More Than Distraction: How Music Relieves Pain
/By Pat Anson
Music won’t cure chronic pain, but there is growing evidence that listening to your favorite tunes helps reduce pain levels.
The type of music doesn’t seem to matter – whether it’s Mozart or heavy metal – the key seems to be that listeners like what they hear and choose it themselves. Singing or humming along, moving in sync to music, or even playing the air guitar are also good ways to ease pain.
That’s what researchers at Drexel University found when they reviewed 57 clinical studies that evaluated the effects of music on pain.
Like a lot of pain research, many of the studies were small and induced pain in a laboratory by having healthy volunteers briefly dunk their hands in cold water – not the daily pain that comes from arthritis, migraine or an aching back.
"Researching how music affects pain may sound simple, but it is actually very challenging because of the complexity of music and the complexity of pain," says lead author Joke Bradt, PhD, Professor and Program Director of the PhD in Creative Arts Therapies program at Drexel University.
"In my clinical work, I mostly use active music-making, such as singing, vocal improvisation and playing instruments because I have seen this to be much more effective for chronic pain than merely listening to music.”
The study findings, recently published in PAIN Reports, suggest that there’s more to music than simple distraction. To be effective, it’s important for the music to be pleasant to the listener to help counteract the unpleasant sensations of pain. Someone who prefers country music or jazz may not get any pain relief listening to heavy metal.
“Although distraction is often cited as a potential mechanism, current evidence suggests that attentional capture alone is insufficient for hypoalgesia. Unpleasant music or neutral sounds, while engaging attention, typically fail to reduce pain,” researchers found.
“Thus, music does not appear to reduce pain merely through the automatic capture of attention by an auditory stimulus. However, it remains possible that listeners sustain attention toward the music in a more deliberate and controlled manner.”
Active participation also plays a role. The simple act of choosing your own music and humming or singing along helps overcome the passive role that pain often induces.
"The findings from our study help explain why music can be an effective, low-risk approach for pain management and how we can maximize its potency," said Bradt.
