How can we mitigate the rare but very real risk of headbanging?
If you research for heavy metal in the National Library of Medicine database, more than you find is in heavy metal contamination in fish, which “makes it difficult to establish clearly the role of eating fish in a healthy diet’ and perhaps helps to explain a fivefold increase in the chances of autoimmune diseases such as juvenile arthritis. But also looking for the dangers of heavy metal it pops entries about the “dangers of heavy metal music”. In this study, the researchers talked about traumatic injuries from being hit “during a moshing session,” but you’re more likely to get injured at an alternative rock concert. (See some of the artists below and at 0:50 in my video The Dangerous Effects of Heavy Metal Music.)
Sure, music-induced hearing loss it is a serious problem, but this can arise from any loud music. Clinical recommendations include the “80–90 rule”—no more than 80% of maximum volume on personal hearing aids for no more than 90 minutes per day. That’s not what the science shows, however. “Don’t exceed 60% of maximum volume” may be more evidence-based, but the researchers assumed that teenagers would simply ignore it, so they came up with more “acceptable” advice.
I assumed I’d see a lot of satanic panic nonsense from the 1980s when “parents bereaved with suicide…accused Heavy Metal bands of promoting suicidal behavior and…proceeded to sue musicians.” What kind of evidence did the parents present? There has there was “little scientific research” published until the paper “The Heavy Metal Subculture and Suicide” which attempted to correlate the number of subscriptions to state heavy metal magazines with youth suicide rates. Seriously;
It got really wild, though, when researchers called mental institutions, pretending the parents were concerned because their son started listening to heavy metal music, even though they made it clear that their son showed no symptoms of mental illness, did not do drugs or alcohol, and was doing well in school. Ten of the twelve facilities believed the son needed psychiatric treatment. Imagine what that would do to a child! The researchers found that, decades later, the metallurgists “it was they are much happier in their youth and better adjusted” than their peers.
Some studies were strange. You do Parkinson’s patients ride better to listen to “Yellow Submarine” by the Beatles or “Master of Puppets” by Metallica? (See below and at 2:32 in mine video.)
Others it was quite non-descript. Heavy metal musicians show a higher heart rate than those performing “contemporary Christian”, which is not surprising, as you can see here and at 2:40.
Some others were kind of cute, like him investigated the influence of music in promoting patient safety during surgery—namely, in veterinary patients. The kittens were spayed with little headphones on their heads. It turns out that “Adagio for Strings” can be more relaxing than AC/DC.
A review of music therapy for human patients warned: “Caution must be taken… when guiding patients in their choice of music. “Chaotic music, like us [sic] hip-hop and metal, it doesn’t heal human cells.” This even had three reports, although two of them say nothing and the third it is a nursing newsletter that simply quotes someone’s opinion. I did some digging, and this turns that stomach cancer cells like metal. If you play them Cannibal Corpse vs. Beethoven, 12 hours of death metal grow them in a petri dish, as you can see below and at 3:28 in my video. (That’s so metal.)
But who puts headphones on their stomach? Or their breasts, for that matter? In one study, Mozart he was killed from one type of breast cancer cell line but not from another. in another study, only Beethoven’s 5th Symphony was seen workand Mozart fell when Petri dishes were surrounded by speakers. How do these things get published?
Anyway, the real danger from heavy metal is headbanging. “Headbanging is a modern dance form consisting of sudden bending-extension movements of the head to the beat of rock music, most commonly seen in the heavy metal genre.” Although the “number of rabid fans is unknown … some fans may be put at risk by excessive headbanging.” Despite the fact that headbanging is generally “considered harmless”, several health complications have been attributed to this practice, such as tearing your carotid artery, rupturing your lung, whiplash injury, neck fracture, or subdural hematoma. One man reported that he was headbanking at a Motörhead concert, and all those “dynamic forces of forward and backward acceleration and deceleration” may have ruptured his bridging veins and caused him to bleed into his skull.
As seen here and at 4:47 on mine videobridging veins bridge the space between the brain and the covering that covers the inside of our skull, and if the veins tear, blood can pool under our skull and compress our brain.
This vein bridge rupture was it turned out on the corpses of the head (another very metal study). See below and at 5:02 in mine video. It has been done resembles in a “pseudo-shaken baby syndrome” in adults.
The researchers end up that “their case serves as evidence to support Motörhead’s reputation as one of the hardest-hitting rock’n’roll acts on earth,” but I think the real takeaway is that a potentially dangerous complication like subdural hematoma box the result of “an apparently benign activity such as head banging.” And part of the brain is bleeding box to be massive. A man complained of “a headache after headbanking at a party.” Why? As you can see in his CT scan below and at 5:35, circled in red is all the blood pooling over his brain. Amazingly, he survived. another man didn’t, headbanging and losing his life from a fatal subdural hemorrhage.
We can tearing more than veins. There are two sets of arteries that enter the skull—the carotid arteries at the front and the vertebral arteries at the back—and we can tear both sets. A 15-year-old boy ‘headbanged’ and tore his carotid artery, which led to a massive stroke. He presented semi-paralyzed and unable to speak and died in a coma within a week.
What about the vertebral arteries in the back? It is wedged in in our skulls, making them vulnerable to shearing forces from extreme neck movements, and that’s exactly what appeared to happen when a drummer’s barrel tore through the artery wall. All this it is really rare, probably afflicting less than one in a thousand or so. What can metallurgists do to reduce risk? “To prevent injury due to such a blow to the head, the range of motion of the head and neck should be reduced, slower music should replace heavy metal rock, the frequency of hitting the head should be only every second blow, or personal protective equipment should be used.”
“There has been little official investigation into injuries be conducted on the global phenomenon of head impact,” so the researchers constructed “a theoretical model of head impact” with enough physical terms to make any nerd happy: “angular displacement,” “sinusoidal motion in the sagittal plane,” and “width of the displacement curve.” The study participants? Headbangers. The control group? This is easy with easy music listening.
Head injury curves and neck injury curves based on head impact rate and angular sweep are shown below and at 7:23.
“An average head banging song has a rate of about 146 beats per minute, which is predicted to cause mild head injury when the range of motion is greater than 75º, so something like seen below and at 7:34 in mine video.
The researchers end up: “To minimize the risk of head and neck injury, head bangers should reduce head and neck range of motion, head bang on slower tempo songs by replacing heavy metal with adult-oriented rock, only head bang every other beat, or use personal protective equipment.”
“Unfortunately, it is difficult, if not impossible change the habits of heavy metal fans”. Maybe what we need are neck braces with metal studs.
Doctor’s note
What about the healing potential of music? Depart Music as medicine and Music for Anxiety: Mozart vs. Metal.
