-=a good reason to listen Gregorian chant=-

Hallelujah! Lower Blood Pressure And Reduce Stress Through Gregorian Chant:

And now there's another great reason to participate in this ancient ritual: its health benefits! Recent research reveals that singing Gregorian chant can lower your blood pressure, relieve stress, increase levels of performance-enhancing hormones and reduce anxiety and depression. That's in addition to its social benefits mentioned above.

Dr. Alan Watkins, senior lecturer in neuroscience at Imperial College London, connected monks to a device that monitored their heart rate and blood pressure throughout a 24-hour period. The results revealed that their heart rates and blood pressure dipped to their lowest points in the day when they were chanting. This is especially significant as blood pressure and heart rate will usually increase during activity.

Dr. Watkins explains: "The control of breathing, the feelings of well-being that communal singing bring, and the simplicity of the melodies, seem to have a powerful effect on reducing blood pressure and therefore stress."

-=A bit off topic=-

For quite some time, I've been trying all sorts of 'strange' ways of learning languages.  One of them involves brainwave entrainment.  The idea is that when we are in a certain 'brainwave frequency' learning becomes easier.  Interestingly, simply listening to Gregorian chant will naturally put a person in such a state.  But the idea of putting the two together didn't cross my mind until today.  I think I'll start listening to it more often as I learn vocabulary words.  I suppose it'll be effective.