Tuning into favourite songs may help in reducing pain more effectively: Study

According to a new study carried out by the researchers, our favourite songs can turn into powerful painkillers, especially the music which moves the listeners.

For a long, music has been known to help people in relieving pain as recent research states that the effect may be seen in babies also. However, other studies reveal that the favourite tunes of people are likely to have a stronger painkilling effect compared to the relaxing music which they have selected for themselves.

The researchers now stated that they have gathered evidence which proves that the human's emotional responses which are generated by listening to music also matter.

“We can approximate that favourite music reduced pain by about one point on a 10-point scale, which is at least as strong as an over-the-counter painkiller like Advil [ibuprofen] under the same conditions. Moving music may have an even stronger effect,” stated Darius Valevicius, the research's first author from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

In the report published in the journal Frontiers in Pain Research, Darius Valevicius and his colleagues stated that 63 healthy participants were asked to attend the Roy pain laboratory on the McGill campus, where a probe device was used by the researchers to heat a part of their left arm and create a sensation similar to that of holding a cup of coffee.

During the process, the participants were made to listen to two of their favourite songs, relaxing music which was chosen for them, silence or scrambled music.

Favourite songs, silence or scrambled music more effective than soothing tracks

While listening to sound, music or silence, the participants rated the unpleasantness and intensity of the pain. Every participant was made to experience every condition for around seven minutes, during which eight pain stimulations and eight ratings took place.

After the end of the auditory period, the participants rated the pleasantness they experienced while listening to music, their emotional arousal, and the “chills” they experienced, which can be shivers, tingling and goosebumps.

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In the results, it was revealed that pain was rated as less intense by about four points by the participants on a 100-point scale, and less unpleasant by nearly nine points when they listened to their favourite songs in comparison to scrambled sound or silence. Moving music, which was selected for them, failed to produce such an effect.

“We found a very strong correlation between music pleasantness and pain unpleasantness, but zero correlation between music pleasantness and pain intensity, which would be an unlikely finding if it was just placebo or expectation effects,” Valevicius said while speaking to The Guardian.

“The difference in effect on pain intensity implies two mechanisms – chills may have a physiological sensory-gating effect, blocking ascending pain signals, while pleasantness may affect the emotional value of pain without affecting the sensation, so more at a cognitive-emotional level involving prefrontal brain areas,” he added.

(With inputs from agencies)

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