Holistic Intent: Music is Natural Pain Medicine

Who doesn't enjoy listening to their favorite music? Well, it turns out that it's actually good for you, if you don't blow your eardrums out, that is (teens, can you hear me?). A study at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio found that listening to music can reduce chronic pain by up to 21 per cent and depression by up to 25 per cent (Journal of Advanced Nursing).

The participants also felt more in control of their pain and less disabled by their condition. In the clinical trial sixty people were divided into two music groups and a control group.

The researchers found that the people who listened to music for an hour every day for a week reported improved physical and psychological symptoms compared to the control group. The participants, who had an average age of 50, were recruited from pain and chiropractic clinics in Ohio.

They had been suffering from a range of painful conditions including osteoarthritis, disc problems and rheumatoid arthritis for six and a half years. 90 per cent said the pain affected more than one part of their body and 95 per cent said the pain was continuous.

Before the music study, participants reported that their usual pain averaged just under six on a scale from zero to ten and their worst pain exceeded nine out of ten. Everyone in the music groups listened to music on a headset for an hour a day. Forty people were assigned to the two music groups and the other 20 formed the control group.

All of the participants, including the control group, kept a pain diary to monitor their daily pain level.

The first group picked their own favorite music, including everything from pop and rock to slow melodies and nature sounds traditionally used to promote sleep or relaxation. The second group chose from five relaxing tapes selected by the research group. These featured piano, jazz, orchestra, harp and synthesizer used in previous pain studies.

At the end of the trial the music groups reported that their pain level had fallen by between 12 and 21 per cent when measured on two different pain measurement scales. The control group reported their pain had increased by between one and two per cent.

People in the music groups reported 19 to 25 per cent less depression than the control group. The music groups reported feeling nine to 18 per cent less disabled than those who hadn’t listened to music and said they had between five and eight per cent more power over their pain than the control group.

These results show that listening to music has a statistically significant effect on the patient's attitude to pain, depression, feelings of disability and pain control. Since pain control remains a major health problem and pain sufferers continue to report high levels of unrelieved pain despite using medication, this is an important finding. Anything that can provide relief is needed, especially a holistic approach like music therapy.

Listening to music has already been shown to provide a number of positive health benefits. Previous research by this group showed that listening to soft music for 45 minutes before going to bed can improve sleep by more than one-third.

Author and ethnomusicologist Elizabeth Miles recommends the following music from her book, Tune Your Brain: Using Music to Manage Your Mind, Body, and Mood: