Can Your Favourite Music Reduce Pain?
Looking at the science behind the story
Music is a wonderful thing. There’s something inherently human in our shared love of sound. Whether it be Chopin or the latest Olivia Rodrigo song, there’s a deep sense of connection that we can only achieve when listening to a piece of music that we all love.
And, according to recent headlines, music can also treat pain as effectively as common painkillers like Advil.
If true, this would be, if not huge, at least quite meaningful. Obviously it’s not possible to listen to music in every situation in which you might be in pain, but if music was such an effective treatment for pain it would be an incredibly useful tool in our arsenal, not least because pain is generally very hard to treat.
As someone who experiences chronic pain, I personally found the stories to be very interesting — this could be directly impactful for my life! Unfortunately, this new study doesn’t show that music is helpful for pain. At best, it just shows that when people listen to their favourite song they are a bit happier than when they listen to nothing at all.
