Your favorite song might make the pain less painful

No one likes the pain caused by a needle stick in a doctor’s office or hospital. But according to a new study from Frontiers in Pain ResearchThere is one thing that can ease the pain: music. Listening to the right soundtrack can be a kind of anesthetic, which could be helpful for inserting needles and other painful medical procedures.

“Although a needlestick is a minor procedure, the level of pain can vary greatly from person to person,” radiologist and lead author Dr. Andrei-Cristinel Dragnea of ​​University Hospital Zurich said in a statement accompanying the study’s publication. “In modern medicine, the goal of treating physicians is not only to provide effective diagnosis and therapy, but also to ensure that the procedure causes as little discomfort as possible.”

To conduct their research, Dragnea and his colleagues studied 204 people who were undergoing MRI scans of the brain, spine, head or neck and divided them into four groups. One group listened to gentle relaxation music similar to that played during a massage; we listened to a composition by Mozart; one listened to his favorite songs; and the fourth, a control group, did not listen to music. For the first three groups, music was played before, during and after the insertion of a cannula, which is a port-shaped tube slipped into a vein for the purpose of administering medication, general anesthesia or contrast material before an MRI.

Mozart’s music was not just any selection, but Sonata K488, written for two pianos, in D major. This song made headlines in 1993 when a study published in the journal Nature found that listening to classical music – and this composition in particular – was linked to improved memory, problem solving, and spatial-temporal reasoning. Although the mechanism involved has not been firmly established, this discovery gave rise to what became known in science as the “Mozart effect.” The songs chosen by the group as they listened to their favorite tracks included, among others, those of AC/DC Safe in New Yorkthat of Lionel Richie Good morningand crash test dummies Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm.

People were asked to rate their pain before and after the cannula was inserted. Those who listened to gentle relaxation music or no music experienced no significant reduction in pain before, during, or after the procedure. There are possible reasons why the singalong and generic music was ineffective. “Relaxation music is typically characterized by slow speed and low volume, and does not exhibit noticeable dynamics,” Dr. Meritxell Garcia Alzamora, a neuroradiologist at University Hospital Zurich and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “These characteristics may have contributed to patients neglecting relaxation music, which would explain the lack of pain relief.”

The other two groups showed some pain relief after listening to music. Those who heard Mozart’s composition and those who listened to their favorite songs saw a significant reduction in pain two minutes after the procedure. The “favorite music” group even had an added advantage in pain relief that no other group experienced: Just 30 seconds after the procedure, they rated their pain lower than the other groups, compared to their baseline level.

Why does certain music seem to have an analgesic effect? The researchers didn’t attempt to answer the question definitively, but their findings raised some possibilities. Listening to music, they write in the study, can trigger the release of endorphins, chemical messengers that bind to opioid receptors to reduce or eliminate pain. Music can also calm the body, leading to a reduction in blood pressure, heart rate, anxiety and stress, all of which can reduce pain. Being distracted by music can also engage the limbic system and prefrontal networks of the brain, activating pain mediation networks. These neuronal regions are known to have a somewhat delayed effect, which could explain why people felt relief two minutes after the injection. It’s also possible, the researchers admit, that it wasn’t the music that was responsible for the pain reduction, but rather the presence of a friendly, distracting experimenter in the room.

In the future, the investigators plan to explore other types of classical music beyond Mozart that may have similar, or even greater, pain relief benefits. They also hope to determine whether music can serve as an analgesic for pain more severe than needle sticks.

There are many pharmacological approaches in the anesthesiologist’s toolbox. Music – free, easy and risk-free – could be a valuable drug-free supplement.