WEBVTT - Humanity's Lullaby 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:06.240 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:13.600 Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:17.080 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie, 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:21.279 what's your go to lallaby? You still do lallaby? Yeah? 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.400 And I do it in this kind of like jazzy 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.200 way because I can't stand this lallaby. But it has 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.840 been introduced to my daughter Rugby baby in the tree 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.200 jobs and when the wind blows that grata will rock. 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.640 When the bow breaks that Greta let hey down, We'll 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:41.639 come baby great And oh do you find that this 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.800 is too jazzy for a go to sleep song? Yes, 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.120 but I feel like it negates the weirdness of that song. 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.680 That's it. Yeah, it's not like, how is this in 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.960 any way comforting? Like there's a baby. It's tied up 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.240 in a tree there. It's just precariously hung there so 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.480 that when the wind comes, that just topples over and 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.920 the baby just falls to the forest floor. Yeah. You know, 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:09.600 I started thinking about this when you when you brought 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.280 this up earlier, I was sinking back to my own childhood. 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.320 And there are two songs that my mom would would 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.959 pretty much use as the default lullabies. One path Magic Dragon, 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.360 which is also said, which also does have this at 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.759 tenage of sadness, but not you know, morbid sadness. It's 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.399 just about, Hey, you're gonna get older and then you're 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.560 gonna you know, some of your dreams are gonna die, 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.080 and you're going to die, and you're gonna eventually gonna die. 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:36.840 The Magic Dragon will live on and look for another 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.480 child to replace you. Well, I mean I wouldn't go 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.280 that dark on it, but essentially yes. But then the 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.200 other one was all the Pretty Little Horses, which at 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:46.840 first I was like, oh, there's nothing wrong with that 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.200 one at all. It's just about when you you know, wake, 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.480 you're gonna have all the pretty little horses. But then 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:53.720 I actually looked at the lullaby up and there's this, 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.840 like the second verse that my mom didn't sing. It's 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.840 talking about how there's a poor little lamby and with 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.480 bees and butterflies pecking out its eyes until the poor 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:08.520 lamby cries cries for mama. Well, I think what makes 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.360 that worse is that your last name is Lamb, So 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.920 she's probably like, well, my kids, thinking that he's going 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.280 to get his eyes pecked out him specifically. Um. But 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:21.000 you also know when Cormick McCarthy makes the title of 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.160 a lullaby his his book title, that is probably not 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.320 serene terrain. Yeah, there's probably yeah, there you go, because 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.200 he's not going to write about something unless there's a 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:32.800 little death or a lot of death woven into the 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.360 tapestry of the subject matter. And that's what we see 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.359 with lullabyes. We see we see a lot of darkness 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:40.600 in the lullaby as well as a lot of comfort. 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.960 And and that's one of the reasons it makes for 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.399 such a delightful podcast topic because it's not this the straightforward, 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.440 cutout thing, no, yeah, because it really yeah. There there 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:53.079 are a lot of different layers to this, and one 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:57.320 is again that universality of it. There are lullabies all 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.359 over the world in according to Zoe Palmer, who is 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:04.480 a musician working on a lullabies project at Royal Landon Hospital, 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.880 she says that wherever you go in the world, women 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.440 use the same tones, the same sort of way of 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:11.480 singing to their babies and she's seen this in the 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.760 project over and over again. UM, and lullabies are usually 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.680 in triple meter or six eight time, which kind of 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:23.040 gives them that character characteristic rocking feeling to them or 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.880 that motion. Yeah, that rock a vibe and back and forth, 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:32.200 slow soothing tones. Yeah. Yeah. Again, that's kind of interesting 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:35.600 to see that in so many different cultures around the world. Now, 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.760 the more abidity thing is also a universal and we 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:41.640 see both of those in the the fact that you 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:45.080 can look back to two thousand years b c. To 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:49.880 ancient Babylon and you find evidence of lullabies used then, 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.320 and it's a menacing lullaby in which a baby is 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.880 chastised for just serving the house um, the house god 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.680 with its crying. So the idea is is, look, it's 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:01.480 really it's time for you to go to sleep, because 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.720 if you do not stop crying, you will wake a 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:05.840 demon and it will eat you. I love it and 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.400 I love that it's inscribed on clay tablets. It's like 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:11.840 one of the first lullabies, and it's this is I 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.120 found this to be a suitable you know, it's it's 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.080 a it's it's suitable insight into the parenting mind. You know, 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.400 when you're reaching that point with a child where we're like, 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.240 I love you, you need to get some sleep. I 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.599 need to get some sleep. If you do not get 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.600 some sleep, demons are going to come for all of us. Well, 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:33.920 I think it explains the popularity of the adult book 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:36.080 and I'm gonna have to get bleeped out here called 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.520 Go to Sleep? Oh yes, which is this book for 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:44.640 parents that kind of it ends in this refrain every 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.640 page like saying, you know, saying like okay, like goodbye Moon, 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:50.839 good night. Yeah. It's in a way, it's kind of 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:52.960 a take on the whole good Night Moon book, Yeah, 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:55.000 which I've I've read a thousand times. And I didn't 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.920 get the Go that Go the f to Sleep books 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.839 so much before I had a child, because before I 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:02.840 was like, that seems a little harsh, you know, even 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:04.320 in you know, I know it's a joke, and I 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:06.200 know it's for the adults, enough for the kids, but 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:07.800 I was like, I don't know about that. That seems 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:09.640 it seems a bit much. But but then I had 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.640 a child who we brought back to the country with 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.839 a completely reversed sleep cycle, and I totally got it. 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.640 At four am, You're like, ah, that book is brilliant. 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.440 I got it um all right. So if you look 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.520 at a lullaby something by the Lua people in western Kenya. 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.440 It starts with rock rock like rock a by baby, 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.440 but then it's it ends with the baby who cries 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.360 will be eaten by a hyena, which is an actual 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.880 possibility in the part of the world. Yeah, and certainly 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:39.960 if you if you go back through time and think 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:44.760 of our primordial ancestors, the baby is crying because it's 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:48.839 the crying response is supposed to get human attention. Uh. 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.480 And arguably UH is also there so that if the 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:54.480 child dies too early, you're not going to be as 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.279 upset about it. I've seen that theory proposed as well. 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:03.240 But it could conceivably uh clue in animal predators other 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.960 human adversaries to your whereabouts. I was thinking about that too. 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:08.880 That would be a tell tell science. So it's like hush, 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:11.400 hush man that hyena is going to come and get us. 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:13.400 And then it made me think about when when kids 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.400 get older and they start playing hide and seek, and 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.039 maybe this is a way of teaching children how to 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:23.640 become quiet when they when they can understand this game 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.800 of trying to escape a predator. Yeah, I feel like 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:30.080 sometimes that's the only time my son is quiet is 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.920 he's he's running off to hide somewhere, or Niver says, 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.159 you know, hide behind the door or whatnot. Yeah, it's 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:40.120 a kind of interesting little hangover there of that. But 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.200 so it turns out though that not all lullabys are 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:47.880 completely morbid. And Zoe Palmer, again from the Lullaby Project, 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.680 has said that some of them are telling you the 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.320 history of a country or telling you how you should 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:55.800 or shouldn't run your life, and she says it's kind 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.120 of like advice columns for babies. Yeah, I mean, in 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:01.360 a sense, you are, you're talking to this child. You're 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:05.120 talking at this child, and on some level you want to, 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:08.159 you know, you want to already start imparting important information 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:10.240 to them. I mean, on a very basic level, you're 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:12.720 you're you're dealing at them with it, with language and 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:16.280 the very basics of human communication. But already you're projecting 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.880 all these additional wants and needs and expectations on this 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.840 child that they should be familiar with their their their 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:28.920 country's heritage, they should be familiar with you know, expected morality, etcetera. Yeah, 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:31.000 and that just reminds me too that we do teach 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.360 a lot of things with song, right our a b 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.559 c's are learned this song. And we've talked about this before, 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.640 the power of song to instill a really strong memory 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:42.920 in the brain. So it would make sense that this 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.360 is the way that kids are getting information about hyenas 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:47.400 and such. Yeah, I mean, in addition to the songs, 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:49.680 I feel like so much of the language we end 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.960 up using with with with with young children were choosing 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.760 everything is kind of sing song. You know, like the 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:58.560 first time you point out an elephant, you don't go 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.560 take if that's an elephant, you elephant, you know, you 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:03.840 make You're making the word into a song. And that 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.520 makes sense, as we discussed in our our our episodes 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.280 dealing with the with with the power of music and 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:13.440 how music works with the mind. That's that's part and 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.880 partial to how we acquire language. Yeah, And so it's 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.680 not so crazy when you think about this idea that 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:26.800 lullabys have a kind of power beyond developing cognition in 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.440 children or cognitive skills. There's a two thousand and thirteen 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.680 study published in the Psychology of Music Journal that showed 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:38.480 that lullabys have really beneficial effects on the body and 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:42.319 the music study involved thirty seven pediatric patients at the 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.160 Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, and those patients had 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.160 cardiac or respiratory problems. Now, the patients were between the 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:52.640 ages of seven days and four years old, and each 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:57.120 child was involved in three ten minutes sessions involving lullaby 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:02.280 singing or story reading or control session with just no interaction. 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:07.240 Then their physiological responses and perceived pain levels were measured 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:09.559 before and after each session. So I wanted to cover 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.079 just the mechanism by which they were measured, because it's 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:15.760 probably a big question mark, especially with a seven day old, 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.240 like how do you measure pain? So their heart rates 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:23.160 and oxygen levels were measured with non invasive device called 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.560 a pulse oxometer, and then their pain level was measured 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:31.120 on the Children Hospitals of East Ontario Pain Scale, which 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:35.080 is this really trusted behavioral scale used to assess pain 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.880 and young children. So the chiop scale includes six categories crying, 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:43.800 facial child, verbal, torso, touching legs and scoring ranges from 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:47.080 four to no pain to thirteen, which is the worst pain. Alright, 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:48.720 So we got all that out of the way, so 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.800 now we know how have they did this. What they 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.240 found is that the children's average heart rate had reduced 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.320 from a hundred thirty four point one two hundred eight 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.360 point seven, and their pain rating had fallen from six 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:07.320 point two one to five point six four. So here's 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:12.040 the thing. It was just the lullaby sessions that have 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:16.200 this effect, not the storytelling and not the control. Okay, 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.800 So there's something to them, not just to the interaction, 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.960 but to the musical uh interaction that's going on here. 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.439 It's also crazy when you when you think about the 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:29.120 fact that an infant can recognize a lullaby heard in 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:33.000 the womb several months after birth. So the child is 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.240 in the wound in utero listening to music, but hearing 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:38.240 the lullaby that the mom is singing it, and then 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.160 months and months later it can it can recognize Twinkle 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:45.000 Twinkle Little Star. Uh. This was actually a proven out 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.800 in a study of the University of Helsinki twenty four 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.520 women during the final trimester of their pregnancies. Half the 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.160 women UH were played the melody Twinkle Twinkle Little Star 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.000 to their fetuses five days a week for the final 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.720 stages of their pregnancy, and the bins of the babies 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.160 who heard the melody in utero reacted more strongly to 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.600 the familiar melody, both immediately and four months after the 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.319 birth would when compared to the control group that didn't 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.480 hear the music. So the take home here, the larger 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.040 take home outside of aid byes, is that fetuses can 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:20.240 recognize and remember sounds from the outside world. But but 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.400 already we're seeing the soothing power of music even before 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:26.040 it has has exited the wound. And I think that's 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.360 an important point because people don't typically think of the 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:33.959 auditory qualities of the womb or or fetus is absorbing that. 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:38.680 But imagine if you were closed inside this this you know, 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:44.640 nice fluid filled room, almost like the soaking um I 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.640 was say, soaking tobes, but they're not that the sensory 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:52.400 deprivation chambers, right, and you had nothing but sound to 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:56.200 orient yourself too, then you probably would have this really 0:11:56.240 --> 0:12:00.679 strong relationship with those sounds around you and the sounds outside. 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.600 This also brings my mind back to our podcast episode 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:07.160 on underwater sound and underwater music, which is is not 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:09.960 a huge area of music listening, but you do see 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.439 people who get really into listening music to music underwater 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:16.880 because that the way that the sound ways carrying the water, 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.000 how it interacts with the skull. UH is supposedly a 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.040 very unique way to take in the sound. I'm sure 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:25.160 that it's got to be a very soothing way as well, 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.000 unless it's just like total headbanger stuff, but even that 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:30.720 in a muffled way might be kind of nice. Yeah, 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.320 like these sort of the the the ambient noise of 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:37.520 the one might experience in the womb. UM. And of 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:42.160 course you more often encounter this with the individuals who 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.400 are saying throwing a bunch of Mozart at their they're 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.640 they're still womb in prison child, or or some other 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.400 type of music, thinking they're going to have some sort 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.480 of profound impact on the child to make the child 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.640 smarter or or more inclined to like blue grass upon 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.960 exiting the womb. And speaking of exiting the womb, UH, 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:03.760 we've talked about this before the fact that humans just 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.599 eate for just three trimesters, which is pretty short in 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.520 the mammal world, and so some people have theorized that 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.640 once the baby is born, those first three months are 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:17.800 more like the fourth trimester, and therefore UH babies need 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.080 to be comforted in a way that is more womb 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.880 like with the sounds and with the swaddling. Yeah, I've 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.600 read that this is uh due in part to our 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.959 bipedal nature, because when we made the shift from a 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.880 quadruped to to a biped uh, suddenly we're walking on 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.120 two legs. It changes the way that our pelvis is shape, 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.280 which narrows the the exit route, the escape route for 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.120 that for that baby. So the baby has to come 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:46.320 out earlier, when it's smaller, and therefore, to a certain extent, 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:52.360 all human babies are premature. So now consider true premature 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:57.120 babies and you really get that sense of how important 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.800 it is to have that sort of womb like exterior 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.960 uh refuge for the child. And if you look at 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.640 lullabys and you look at premies, you can see some 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.280 really astounding information. There was a study published online and 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.800 Pediatrics in two thousand and thirteen. It detailed two hundred 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:18.000 and seventy two babies and eleven eleven different nick us 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:23.120 around the country. And nick you is just an acronym 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:28.360 for basically neonatal clinic for newborns. And the babies were 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.640 born at at least thirty two weeks in gestation, and 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:33.880 they were all pretty small for their gestational age, and 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.000 they had different health issues, as premies often do now. 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.800 Three times a week for two weeks, music therapists would 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:44.760 play two tone heartbeat, womb sounds and other woosh audio 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.320 cues which were synchronized with the baby's vital signs and 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:52.600 it was monitored by their breathing rate, their eye movements, 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:54.880 and other monitors. So think about this. This is an 0:14:54.880 --> 0:15:01.920 intentional sort of gestational sounds that are synchronized with our bodies. Now. 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:05.000 Parents and therapists were also asked to sing a preferred 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:09.120 lullaby called Songs of Kin, which I'm not familiar with, 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.080 or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star if they didn't have a 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.600 selected song remo Ocean disk and this is the type 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:19.960 of music device was associated with the best blood oxygen 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:24.640 levels and quiet alert states in the premise and sucking behavior, 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:28.080 which is super important in premise because they don't they're 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:31.560 not quite there yet so that they can accept milk 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.680 from the mother or or even breastfeed. So the second 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:39.440 thing is really important developmentally in in premies, and that 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:41.440 was best with something called the Gotto box, which is 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.080 again another kind of music device. Now, singing was shown 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:48.760 to increase alert times the best and babies of parents 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:53.000 who chose their own song had better feeding behaviors and 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:57.480 they consumed more calories compared to the twinkle babies. So 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.560 this it doesn't say this in the study, but perhaps 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.760 this ties back to this idea that um, those children 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:09.240 became familiar with those tunes in the womb. M hmm, yeah, 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.440 because those are personal to the parents, to their experience. 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.560 It also makes it sound like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:19.360 is no parents favorite lullaby and yet kids love it. Yeah. Well, 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.560 they love it because it's, uh, it's easy to sing. 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.760 It's it's kind of like it's e bitsy spider. Kids 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.360 love it's epitsy spider, but it's it really doesn't offer 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:30.280 much to the adult. I think it's because they couldn't 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.880 coordinate their hands to it the spider going up the spout, 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:35.640 And the same thing with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, because 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.840 they use their hands to flash up the sign of 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:42.280 flashing stars. I suppose. All right, we're gonna take a 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:43.680 quick break, and when we get back, we're going to 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:55.880 talk about the effect of lullabies on adults. All right, 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.560 we are back, and we're going to talk about adult 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:04.320 pregnant women, Yes, and them listening to lullaby, Yes, exactly. Um. 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.760 It turns out music therapy can reduce psychological stress among 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.040 pregnant women as well. UH. And this makes sense because 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.520 pregnancy is a very stressful time. It's also a long 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:19.159 a period of long term um periods of stress, anxiety, hope, fears, 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:20.760 everything you can pretty much feel as a human, you're 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:25.600 gonna feel stream changes as well. And so we we 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.959 have an interesting study here. This was from the College 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.720 of Nursing at cal Sturing Medical University in Taiwan. They 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.080 randomly assigned a hundred and sixteen pregnant women to a 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.240 music group and one and twenty two a control group. 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.920 So it's, you know, pretty obvious what's going to happen here. 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:45.040 The people in the in the music group, they're listening 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.200 to music. They're listening to h a lullaby CD that 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:52.600 include songs like Brahms, Lullaby, Uh, Twinkle Twink a Little Star, 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.359 as well as stuff like a little Beethoven, a Little 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.600 Debu se as a little bit of classical go to 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.720 sleep music. And they in fact found that the music 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:04.640 group showed significant reductions in stress, anxiety, and depression after 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.880 just two weeks. UH and They used three different established 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.760 measurement scales on this particular study. Yeah, the scales are 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:14.800 important just and we won't go way deep into this, 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:16.680 but just so you know how they kind of weeded 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:21.160 this information out. They used the Perceived Stress scale, and 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:26.920 they also used the State Traite Anxiety Inventory, and then 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:31.320 a third scale which was called the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.960 So they took those three different scales and they tested 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:36.960 them before and after, and what they found is that 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:42.200 there were significant drops in um in their scores when 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:45.240 they were listening to music that particularly like the lullaby 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:49.400 music and the nature sounds and crystals tinkling in the background. Yeah, 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.600 that's important to know too, that it wasn't just classical 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:56.880 music and traditional nursery uh songs, but also these sort 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:01.000 of soothing nature sounds, sort of ambient music, and the 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:05.359 control group just they had very tiny, minuscule drops that 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.560 just weren't really significant. So of course this would bear 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.280 out this idea that the actual music therapy they're just 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:15.760 going to listen to this would actually decrease any thoughts 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:19.240 of depression or anxiety, which is really important. I also 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:23.160 wanted to point out that these thirty minute music CDs 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:27.360 had music that kind of mimic the human heart rate, 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:31.639 and we're talking about between sixty and eighty beats per minute, 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.640 which I think is the key to a lot of this. Yeah, 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:36.680 I mean, it's sort of getting me back to the 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:41.920 relaxed level of of human operations, right. Yeah, it's kind 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.720 of like I was thinking about this, it's placing the 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.840 pregnant woman inside the memory of the womb of her 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:52.960 mother in which they were sixty two eighty beats per minute. 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.480 Because if again, like put yourself in the place of 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.600 the fetus, if you're in there, what are you gonna hear? 0:19:57.680 --> 0:19:59.720 What's going to be that strong signal coming through? If 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:04.120 the human heartbeat? So that I think is the key 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:08.520 to that kind of music becoming a soothing, sort of 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:13.119 oceanic quiescence that that our minds can kind of just 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:17.920 float on, and that takes us this idea of electronic 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:22.840 music is perhaps having the ability to embody this and 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.400 one of the best ways that different types of music can. Yeah, 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:27.960 I mean that the second that you mentioned the heartbeat sound, 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:30.480 I started thinking of various pieces of music that I've 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.639 heard that that echo that kind of heartbeat. Uh. In 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:36.560 one way shape or another. And also that sort of 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:40.520 that that floaty feeling, that liquid e feeling that and 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:44.919 and and sort of the muffled ambient noise outside of 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.639 the womb. I mean you do hear that a lot 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:51.360 in uh, in ambient music, and in music that has 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:55.000 a sort of ambient DNA. Now this is from pop 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.439 Matters is the website. In the article, it's called the 0:20:57.480 --> 0:21:01.119 Science of Sleep The Electronic Lullaby by Timothy Brill, and 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:04.240 he writes the womb is a regular fallback cliche for 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.000 the music writer, particularly one fumbling for a description of 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.920 murky psychedelic sonics. Floating there, comfortably perched in a vat 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:14.639 of amniotic fluid. The fetus's ear, not yet fully developed, 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:18.600 is encased with liquids, surrounded by a protective layer of vernex, 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:22.399 muffling the roughly eight and ninety decibel chronic din of 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.119 blood pumping through the mother's arteries. When he goes on 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.920 to say that newborns, it would seem to him, are 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.439 predisposed to noise music, specifically that of a fuzzy, warm 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.440 and liquid timber. That liquiditydia that you just talked about, 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:38.919 which is also a reason why you you see all 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.520 these these white noise create generators, right for for young 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:47.920 children generally a more static ambient environment for them to 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:51.399 sleep in. But it's still in a sense ambient noise 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:55.520 music nonetheless, and he says that this plays perfectly into 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.320 this kind of womb soundscaping, because he says that it's 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.600 a perfect nue for that wound simulation. He says, ambient 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:10.919 in experimental electronic music regularly incorporates sounds like running water, hums, drones, buzzes, noise, 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.240 tibetan throat singing, and other low frequency towns, all of 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:18.119 which value electro acoustic space is similar in rhythm and 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:20.840 overtone to the prenatal environment. Yeah, and I mean it's 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:22.879 great for us adults too. I mean it works. But 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:29.520 all um, I subscribe to the Hearts of Space podcast. 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:32.119 It's not really a podcast on radio show however you 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:34.679 want to look at it, but music from Hearts of Space. 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:36.960 And I think a lot of NPR listeners are canna 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.399 be familiar with that Bay Area artist. All of it 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:44.359 ambient in nature, ranging from sort of ambient classical music 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:48.440 to like space guitars to to you know, electronic German 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.359