Deep breathing, soft music reduces stress

SEATTLE, March 12 (UPI) -- Deep breathing while listening to soft music relieves stress as much as an expensive massage, health researchers in Seattle said.

Scientists at the Group Health Research Institute divided 68 stressed-out patients into three groups for 10 treatments of deep breathing, massage or theromtherapy -- wrapping the body in warm towels, The New York Daily News reported Friday.

All of the treatments occurred in a dimly lit room with soft music playing, researcher Karen Sherman wrote in a recent issue of the journal Depression and Anxiety.

At the end of the treatment period, the anxiety of participants in all three groups had dropped by about 40 percent, Sherman told The Daily Telegraph.

"We were surprised to find that the benefits of massage were no greater than those of the same number of sessions of 'thermotherapy' or listening to relaxing music," Sherman said. "This suggests that the benefits of massage may be due to a generalized relaxation response."