80s Pop Is Best Genre for Reducing Anxiety: Study

Eighties pop is the best music genre for reducing blood pressure due to its positive nostalgia, a new study has found.

The study was conducted by Vera Clinic, a Turkish hair transplant company, which wanted to explore the connection between music, stress, and hair loss.

The researchers examined the blood pressure and heart rate of about 1,540 volunteers aged between 18-65 and played them a variety of music on Spotify and asked to record their stats throughout the experiment.

They used 11 playlists, ranging from the eighties pop of the "It’s a Sin" soundtrack, modern classical from the soundtrack of Netflix period drama "Bridgerton", techno, heavy metal classics, sixties golden oldies, and nineties R&B.

The participants also listened to the classical artists, which also resulted into lower blood pressure rates than people listening to a Abba greatest hits compilation and a control group of people who sat in silence.

Music from the hit TV series "It's a Sin", which is heavy with tunes from the likes of "Eighties legends Wham!", "Pet Shop Boys" and "Duran Duran", were more effective at reducing blood pressure than 10 other genres.

Other genres effective at decreasing blood pressure were Noughties pop, such as Kylie Minogue and Rihanna, as well as heavy metal, like "Black Sabbath".

The finding also showed that the five least relaxing genres were the jazz and blues, sixties golden oldies, dubstep, Seventies rock and techno, which all caused average increases in heart rates.

Futhermore, techno, dubstep, and Seventies rock were found to be the most likely to raise blood pressure, an indicator of anxiety.