

So check that out. The topic today is music the Secret language at the heart. And at the end. Stay tuned for the end because Barry's going to be doing a, a demo of some of the stuff that he's made. And you actually, before we even started recording, you played a little bit as far as a sound check. Barry I immediately felt better when you were playing. I immediately just like I engaged my parasympathetic just, just from that, and I and I just so, so, so love this topic. Give me the backstory. How did you get into music?

Yeah. So I'll give you the the quick story of this. You know, I was a music producer in New York City, type A personality, highly stressful job, 100 hours a week to produce a four minute song. And, you know, I was losing my love for music.

How Music Became a Therapeutic Tool 3:14

So I decided to reverse my process. And just starting allowing myself to journey with music, allowing myself to take one hour journeys. And what I did was I set my metronome for 60 beats per minute, and we'll get more into that afterwards, targeting my heart at a relaxed state. And what I found I was moving to these deep meditative states. My stress, my anxiety, my sleeping challenges began to diminish, which we know are all precursors of heart disease as well. When when we're not looking at those things.

And yeah, that opened up this whole other pathway for me of using music as not music therapy, but as a therapeutic tool. So the music itself can be the therapy. You don't have to be a certified practitioner for what I do. It's the music itself that creates the medicine. Okay, you mentioned we weren't going to go here. I had no intention of going here, but I'm going to go here right now because you mentioned it and that is metronome. What is a metronome? So a metronome basically keeps the time for us in music as we're composing.

But what you need to know, Jack, is our heart is the metronome in our physical body. And that's really the most important and exciting thing about it. I think of the heart as a musical instrument that exists within our body. So I have a maybe a different outlook than most people, but I think music is not just something that happens to you. It's happening in you and our heartbeat, our breath, our, you know, our when we sigh out and we're moving into that parasympathetic state. To me, this is all like an internal orchestra that's going on within our body, that's communicating with us.

That's that's the name of my book, The Secret Language of the heart, because we have to learn how to communicate with our heart through music. And it's a it's a very powerful way to work with the heart, not just on an emotional level, but on a physical level, which we'll learn as well. Love this. The metronome. Can we use an external metronome to lower our heart rate? I think you're going to talk about that really through music. And then also, I've heard the idea years ago about the concept of using a metronome to watch and train the heart into regularity in particular, maybe with somebody with atrial fibrillation where they've got an irregular heartbeat, and how the possibility and potential.

What do you think about that? Yeah. I mean, so little did I know if that's what I was doing when I was setting my metronome for 60 beats per minute, you know, 30 over 30 years ago that I was doing what's called entrainment. So when treatment is when an internal tempo can synchronize to an external tempo, in this case the internal tempo is our heartbeat, the external tempo is music. And we could literally target our heart rate to move into a relaxed state, because most people are between 60 to 70 beats per minute in that relaxed state.

So, even studies show that when you when people sat in front of a metronome at 66 beats per minute and just listened to that metronome, it decreased anxiety as opposed to people who sat in silence. So when we start to utilize that and apply that to music, that's when we really kind of get into the to the exciting and powerful part of it is that it's it's metronome combined with harmonics, obviously the right composition, you know, different frequencies that you might be incorporating in music as, you know, as well as specific tones that are used, some more can be more helpful than others, depending what you're targeting.

So, you know, at that I find that at that 60 beats per minute is is a sweet spot. And when you look through a lot of the research, we see that a lot of the classical music and meditation music is composed at that, because that is really targeting and moving. Our heart rate and our blood pressure, we have the ability to lower exactly what you said, targeting it and also those irregularities. That's one way. There are other ways we can talk about to to also target those irregular irregularities. You know, even after a heart attack or after procedures as well.

There's different modalities that we can use, not just music, but, you know, different ways to approach that. Methodologies use using sound that can regulate those, those tempos and beats. You know, I one easy thing, I think if we were going to test, you know, this, this kind of, you know, paradigm, if you will, or this methodology, you know, is like in that post-operative, open heart patient. So those people have a high incidence of atrial fibrillation, and they've looked at all different types of things.

I wonder if there's been any data on, you know, where you take half the people and you put them in a very Goldstein's musical, catalog recommendations. And then the other half just get bells and whistles that they normally get. I would guarantee, I'm sure you would as well, that you're going to find better outcomes in your patients. Yeah. And they're showing a lot of post-operative, you know, great results with utilizing this type of music, including, you know, less pain the day after surgery, less anxiety as well.

I'm stress more than a week after and more regularly, you know, moving back into those regulatory baseline, you know, baseline heart rate and blood pressure as well afterwards utilizing music.

Metronomes, Entrainment, and Heart Coherence 8:42

So it not only it's literally Jack in pre post and Perrier active. You know, the music is working really well to diminish pain anxiety and recovery as well. I mean, I can almost think about how I would like if I was going to have a surgeon operating on me, I would probably like some background music in the room, you know, and it's not going to be, you know, Metallica or, you know, Motley Crew. It's going to be the music that you're putting out there. Maybe there would be benefit in Metallica. I don't know. I'm not going to find out. Hopefully.

You know, you mentioned a couple things too. It's like, so, so internally, the heart, the heart is making a sound. It's it's emitting a frequency that can be audible. Most certainly. So there is a frequency that's admitted there. So there is like that sound frequency that's there. But then there's also going to be electromagnetic fields. Related to that, do you care to kind of, you know, comment on and what does that all mean? Given the fact that it is a reality. I mean, we know that. I mean, animals I've heard, you know, regarding horses and horses, you know, emit, this magnetic field, you know, 30ft away and all these different energy things.

But you're an energy guy. Tell me. Tell me if that's true or not. Yeah, and I think we're going to get into this as we dive deeper and we start talking about like, heart coherence as well, you know, that the Institute of Heart Math has been studying this and the electrical field that the heart emits and the, you know, the study of the heart, not just as an organ, but an intelligence of its own. And we talk about it a lot. We talk about the intuition of the heart and our gut feelings, you know, following your heart, being more heart centered.

It's embedded in our language that our heart does have an intelligence to it. And that's what they're showing through the field of the heart, is that there's electromagnetic frequencies that are emanating. Something's going on there. And also there's a communication that's going on in some aspects. When our heart moves into these smooth and orderly states that there's showing now that it actually affects our brainwave frequencies as well. So, you know, when we're when we're moving into these coherent states, the brain scans are showing, brain EEGs are showing that we're producing more alpha brainwaves at the same time.

So this is opening up a whole nother area of study. You know, that would probably be another whole interview call, neuro cardiology, which is looking at the how one affects the other as well. So and when you're affecting the brain and slowing the brainwaves down, how is that affecting the heart when you're moving into these more peaceful states? Is that lowering our blood pressure? Is it giving us the ability to rest and relax more? Of course, there's going to be an interaction there, and there's there is a communication of some type that's going on between the two.

I love it, love it, love, love, love it. So when we talk about, you know, the subject of heart attack and stroke prevention, dive into that as far as can music, sound, vibration, lower the risk of heart attack and stroke and then the answer is going to be yes. And then how can we get people to. And I'm of course very excited to jump into, you know, protocols and methods and stuff like that. And of course we will circle back and we'll be talking about some of the things you mentioned before as far as the mechanisms of why.

But I in particular for the early part of this interview. Yeah. I mean, so how how can sound therapy play that role in reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke? Yeah, I think you have to look at the risk factors, you know, and well, music works best and the research behind it in the studies. And so I like to look at three things that I know where music has a big impact and that one of them is sleep. And second one will be exercise. And the third would be stress. So we know how music interacts with that.

And within sleep, if we're if we're getting enough sleep, we are, you know, we're lowering our blood pressure. We're we're also decreasing our inflammation during those processes. These are all precursors to heart disease. And we know same with stress. You know, when we're in a place of stress, we're producing more hormones that are, you know, that are geared towards stress, like cortisol, adrenaline of which have an effect on our heart health and, of course, exercise. We, you know, we have to exercise in order to increase heart health.

So if we look at each one of those, how how they can how music can help, you know, work with each one of those and be preventative sleep. We know that music at about 60 beats per minute, low and slow. So more the low frequencies and slower are going to move us to, a more relaxed state where we can move into that parasympathetic state. But most importantly, when we're talking about sleep, which most of us don't do, and there's like busy world of, you know, Facebook and Instagram and, you know, ChatGPT, we're not winding down at night, you know, so we don't take the time, to wind down, to bridge our busy day into moving from that sympathetic state of firing or wiring things to do to rest and rejuvenate and restoration, which of course, in ancient cultures.

Thousands of years ago, we knew how important sleep was and we're losing that. So I have a protocol for sleep an hour before bedtime, I start to listen to softer music. It might be the type of music you listen to for yoga. Just had gentle rhythms initially to kind of bridge from that busy day, and then you're less and less more ambient and more ambient. So it's kind of like lighting a candle in a room. You don't have to stare at that candle to get the benefit of the candle. You just have to have that end going on in the room and it becomes very Pavlovian.

So if you have bad sleep habits, it's taken you years to get into those habits. If you do this for 30 days and you start to reprogram, your circadian rhythms are going to adjust. And when the music comes on, you start to adapt your breathing. Like you said, as soon as I touch that keyboard, part of you like was already going there. And you know, when you when you're given the right information, which music is a carrier of information frequency, harmonics, composition, your body knows what to do, especially when you start training it at a specific time every night.

So you're going to listen to music an hour before sleep, 60 beats per minute. You don't want to listen to music with lyrics, because that's going to get you into your analytical mind. You know, as soon as we hear lyrics, we start defining, oh, I like this, I don't like this. And also music with very little melody. So the more melody there is, the more of a chance you have to remember something the next night and it becomes a marker for you either not getting to sleep or sound that you don't like.

So there's a key to, like, composing music like this. And you know, I have a lot of music that is geared towards sleep, and you can find it like all over, you know, all over. It's not it's not hard to find. I have a lot of sleep playlists as well that are better on Spotify. So, that so that's my record. I mean, what is that? Also a very Goldstein music.com. And forgive me for not knowing this, but I'm going to and I want everyone to know is that the best place to find it. So yeah that is a hub for everything Spotify YouTube music.

And I go on there and just yeah. You can't not you. Yeah. And on Spotify playlist that we, I did with Daniel Ayman who's you know, he's a pioneer in brain health and very big proponent of how music can be used. We have a playlist that is really great for winding down at night and really is is very, very you'd be surprised how fast it works that your body sometimes just need permission to relax and to unwind. And so music helps us get to sleep faster because it's bridging those brainwaves.

Music for Sleep, Stress, and Exercise 16:48

Most of us are just going from high beta, very busy brainwave activities, and we're crashing into Delta, which is our slowest brainwave frequencies. So the music helps bridge you into alpha, then into theta, and then into delta very naturally. So you get to sleep and you stay asleep, and stay asleep more. I love it. I will tell everybody that, you know, in my experience over the years, a lot of these people have like, these different biohacking things they do before sleep and therefore they actually don't get to sleep until midnight.

I would I want to implore people to start listening to your protocols. Very kind of like soon after, you know, as soon as it's like getting close to dark out, like that's the time when you should be right, you know, winding down and getting ready to to do it. You know, there is a very well known, player, in the health space where there it is audio directed. It is the action that audio directed but verbally, with verbal cues, spoken cues and and I don't like it. I don't like listening to it. So I think that's interesting that you kind of bring that up is that if you throw in the spoken, you know, language into it, is it do you find you get that kind of feedback often that people just.

Yeah, they don't like the sound of somebody else's voice? Well, especially with music, you know, if you're going to use music, let music do its job. You know, there's two separate things going on there. You know, with, with in terms of, you know, I have no therapeutic approach to that is much different than just a musical approach to it. So I say let you know you have to look at each one of those as a separate methodology and let the music do its job. If it's done, you know, if it's done correctly and using, you know, the way the research has been applied.

So I'm looking at research and I'm applying it in the compositional process. I'm testing it. You know, we're using it in a lot of different ways. We're using it, and measuring it in, in audiences of, you know, thousands of people when I'm doing music for Doctor Joe as well. So this is something that I've been doing for a long, a long time. And I will say that all of it's not created equal. So some are going to get you there quicker and you're going to prefer some. That's the thing with music. It's also very autobiographical. We like what we like.

We don't like what we don't like. I can tell you to listen to this, but if you don't like it, you're not going to get into that relaxed state. And that's also where we're we're starting to see studies on preferred music, which was the next thing I was going to talk about as well within prevention of, you know, you know, using music for example, and exercise. So how does music apply in exercise. Well, they're showing that people when you use your preferred music, that's the playlist that you love.

You're going to get a better workout, less fatigue and more function using yours as opposed to whatever's playing in the gym. And also, that's where you want to use music that is going to really kind of motivate you. You know, fast tempo music, some of it up to 170 beats per minute, is going to get your heart going because that's where you want to be during exercise. So it's not just for relaxation, you know, it's also to get you into sympathetic as well. You want to have, you know, those beneficial hormones.

You might want to have some adrenaline pumping while you're working out. You know, all of these things. But then when you're coming back down and you're working with stresses in your day, and that's the third area that we're working with, prevention. Your music can be really beneficial in targeting your moods. And with that I have a protocol of of I always think of music as a bridge. So if if anyone watching, just ask yourself three questions. In any situation, if you're setting up a program for yourself, where am I now?

Like in my mood? Where do I want to go and what piece of music is going to take me there? And you know, if I have a meeting and I need to be on and I need to be in a motivational state, I'm going to listen to, you know, more epic piece of music or a funky piece of music that I like that's going to get me going. But if I need to be with a family member who's in the hospital, I need to be more present than heart centered. I'm going to listen to a piece of music that's going to take me more into a peaceful state.

And so music is we know that music can decrease cortisol levels also decrease, adrenal, you know, I mean, not adrenal, Adrenaline up and adrenaline, right. All of those can decrease all. It can increase dopamine, oxytocin. You know, a lot of the beneficial hormones that we use to reduce stress, you know, being a part of that. And that's all part of heart health, obviously, as well, the over daily stresses that come into our life eventually move into from the emotional into a physical and affect us greatly.

You know in in your world where we see people over a long period of time, what stress does to our vascular system, what stress does to you, you know, to our, blood pressure, all of these things, which I'm sure you can speak more to. But music is is a great way to regulate mood. And we know that's that's one of the probably the widely most researched is stress and mood. Managing anxiety, depression with your your preferred music as well as, music that is slower in nature for relaxation and music to target.

Classical music has been shown to be very beneficial for managing stress as well. I feel like the the soundtrack from the original, Rocky score kind of encompasses like everything that you would ever need, inside of this whole realm. I feel like if I pull out my old cassette, if I could find it somewhere, right, like it would do that. Absolutely. Are there any is there any music that in a blanket way, like there's it's just I don't want to call it like, evil music, but is there, like, bad music that we should never listen to?

Is there a time and a place for any, and every type? Or is this something where maybe you whether you can name individual, you know, you know, musicians, if you will, or groups or, or just say like, yeah, I do like, you know, or there's not. Is there a time and a place for everything? I mean, this is where I think we get into individualized medicine. As you know, you know, there's not a blanket for prescriptions, prescriptions for, pharmaceuticals. Like, why would there be a blanket necessarily for acoustic ceuticals, what I call them.

But when we're getting into this, you know, studies are showing us that there is a time and place for different types of music, and meeting people where they're at can be very important for example, like in a psychotic patients and utilizing music with them, their brainwaves are moving so fast that you can't really introduce relaxation music because it's it's just too far away from their where their brainwaves are. So they prefer their music that they love. So like they could be heavy metal. Some of it could be rap music, whatever it is, just starting from a place that that's going that you can bridge into other music, but starting with music that they are, that they resonate with and that's that's a key term.

There is something that resonates with is something that is going to amplify something for you personally. So I don't think there's necessarily any one bad type of music. But I do think, you know, we we do have to, age appropriate and looking at music, as a messenger as well. Like what your kids are listening to. What, people around you are listening to send you a message or some of the things that they're going through. So, you know, if someone's listening to music that you think is negative, this could be a sign that they're experiencing anxiety.

They're experiencing depression, you know, so it's not a negative if it's giving us more information and ways to cope with them. And, and ways to help them. So I think it all has some type of use depending how we look at it. All right. I'm gonna answer my own questions. I never listen to James Taylor. I can't stand anything that that guy ever made. And sorry to offend you and all the James Taylor fans. Yeah, I don't want to go there, Jack. But fair enough. Fair enough. I could actually just see you and, Doctor Danny doing a duet of, mockingbird with, James Taylor and, Carly Simon.

So there you go. Tell me, music, sound vibration, and the autonomic nervous system. Adele, you've touched on that a couple times, obviously with parasympathetic sympathetic. Everybody's in this kind of go, go, go, sympathetic dominant state. Talk about entrainment of the autonomic nervous system. How's that all? How's that all happening? Yeah, well, because music has the ability to. And train with us and to calm us down or to target these things that we've talked about within tempo, within blood pressure, heart rate, we can move to parasympathetic states fairly easily with music when we're targeting it, and the same the other way around.

When we want to move to sympathetic, we can utilize music to do that as well. Where we're using more up music, we're using music that's going to target those specific states. But in addition to that, music can actually work with the and the filial system as well. And these are these are like more recent findings that show that it could literally decrease, you know, the stress hormones as well as decrease the inflammatory markers and help us to produce more nitric oxygen. So and most of the music that we've talked about, meditational music and classical music, have been shown the most effective to do that.

In addition to that, also, vagus nerve stimulation as well can, you know, works music can work with that in terms of, you know, working with the system to create that vibration that's going to move us into parasympathetic. And there's shown with that is that chanting and singing can really work with that. And that was one of the things I was going to talk about in terms of things that we can do for people in rehab for, for people who have had heart attacks or strokes. So one of those would be chanting, something that's very low cost, noninvasive.

But the studies show that not only is it is it working with the vagus nerve to move into parasympathetic, but it's also creating limbic deactivation. So great studies showed two groups, one chanted s and one chanted They did fMRI studies. The group that chanted S nothing beneficial happen in the brain, but the group that chanted literally lit up those areas of the brain that were associated with inner peace. So that is working, you know, based on the vagus, stimulation in terms of moving us into parasympathetic.

And that is, you know, a great way to, you know, if you're in recovery and you don't want something you don't you're not ready to exercise yet, but you want to do something that's noninvasive that, as well as I'm going to, say another thing that's thousands of years old and you talked about regulate regulating heartbeats when we move out of rhythm.

Autonomic Nervous System, Chanting, and Stroke Rehab 28:30

And this could happen as well after procedures, drumming. So showing and drumming circles as well. It's called, rhythm auditory stimulation auras. And just by moving into a circle with people who are drumming as well. And you can move and reprogram and get those rhythms happening back on target again to where you where you need them to be. So these are ancient technologies. You know, I, I said, Dave asked me that music is the oldest biohacker that we have, you know, in these things, you know, 20 years ago, we consider them to be a conversation that would be labeled.

Whoa, you know, but it's really not, you know, these are things that have been proven to be noninvasive and work really well in, in terms of working with the heart as well as stroke, patients. So there are a lot of things to do within stroke patients. And with music. Jack. So, one of them so as you know, when when someone has a stroke, percentage of the population has what's called aphasia and which affects our ability to speak. But for some reason, it doesn't always affect the ability to sing. So, protocol was created called, melodic intonation therapy that could literally reteach people how to speak again through the use of music.

And it does this by like nursery rhymes that we know, like happy birthday things that are so engraved in our head we replace those words happy birthday with other words in the English language. And literally that creates new neural pathways. Neuroplasticity to reteach us language, which has been phenomenal in stroke patients. As well as with with stroke patients as well drumming to improve the gait. Anything with rhythm can improve the gait. So the motor center and the basal ganglia are affected when we're having strokes.

So working with rhythm, can work with reprograming and actually moving us back into sync and improve gait with stroke patients as well. Now these are things that are studied. I have people who, you know, I have testimonials from have told me they use my music. I have strokes, and like in six months they've, they've been able to speak again, as well. I'm not saying it from one thing per se, but from utilizing music and these tools as well to support whatever else you're doing. There's a lot of viable things that can be done with music that you would never think of.

You know, in terms of we think of music as art and entertainment and but these are ways that are really groundbreaking ways to, to work with stroke rehab, rehabilitation and again, after procedures with a heart as well in terms of rehabilitation there. Yeah, this is ultimate biohacker type stuff. I love it when you say, I also I'm aware of some of the data on humming, but it's kind of like, it's kind of like, it's like the same thing. And like you said, and that just goes back, thousands of years.

But, I feel like I want to ask this question. I mean, and I'm not sure how well, I'll see if you answer it or not, you know. Well, I will decide if as well the audience will decide if it's. Well. And by the way, I mean, this is why, you know, you're a guest on this, on the some of your your information here so valuable. Is there a religious connotation to owning or is this kind of, totally non religious, secular type phenomena, right. Because sometimes, like when people hear some of these things, they may deem that maybe, maybe, and again, religion is not my forte, but is this kind of anti-Christian.

What what does all this mean? Yeah. I mean, it has its origins in Hinduism, you know, in terms of, of that, but from, you know, for me, I look and and to each his own with this. I don't subscribe that if someone doesn't feel comfortable with that, you know, then by all means don't don't do it. But as well, they're showing so many benefits in things like another chant called the Curtain kriya, which is Saturn. You're firing and doing mudra as literally there. So increasing telomere length. There's a study by the Alzheimer's organization.

So not a small study that showed it's, you know, decreasing stress, it's increasing, cognitive things just by doing that for 12 minutes a day. So for me, I'm able to put whatever you know, my thoughts are aside with that and and give things or try that's not that doesn't mean it's for everyone almost it to contain every sound in the universe in it. So it's not just, you know, it's not just, within a specific, you know, religion that we're connecting to. I think of it, I think of when I'm doing it.

I'm connecting to everything. But again, if someone has their own, their own religious beliefs. With that, I would say that within every religion there has been some type of chanting and cancellation. You know, the Catholic religion has Gregorian chanting and, you know, Judaism has cancellation. You know, all of these things. They have a similar approach to it, which is we chant because we want to have a magnification of connection to whatever it is we believe we're connecting to. Whether you call that Buddha, God, Christ or anything else.

So I say, if one thing bothers you, then I'm sure that you can find something with your own religion that can can help you in the same way. Now. Well said. If it bothers you, then just hum and everybody's happy. All right. What about, and obviously a lot of people listening. They've got high blood pressure. Maybe they they help somebody with high blood pressure. Someone their husband, spouse, you know, white, you know, whatever may be son or daughter, mother, father, has, has high blood pressure.

High blood pressure affects 100 million people. How does music help? Help. Oh, yeah. Music's going to put you into that state where you're, again, in training, you're synchronizing, and you're able to slow down your heart rate. So the end in turn, that's going to help you lower your blood pressure. And you do this over a period of time. It's going to work with regulation as well. So it's not a one time thing. You know all these you know I look at this as a life approach. I think of music as medicine.

So I'm not going to be thinking of it all. I'm just going to try this this morning. You know, I'm going to implement it into a program that I can utilize every day. So I'm going to start my day listening to relaxing music. I'm going to move it throughout my day and in my schedule to implement it all throughout my day. And that's how basically you see transformation. If you just want to see you know yourself, calm down for a minute. Great. But just like anything else, you know, we look at what we nourish ourself with, we know what foods are good for us, whatnot.

But unless we implemented in a program, we're not going to see the benefit of it. So you have to do this every day, or at least work with it to target your blood pressure and your heart rate. You know, give yourself a time. I like the bookends at the beginning of my day and at the end of my day, and these are things that we're talking about now. When we're talking about heart coherence and we're talking about increasing our heart rate variability through specific methodologies, including like lowering lowering your blood pressure and your heart rate by creating smooth and orderly rhythms.

So the studies show that when we are in the emotions of anger, frustration and guilt, that our heart starts to produce the spectrum. Our heart rate is very incoherent. But when we're in gratitude, kindness, compassion that we're producing smooth and orderly rhythms. So when we combine this with music and we are targeting specific those states, so a piece of music that makes you feel like you're in a state of gratitude, think of your heart as the conductor of the many different parts of your inner orchestra.

And so this is how I explain it to people. If all the parts within your physical body, you know, your lymphatic system, your digestive system, your cardiac system decided that they were going to play whatever tempo they wanted and whatever music, it would sound very dissonant. But if you have something regulating the tempo and you have something that's sending out this signal to the rest of your systems, then you have the ability to have coherent music that's going on within your body and things.

When you're in this coherence state, all of your systems are operating more optimally because your heart is the conductor. So it all starts with your heart. And so that means that how do we move the heart to these states. So it's combining designer music and elevated emotions. Gratitude. Kindness. Combine it with a beautiful piece of music. Listen to it every day. You know in the morning when you wake up and you're going to see that you have the ability to really steer, you know, your blood pressure where you want, your heart rate where you want, and navigate that during your day and your energy where you need it to go.

You know you want it to go in different places during your day. It's not a one size fits all. So, I like to start jack my day in the morning. I call this my inner music. I just place my hands on my heart. I close my eyes. I breathe in through my heart. And I breathe out through my heart. And as I'm doing this, like even now, I can feel my. The pulse of my heart. And I call this my, my, my inner music. You know, this is a sign that my life force is pulsing throughout me. No matter what's going on in my day.

This is my home base. So when we talk about leading a heart centered life, you know this is my center. I start my day like this. I can do anything because I know I can come back to me regardless of my, you know, 1%, you know, patient or customer that comes in or anything that takes me out of that space. So our heart is not just a sign of of health. It's also a sign of our vitality that we're alive and this is our life force. If you can start with that gratitude in the most simplest way, that's the music that I connect to first.

Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, and Daily Music Protocols 39:24

And when you could do that on that subtle level, you listen to music in a whole new way. You hear music much differently. When you can listen to your own heartbeat, in your own breath. Now that's so incredible. And I will tell people I feel like it will be therapeutic for a lot of people to actually have this recording on hand. You can cut out my voice and my audio from this and just listen in to Bury Talk and just kind of it takes you down like ten beats. And then it. You mentioned you mentioned earlier on a term that I have never heard of before, and you know that and that's called acoustic ceuticals.

Break that down for me. Yeah. So, you know, I wanted to create, a terminology that was different than just sound healing and, you know, there's so much attention that is, is put on pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals in, in terms of wellness, but there's not a lot of talk about how music can be used as medicine. So acoustic ceuticals is a low cost, noninvasive way to use specific music methodologies. Like we're discussing everything I've been discussing, I think of as acoustic ceuticals. You know, plug in this acoustic cuticle in the morning, place your hands on your heart, plug in this acoustic cuticle at night, and use this protocol to go to sleep.

And virtually no side effects. So even if you're on, you know, pharmaceuticals or nutraceuticals, try these as adjuncts to basically become what I call the DJ of your own life. So just like a DJ steers and navigates energy of the crowd using music, you can navigate your own energy exactly where you want it using music, your heart health, you know, your, preventative things to do to, you know, move out of risk for stroke as well. You know, all of these things we're talking about are precursors to moving into those unhealthy states.

And it's not coincidence that we use terms like I'm moving back into into sync. I'm moving into rhythm. I didn't resonate with what they said, you know? Oh, I feel like I'm in harmony with them. All of these terms that we use, these musical terms are very applicable in the medical world as well. And all we have to do is, is plug it in and try them. And I invite you to do it, you know, like through the eyes of a child, you know, children are curious to listen to any kind of music. They know. They know what they like, what they don't like.

And it's going to be similar with you. Like I can prescribe this or that, but, you know, like you can tell someone broccoli's really good for you, but someone could be allergic to it and it can create inflammation in their physical body. So you really have to start listening to yourself and listen to your heart. What what feels good when you listen to it, what makes you feel expansive? What makes you feel contracted? Just like your vessels. When they're contracted, you know you can create high blood pressure.

When they're relaxed, you have better heart health. I similar to listening to music. So when you're contracted, you know it's probably not healthy or the right piece of music for you. But when it makes you feel expansive or relaxed, that's great for you and you become your own sound healer. You begin the ability to know exactly what works for you. You begin to program your life literally every day, and you start to see, like transformation that you wouldn't believe from something that's so accessible as music.

I mean, music is almost free now. Yeah. No, I mean, such exciting stuff. So. You promised us a live demo. I do want to get into the live demo, but is there anything. I mean, I feel like I can talk to you about. I feel like I want to talk to you about. How do I call my kids down, you know, with music. But I think the answer, you know, would be available. And, like, sometimes we're, you know, if we're in the car on a long road trip and the kids start acting up, I'm like, as you're talking, I'm thinking, wow, there's probably some music that I could switch it over to that would help calm everybody down, as opposed to, yeah, maybe just we're listening to some heavy, you know, 70s rock or something.

Yeah. Let me, let me let me, answer to that. And then, then we can move into the expansion. So I think, music with kids is, like, similar to vegetables. You know, you don't have to necessarily tell them that it's good for them, because if you do, they probably won't want to listen to it. But if you just gently put it on in the background and don't say anything, it's going to do its own magic. And you know the same thing with going to sleep at night. Their body knows what it wants to do. You just have to start bridging it.

And if you start playing at the same time every night, shut off the TV, you know, and just put on the music and you don't even really have to say anything. Just, you know, they'll start to adapt to it. That's the other thing with music is that when we're targeting those dates and those tempos that we're talking about, Jack, your respiratory rate starts to adjust accordingly to that which we which we really didn't talk about as well. So, you know, if I ask you to breathe in and out with that metronome at 60 beats per minute, what's going to happen in terms of your, you know, your respiratory rate and slowing down, you are naturally going to slow down and your heart rate is going to slow down and your blood pressure is going to slow down as well.

I've done that with my 91 year old. My, with my stepfather, and when his blood pressure gets high and we do that together, we breathe in for, for an hour for, for and just with the music that's at 60 beats per minute. And we're literally, you know, I don't even really have to say it to him as well, because the respiratory rate just starts to slow down. So the same thing happens with kids and also elderly. You know, I've done this a lot where people who have parents who have dementia as well, you know, they're they're still going through anxiety, they're still going through their inner worries.

So if you can create this kind of sound blanket that masks some of the environmental noise that's going on, the chitchat that's going on in the house, and you do this on a regular basis, they start to refer to it as my music, you know, can you put my music on? And it can really be beneficial. I mean, kids know, like when kids hear lullabies and when mothers sing lullabies, you know, there's studies that show that that's one of the most bonding experiences that both mother and child can experience, that the mother starts producing oxytocin, which is the cuddle hormone.

And, you know, all of this is felt. It's palpable. You know, these are experiences that literally define our lives because we create autobiographical memories. For if you play that lullaby for a kid, you know, when he's 18 years old, most of those kids are going to be able to tap back into that feeling of being loved. They probably remember the words. They might even remember it when they're 80 years old, you know, and going through they have challenges with dementia or anything else. These things have been shown to be lifelines to literally bring people back.

So, you know, the autobiographical memories that music creates and what's going on in our brain with all this is amazing. And if we're silly, if we're not, you know, we're not utilizing it in a more powerful way than just playing a song here and there. I mean, I would say in with with God is my witness. I have over the last 17 years, I have sang twinkle, Twinkle at least 5000 times, no doubt about it. So, so, so give some credit to us men out there too. Right? Come on. Right. Just all the women, you know.

And, I'm secreting a little oxytocin myself in those moments, I must admit. So that's all, wonderful, wonderful stuff. Real quick, is there is there an optimal way or device to listen to music and then, contrary to that or the things we should not? I feel like if, Right. I mean, if, to be in the same room with the instrument that's producing it, that's not realistic, of course, for in most you know, scenarios. But, and, answer my question, what's what's the best way for us to listen? I mean, I always say with everything by the best that you possibly can to listen, you know, and create the best environment, the, you know, the the more frequency response that you have, the better you're going to hear the music, the better you're going to pick up on some of those subtleties that you might might not.

So you don't have to go all the way on the other side of the spectrum and spend $1,000, you know, but get get what the most that you can for your money in terms of that, in terms of listening to them. I mean, the only times that really, that you need headphones per se, as opposed to like listening with speakers, when we start getting into talking about things like binaural beats, which or when you introduce different frequencies on different sides of your ears to target a specific brainwave state, which could be great for managing stress, anxiety, and even pain as well.

So, you know, if you were targeting, like an alpha brainwave frequency of eight hertz, you would introduce 100Hz in one ear, 108 in the other, and the brain can and train to the difference between the two. And you could target that specific brainwave state, which can be great for managing stress, you know, and preventative things within heart disease and strokes as well. So look look that up. A lot of studies on binaural beats. And in that case it's essential that you have headphones because it's left and right.

But in most instances, you know, you can listen to, you know, good speakers, you know, and headphones too are just all of the, our electronics are becoming better as well. You know, I like listening to things without Bluetooth if I can. And, you know, I would rather use a wired one like you are just because I don't necessarily want other frequencies interfering or picking up on, you know, we're we're studying more and more about that as well as, you know. So those would be it would have been. It would have been nice to do all those studies before the products were released to the market by right now it's tetra with earbuds.

But yeah, just for further clarity on that, I know I mentioned that, of course, all the time that for people, to never wear earbuds, I mean, you know, one of them is battery operated, the other, you know, shoots, you know, Bluetooth signals right? To your brain. That's defeating the entire purpose. So please don't. Yeah. And I'm literally creating, separate speakers for sleep that I'll be coming out with because I want people to shut off their phones too. So these speakers will have eight hours worth of music in them.

And so there's no app, no nothing. You're just literally put it on for eight hours before you go to sleep and let it play for eight hours, and you don't have any Bluetooth and, you know, just a speaker there. So I will sign me up for those. Let me, let me be in the, the beta group on that one. I love that idea. What? Now, this is also valuable on the website. And and the music that you are you doing much stuff with the binaural beats and the stuff you produce? Yeah. So I have the the privilege of working with Monroe Institute, who were one of the pioneers in utilizing binary beats in music.

So I have, I have, over eight CDs, albums that I've done with them. We did one recently called Alpha Omega that is geared towards starting and ending your day, which is really important as we discussed those bookends. So, but I love their what they, they call their binaural beats Hemi sync because literally it's synchronizing the two different hemispheres of the brain. And I will say no one does it like Monroe Institute. They've been doing it for 50 years. They have engineers that hired to do this.

They do an amazing job of of working with binaural beats. And they have a humongous catalog. You can find some, whatever I've done with binaural beats, most of it is with, Hemi Sync and Monroe Institute. So you should definitely check that out as well. Jacki, you would love them. Super cool, super cool. I love all this stuff. And I'm really, you know, I think I've had, like, this newfound love for music really is my my two boys, eight, you know, currently ages 17 and 12. And how they've, you know, been in rock and roll bands and just watching them, you know, learn music and get that experience.

Acousticceuticals, Listening Tips, and Live Demo 51:30

It's been it's been super cool. And then but even as a like, cardiology trainee, I remember my father, who was a cardiologist, now, you know, deceased at the age of 63, which was my inspiration for going holistic and natural, how he would, tell me how to get different audio, auscultation skills, you know, cardiac, all that stuff that scopes. So listening with a stethoscope and how you pick up various sounds in the heart as it relates to heart valve closure. People with different heart sounds related to certain things.

And he would tell me as I would listen to music like pick out the various instruments in the band, right? Or even I'm sure you or you could probably listen to a 30 piece orchestra and how you can hone in on every individual piece. I can only kind of do it maybe for 4 or 5 pieces, which is, you know, that's the drums, that's the bass, that's the rhythm, that's the lead, you know, the guitar. But I just, I do I find music so fascinating. I know you do as well. Obviously you've spent your, you know, career on it.

I. Love that he taught you how to listen to to the subtleties of the music within, within the heart as well. And I think it's all what we're trained. Right. So I'm trying to listen to music in this way because I produce it. But you're trained to listen to it in the physical body, so I find that fascinating as well, because, you know, there's intricacies that you hear within that, that, are, you know, that probably no one else could. And that's what makes what you do special in terms of your practice and working with people that you have the ability to distinguish.

You know, what those sounds are. So that's fascinating. Oh, Barry, listen, you know, just your voice and your compliments again. I know now my heart rate is down like 20 beats. So I'm going to sing you some. I'm going to send you some James Taylor to, But I'm open to anything. Maybe you'll convert me into a fan if y'all. If you like this. This is the nuance and the brilliance of James Taylor. So thank you. All right, do you want to, Because I could talk to you all day, brother. So fascinating. Love it.

And can't wait to go to your website and learn more. And I would point everybody else in that direction. Live demo of music's therapeutic, power. And let's let's roll into it. Yeah. So just to give you a little background of that, and this is the fun part, is that I don't know what I'm going to play, and I'm just going to kind of let it happen, in the moment, because that's how I relax into it. And that's kind of where we started off in this conversation and was that's how I stumbled on this. I was the experiment, and I just allowed myself to kind of free fall and see what would happen if I set that metronome to 60 beats per minute.

So I have my metronome set to 60 beats per minute, which I can see on my screen. I don't have to hear it. I can actually just see it and I'm really just going to provide this a similar prescription of what I described to you for sleep, which is low. You know, low tones. There'll be a low drone that you'll hear throughout. It'll be slow and very sparse. Not a whole lot of melody within it. And it's only going to happen for about three, 3.5 minutes or so. So this is really to show that we can move to these states fairly quickly.

Imagine just being able to take off a five minute vacation and your day where you're just allowing yourself to, to shift out of your environment. So that's what I'm going to do. It might take me a second to turn around and, to basically just set my settings here. And, I am going to do that. And, and once you start hearing it, I just invite you to, like, close your eyes and just allow yourself to receive. No one's watching you. You're on this call by yourself. Probably. So it's perfect time, you know, to to move into those states.

We know that when we're closing our eyes, we're moving into those slower brainwave states, those alpha brainwave states. And then allow yourself to just go to a more peaceful, state where you can get some restoration in your day, and this can act for you as a little bridge in your day to shift your mood and to give you some additional energy or even insights. So with that, I'm going to shift. To. Real. World. There you go. Beautiful, beautiful. I'm relaxed. I don't know if you are. Oh, I'm pretty relaxed.

Apparently you're hearing that. Echo. Echo? Oh, yeah. Let me shut that off. There you go. Excellent, excellent. Is there is there a sound level, that we should aim for, I mean, right, I mean, obviously any music can be too loud. Any music can be so soft, you can't even hear it. Is there, like, a general recommendation for how we listen to music? And generally that can make a change, obviously. Yeah. I think when you're listening to relaxing music, you know, in general, you don't want to listen to it too loud, you know, in terms of your comfort level.

So I would say you just you really want to keep it more ambient than, than anything else in how you're using it. You know, if you're using it for motivation and inspiration, you want to feel it a little bit more and put your volume up. But if you're listening with earbuds or anything within your ears, you have to be more careful. So always just inch up that volume. Like until you get to the point where it feels like it's comfortable for you, especially with those in-ear ones, you don't. The last thing you want to do is have something too loud and you can really you can really harm your your ears that way.

Yeah. Well, certainly. Any final words, my friend? You know, my my final words would be to, you know, utilize this, take this wherever you can to implement it in a program for yourself. So even if you're just, doing a one time during your day, start your day with music and see how where that takes you, even if it's just for five minutes, just play music to start your day. What music do you want to break the fast of your ears? Not hearing anything? So just like you nourish yourself in the morning, you know you're asking yourself, what should I put in my body?

The first thing that I'm going to eat? What's the first thing that you want to listen to in your morning to start your day? And it's really in an awareness, you know, start your day and then start plugging it in incrementally to the rest of your schedule, and let it just evolve on its own until you find a great music program for yourself. Love it. You know, one thing we used to do as cardiology fellows, whenever our program director would be getting all upset about something and he would be going off on this rant and pacing back and forth, we would always find some chocolate and put it in front of him, and he would start to eat the chocolate and they would, you know, they would calm him down, he'd find his happy place and makes me think, you know, maybe sometimes like, you know, firecracker, like your wife Denise, you know, she gets in a huff, you know, sometimes.

And I'm thinking, I bet you got, like, your Rolodex of music that you'll reach out to. And all of a sudden there's, like, you guys. Yeah, ambient. Music that's playing, and she's like, hey, you know, it's not that bad. Yeah, no, she does. She actually she she definitely does. And music is one thing that that works really well for her. You know, in terms of bringing bringing her down, I think that's important to, you know, is the caretakers or, you know, you guys who were down there in the trenches every day, the doctors that are doing this work is that you have to take care of yourself and manage your stresses as well.

And music is important within, you know, the medical profession as well. The nurses and the doctors that are in there is really a great tool to manage stress and anxiety that happen in your day, and then you're better for the patient. So most certainly, most certainly. Barry Goldstein. Wonderful. Barry Goldstein. Music is going to be the place. And of course, he is on Spotify and everywhere else. Barry, thank you so much for being on this episode. Jack. Thanks for having me. I appreciate you very much and love the love the idea of this summer.

So thanks for including music in the conversation. Greatly appreciate. That. Of course, of course we'll be back with another excellent guest and excellent episode in the Heart Attack and Stroke Prevention Summit. Be well everyone. Thank you again.