1

Understanding the effect of relaxation music on

human Brainwaves

AbstractIn recent years, a lot of research has focus on the

physiological effect of music. The electroencephalographic
(EEG) is often used to verify the influence of music on human
brain activity. This study was conducted to understand the
effects of relaxation music on Alpha and Beta rhythms of the
subjects EEG. Research shows Alpha waves are predominantly
observed in healthy relaxed individuals. For each subject, three
EEG recordings were taken. One before listening to the music,
one after one minute and the last towards the end of listening to
music. The analysis showed that there was an increase in the
maximum amplitude, mean and the standard deviation of Alpha
waves power and decline in those parameters for Beta waves
towards the end of the stimuli.

I. INTRODUCTION

usic's interconnection with society can be seen

throughout history. Every known culture on the earth
has music. Music seems to be one of the basic actions of
humans. During the last decades, information about the
relationship between music and human brain has become
more and more important in human-computer interaction. In
contemporary society stress arises from many sources,
afflicting many persons. Due to this reason services and
products aiding relaxation are being increasingly developed
and marketed, one form of which is music being used in
medical treatment.
Music is the pattern of sounds produced by people singing
or playing instruments. It plays an important role in the
whole society. Music has a great effect on the body and the
mind. Music therapy is one of the developing fields of
healthcare which uses music to heal many diseases are being
cured using music as it lowers the blood pressure, makes the
body calm, lessen pain and so on. Depending on the way
sound waves are listened to or pronounced, they have an
impact in the way the neurological (brain and nerve) system
works in the human body. Music has played a role in
relaxation since ancient times.
The electroencephalogram (EEG) was first recorded by
Hans Berger in 1924 by attaching electrodes on human skull.
The EEG signals are measured using electrodes placed on the
scalps is noninvasive method, which records the electrical
fields generated by the nervous cells. In this study a single
channel EEG system is used for acquire brain signals and
signal processing was done using MATLAB software. With
the help of Fourier Transformation, the EEG signals are
classified into four different frequency bands: Delta (<4Hz),
Theta (48 Hz), Alpha (812 Hz) and Beta (1330 Hz).
According to previous findings the Alpha rhythms is
dominated in a relaxation state of consciousness and eye
closed over the occipital cortex. The Beta rhythms is related
with active, busy or anxiety and active concentration. The

Department of Electrical & Information Engineering

Faculty of Engineering
University of Ruhuna

Delta rhythm is often associated with young and underlying

lesions. Theta rhythm is associated with drowsiness,
childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood.
In recent years, a lot of research has shown that music has
physiological effect which is quantifiable [1]-[3]. However, in
the electroencephalographic (EEG), some research makes use
of EEG to verify the influence of music on human brain
activity. This research has emphasized on the development of
tools and methods for analyzing bio-signals, especially EEG
with musical signal stimuli.
Spectral analysis based on fast Fourier transformed (FFT) is
the typical method used to analyze EEG. Different bands of
EEG have been defined to describe the different physiological
conditions. In music-related researches, the band powers are
important parameters. Fitzgibbon et al. [4] investigated
sustained human gamma EEG oscillations and
found that all of the cognitive tasks augmented
gamma power relative to a control condition.
These study conclusions that widespread gamma
activation of cortical EEG can easily be
demonstrated during mental activity.
Many types of music have been used as the music stimuli to
discover the brain activity and the physiological effect [6]-[9].
They are still investigating the interrelation between music
and emotions. Different bands of EEG have been defined to
describe the different physiological conditions [1, 2].
Individuals who are exposed to the suitable selection of music
demonstrate significant reductions in state of anxiety and
increase the relaxation levels [8]-[10]. Alpha frequency gives
a significant effect in showing emotions [11]. They had
proven that different type of stimuli make the brain response
differently. Alpha can replicate the brain relaxed wakefulness
and when there is significant activity on other part of the
brain, the alpha power decreases.
This study will be focusing on find variations in Alpha &
Beta bands of human EEG. The maximum amplitude, mean
and standard deviation of Alpha was considered as
parameters to measure the level of alpha and beta activity.
The selected musical piece is expected to bring relaxation to
the mind of the participants.
II. METHODOLOGY
A. Data Acquisition
EEG is the recording of electrical activity along
the scalp of a subject produced by the firing of
neurons within the brain. EEG was recorded with the
following instrumental setting.
To obtain the EEG signals two silver electrodes were placed
on the scalp of the subject. Then the captured signal was
amplified into a certain level which can be digitalized
properly. The major tasks of the system was to deal with
noise interferences. Therefore the amplified signal was
filtered out to cancel the unwanted artifacts from the desired
signal. After that the filtered analog signal was digitized. We

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used a circuit called ARDUINO for the purpose of A/D
conversion. Then the digitalized signal was taken into a
computer through the serial port.

Figure 1: System Overview

The Instrumentation amplifier (INA 114) used in the
beginning of the signal acquisition section has been designed
to have a gain around 12 with CMRR of 115 dB. The next
amplification stage consists of two operational amplifiers
built to get the necessary gain. After the instrumentation
amplifier, there is a high pass filter with cutoff frequency is
about 0.16Hz which is designed to remove DC offsets. Then
3rd order low pass filter with a cutoff frequency (fc) = 59 Hz
which provides a gain of 16 at first amplification stage and
gain of 40 at second amplification stage, with the operational
amplifier TLC 277 at its center. The total gain provided by
filter circuit is 640. A notch filter is used to remove a
particular frequency. In our design low pass cutoff frequency
is 59 Hz. Therefore 50Hz power line noise is added to the
output. Because of that we design 50 Hz notch filer using Opamp TLC 277 to reject power line noise.
B. Subjects
This study involved 10 healthy subjects, 5 male and 5
females from Faculty of Engineering University of Ruhuna.
All participants aged 23-25 years. Prior to the experiment the
participants did not take any medication and had no
experience of relaxation training.
C. Experimental Design
The experiment was conducted in a room with a controlled
environment which has minimum noises as much as possible.
During the recording sessions, subjects sit on a chair with
eyes closed and were instructed not to move. Subjects hear the
relaxation music stimuli through headphones. Each recording
session was divided into three sequential periods.
For each session, brainwave was recorded without any music
with eyes opened. After this period, the subject need to listen
to relax music for 3 minutes with closed eye and EEG is
recorded simultaneously at the beginning and end of the
session. During those periods, samples of two seconds each
were recorded for every subject.
Before
listening to
music

At the Beginning
of listening to
music

At the End of
listening to
music

2 Seconds

2 Seconds

2 Seconds

D. Signal Processing
All the signals acquired by the hardware system were
analyzed using the software program built in MATLAB. It
was consist with numerous functions to handle and process
EEG data.
Since our system utilizes a Computer (PC) to visualize &
analyze signal processing it has to be converted to a digital
signal and transmitted to the PC. The digital sub section is
responsible for carry out this task
For the task of converting Analog signal in to digital form we
use a microcontroller known as Arduino Duemilanove
ATmega328. Arduino has an Analog to Digital converter
module, with a maximum resolution of 10 bits. Another
special feature in Arduino board is when it is connected to a
computer using USB it create a virtual serial port on machine
and enables serial communication with microcontroller
through USB.
By setting the baud rate of microcontroller to
19200 bps, MATLAB program collects 414
samples per second which is a very good
sampling rate for a EEG signal.
We use MATLAB software for our Signal Acquisition and
Processing System mainly due to its abilities on capture serial
data, digital signal processing, plotting capability & complex
mathematical calculations. We use the MATLAB Guide to
develop graphical user interfaces which easier our research
data manipulation. The developed interface is shown in figure
2.
This interface shows the time domain and frequency
domain representation of signal. And from this we also can
find mean & standard deviation of time signal and mean,
standard deviation & peak values of frequency domain Alpha
& Beta components separately.
For
taking
the
frequency
domain
representation we use MATLAB command Y =
fft(X) built in to MATLAB to take Fast Fourier
Transform. Finding the Mean of a signal is done
by MATLAB command M = mean(X). Standard
deviation of the require signal components are
found by MATLAB command S=std(X) and Peak
value of a selected signal component by C =
max(X) where X is the input signal and Y, M,
S,
C
are
outputs
from
computation
respectively.

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power values of recorded EEG signals.
Figure 2: Developed Graphical User Interface
III. RESULTS
E. Data Analysis

A. Time Domain

1) Time Domain
The signals were observed and analyzed in time domain to
find specific features in them. But since the EEG is a nonstationary signal, it was highly difficult to observe dominant
feature related to relaxation effect in time domain. Therefore
Only the mean and standard deviation of the signal was
considered in calculations.
The mean value and standard deviation of the voltage
signal is obtained in MATLAB software and plotted against
each subject for all three instances.
Graph 1 and 2 shows the mean and standard deviation of
the voltage values of recorded EEG signals.
2) Frequency Domain

Graph 1: Mean of voltage values comparison for before, in the beginning and in
the end of relaxation

The signals recorded using the capturing system were

analyzed in frequency domain using Fourier transform to
extract features in them. In frequency domain analysis all
EEG data were filtered accordingly to delta (), theta (),
alpha () and beta () bands. Bands of interest are the alpha
and beta. Maximum value, Mean and Standard Deviation of
power values were calculated for all subjects using the
software.
We have used three statistical analysis parameters, namely
maximum amplitude of signal power, mean and the standard
deviation.
a) Maximum value of power in frequency spectrum:

The Maximum amplitude of Alpha and Beta waves

frequency spectrums versus subject plots are presented in
Graph 1- Graph 3.
Graphs are plotted separately for before, in the
beginning and in the end of listening to the
relaxation music.

Graph 2: Standard deviation of voltage values comparison for before, in the

beginning and in the end of relaxation

B. Frequency Domain

b) Mean:

The mean of the Fourier transformed EEG signal was

calculated using the MATLAB software. Group bar charts for
alpha and beta bands of all subjects are shown in Graphs 6Graph 8.
c) Standard deviation:
Standard Deviation is a measure of how much variation
or dispersion there is from the mean. It is calculated as
the square root of variance. Low standard deviation
indicates that the data points tend to be very close to the
mean. Whereas high standard deviation indicates the data
are spread out over a large range values.
Graph 8 - Graph 11 shows the standard deviation of

Graph 3: Maximum values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands before relaxation

Graph 7: Mean values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands in the beginning of
relaxation

Graph 4: Maximum values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands in the beginning
of relaxation

Graph 8: Mean values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands in the end of
relaxation

Graph 5: Maximum values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands in the end of
relaxation

Graph 9: Standard deviation of power values Comparison of Alpha & Beta

bands before relaxation

Graph 6: Mean values comparison of Alpha & Beta bands before relaxation

Graph 10: Standard deviation of power values comparison of Alpha & Beta
bands in the beginning of relaxation

Graph 11: Standard deviation of power values comparison of Alpha & Beta
bands in the end of relaxation

IV. DISCUSSION
The main goal of this study was to understand
the effects of relaxation music on Alpha and Beta
rhythms of the subjects EEG. In order to compare
the differences between alpha and beta bands of
subjects for listening to the relaxation music, we
statistical parameters namely, the maximum
value, mean and standard deviation of the
signal.
The mean values of time domain signal voltage over ten
subjects during three situations have shown no significant
differences in our experiments (Graph 1). Even though with
this experiment it was not successful to verify that signal
voltage decreases with the level of relaxation, however we
have found the average voltage (mean) of human voltage lie
almost in same range for all subjects.
Graph 2 shows the dispersion of Alpha and
Beta
component
powers.
This
indicates
consistency in the beginning and end of
recordings. And also shows that extreme values
of artifacts do not unduly influence the
measurement.
The analysis in the frequency domain was proven to be
more successful than in the time domain. Compared with the
before and in the beginning of listening to music; the alpha
wave component increased towards the end of the relaxation
session. On the other hand, the beta component decreased.
Also this result was seen in all three aspects of measurement;
the maximum value, the mean and the standard deviation of
Fourier transformed signal for almost all subjects.

The Graph 3- Graph 5 shows that the

maximum amplitude of Alpha wave powers
increases either beginning of the stimulus or in
end of the stimulus suggesting that the subjects
have reached the Alpha state of mind. This
shows an increase in the relaxation and
concentration attained by the subject. At the
same time decline in Beta activity indicates the
decrease in higher state of alertness to external
stimuli and tension.
The Graph 6- Graph 8 shows the average
power of Alpha and Beta component powers. The
Graph 9- Graph 11shows the dispersion of Alpha
and Beta component powers. It is observed that there
is a dramatic increase in the Alpha power, and decline in the
Beta activity, in the results towards the end of the listening
session.
During the process of listening to relaxation music, an
increasing Alpha level suggested that the subject was in the
relaxed state. During alpha awareness the mind is relaxed
and alert. It is a state of passive awareness, composure, and of
physical and mental relaxation. Emotional sensations in the
alpha state include a sense of well-being, pleasure and
tranquility. Alpha appears to bridge the conscious to the
subconscious.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Since anxiety and stress are major emotional contents of
human beings, the goal of this experiment is to assess the
means of relaxation and concentration using relaxation
music, which influence the alpha and beta rhythms
significantly.
The main interest of the present study constitute of the
analyzing the EEG in time domain and frequency domain
during listening to the relaxation music.
Analysis results for 10 subjects showed that music
relaxation could increase Alpha activity and decrease Beta
activity in human brain.

Measuring brain waves alone in subjects

listening to relaxation piece to determine the
relationship between music and brain waves
presents problems. We cannot, for example,
know either the effect caused by listening to
the music piece alone or that caused by any
other means. However, the non-stationary nature of EEG
signal presented some differences in expected results for time
domain analysis, Also, there might be small
variations in the recorded values due to line
noise,
electrode
movement,
eye
muscle
movements etc.
The EEG system used to acquire brain signals is need to be
developed further; which might also affected the result to
some extent. In the future works we must pay attention to
reduce those problems. For more successful results number of
channels used to extract the alpha wave and the beta wave
component must be increased, since they cannot be extracted
accurately in a single channel.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to express gratitude to Dr. P.D.C.
Perera, Dr. K. Pirapaharan and Dr K. Gunawikrama.
Department of electrical & Information Engineering, Faculty
of Engineering, University of Ruhun, for technical help and
to participants for assistance to the experiment.
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