Headbanging can cause brain injury

London, Dec 18 (ANI): Headbanging to Led Zeppelin, AC/DC or Metallica's songs during a concert might seem just the right thing for you to do, but according to a new study, violently rocking your head back and forth to loud music can cause brain injury.

Therefore, when rock fans look dazed and confused, it's probably caused by headaches and dizziness from their incessant head and neck motion.

The faster the song, the greater the chances of neck injury, according to researchers in Australia.

They even suggest protective equipment such as neck braces could be the next must-have accessory at a gig, reports the British Medical Journal.

To reach the conclusion, Declan Patton and Professor Andrew McIntosh from the University of New South Wales, analysed the injury risk from head banging and examined possible ways to protect against these injuries.

The researchers attended hard rock and heavy metal concerts including Motörhead, Ozzy Osbourne and Skid Row, and identified that the up-down style was the most common head banging technique.

They constructed a theoretical head banging model of this popular style to examine the effect the range of head and neck motion has on injury severity. A focus group of ten musicians was used to calculate the average tempo of their favourite head banging songs.

The authors found that there is an increasing risk of neck injury beginning at tempos of 130 beats per minute related to the range of motion in the head banging style.

The average head banging song has a tempo of about 146 beats per minute. The authors suggest that at this tempo head banging may cause headaches and dizziness if the range of movement of the head and neck is more than 75º.

They report that at higher tempos and greater ranges of motion there is an additional risk of neck injury.

The study has been published in the British Medical Journal. (ANI)