Participants reported having suffered from FMS for a mean of 120 ± 86 months. The mean BMI was 25.24 ± 2.90. Four participants had conditions which potentially influenced sCort or sAA: one had a BMI of 31.2, one suffered from Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and two suffered from inflammatory respiratory diseases. As there is no reason to assume that these conditions affect subjective data, these participants were included in all analyses regarding subjective data. For analyses in which biological markers were included, we initially excluded these four participants, although as their exclusion did not alter the pattern of results, we decided to include these patients in all analyses for the sake of consistency.
Data from the MPQ (n = 29) on participants’ habitual music listening behavior revealed that patients listened to music on average for 2.0 ± 2.2 h per day. The reasons most commonly stated for listening to music were: ‘activation’ (