Certain Types of Music Can Help People Feel Less Pain, New Study Claims

Sixty-three healthy young adult participants took part in the study, which shared its results earlier this week

Certain types of music can help people feel less pain, according to a new study.

Earlier this week, the study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Pain Research, highlighted that listening to favorite songs can reduce an individual's perception of pain.

The study gathered 63 healthy young adult participants at the Roy pain laboratory at McGill University in Canada, where researchers used a device to heat an area on their left arm that created a sensation that researchers described as being similar to a hot cup of coffee being held against their skin.

As the device heated their skin, the participants listened to either two of their favorite songs, relaxing music selected for them, scrambled music or silence. As the selected track played, the study participants were then asked to rate the "intensity and unpleasantness" of the pain.

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In their findings, researchers discovered that participants rated the pain as less intense when listening to their favorite tracks, as compared to when they listened to silence or scrambled sounds.

Relaxing music selected for them, meanwhile, did not produce a similar less intense effect, according to the study.

“We can approximate that favorite 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 under the same conditions," Darius Valevicius, one of the study's authors said, per The Guardian.

Valevicius added that emotional or "moving" music may have potentially had "an even stronger effect" on those who participated in the study.

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