Silence is golden for studying

Silence is golden. There might more wisdom in this saying than most people have guessed. In experiments, speaking raises blood pressure and listening lowers it. And it's not just because you're making sounds. Reading aloud alone does not raise blood pressure, but reading aloud to someone does.

The combination of music and study has long been a bone of contention between adults and children.

Parents and teachers alike maintain that silence is golden when learning. Youngsters insist that their favorite sounds help them concentrate.

Now a study shows the grown ups have been right all along. Psychologists in Florida tested how fast a group of students wrote essays with and without music in the background. They found that the sounds slowed progress down by an average of 60 words per hour. That demonstrates clearly that it is difficult to cope well with listening and writing simultaneously, said Dr Sarah Ransdell of Florida Atlantic University in Fort Lauderdale.

She also concluded it is a myth that instrumental music is less distracting than vocals. All types of music had the same effect, she said in today's New Scientist magazine. 'One's writing fluency is likely to be disrupted by both vocal and instrumental music,' she added.

However, those with some musical training tended to be less badly distracted although there was still a negative effect.

Professor Cary Cooper, a psychologist at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, said the research illustrated that the idea that music could help performance was wrong.

He added: 'Writing an essay is a complex cognitive task. You are retrieving information and sequencing it.

Living with the constant hum of background noise can seriously damage your health. The first research of its kind suggests that families living near busy roads or under flight paths could be suffering harmful effects, even if they are unaware of being irritated.Those in the noisier range tended to have raised blood pressure, heart rates and levels of stress hormones.

Leading students in weekly mindfulness meditation helps them learn to calm their emotions and focus their thoughts.