Researchers have found that music can meaningfully reduce how people experience pain, according to a recent study published in Scientific Reports. The team reported that listening to music can even lessen patients’ reliance on pain medication across both acute and chronic conditions.
“Pain is a really complex experience,” Florida State University psychologist Adam Hanley told the Associated Press. “It’s created by a physical sensation, and by our thoughts about that sensation and emotional reaction to it.”
That mind-body interplay helps explain why music appears to work. A growing body of research helps explain why it has this effect. A separate study published in the journal Pain found that music can improve people’s ability to cope with discomfort, and sometimes even perceive the pain as less intense. In another experiment from Erasmus University Rotterdam, researchers exposed 548 volunteers to extremely cold temperatures and found that listening to pop, classical, rock, urban, or electronic music helped people tolerate pain for longer.
“The more people listened to a favorite genre, the more they could endure pain,” said Dr. Emy van der Valk Bouman, co-author of the study. “A lot of people thought that classical music would help them more. Actually, we are finding more evidence that what’s best is just the music you like.”
Across these studies, a shared pattern emerges: the biggest benefits occur when patients (or their families) choose the music themselves and actively focus on it, rather than treating it as background noise.
Clinicians are seeing similar effects at the bedside. At UC San Diego Health, nurse Rod Salaysay brings a guitar or ukulele into the recovery unit and plays songs that patients request. As they listen, Salaysay has tracked noticeable physiological shifts. Many patients see drops in blood pressure and heart rate, and some report needing fewer painkillers afterward.
The idea isn’t new. Music’s role in pain management dates back centuries, according to McGill University Newsroom, including documented cases of music helping reduce pain during dental procedures before local anesthesia existed in the 19th century. Today’s research is taking that further, using new methods to measure, reinterpret, and extend long-observed links between music and pain perception.
As the research grows, the takeaway is increasingly clear: pain relief doesn’t hinge solely on pharmaceuticals. The evidence suggests that music may play a meaningful and measurable role in how patients manage pain today.
