University News & Events

Listening to your favourite tunes helps to ease pain, a psychologist at Glasgow Caledonian University has discovered.

Dr Laura Mitchell, a lecturer in the university’s Division of Psychology, has learned that people listening to their favourite music felt less pain and could tolerate pain longer than those faced with a range of other distractions, including listening to relaxing music or humorous audio tapes, completing puzzles and looking at art. She hopes her findings will help patients suffering chronic pain or facing medical tests.

Dr Mitchell, who has been investigating the relationship between art and pain management for eight years, said: “We know music plays a significant role in pain relief but we have now shown that playing an individual’s favourite piece of music is consistently extremely effective in helping them tolerate pain and in actually reducing how much pain they feel.”

Four hundred volunteers were asked to dunk a hand, up to the wrist, in icy water, and keep it there as long as they could while listening to their favourite music, which ranged from Kylie Minogue to Smashing Pumpkins, through rock and techno.

Dr Mitchell, whose findings have been published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, explained: “We wanted to investigate whether playing their favourite music would have an effect on how long people could tolerate a painful stimulus and whether it would actually reduce their perception of pain as well as if it would reduce the anxiety of pain and help them feel more in control of the painful experience they were going through.”

The tests’ subjects reported their ability to distract themselves from pain more than doubled if they were listening to their favourite music, while their perception of the amount of pain they felt dropped significantly.

Dr Mitchell believes the emotional associations of a favourite song reduce our perception of pain.

“You are so emotionally engaged in the music you love that it can actually relieve the experience of pain,” she says.

In one study, test subjects were invited to choose a painting to look at from among 15 of the world’s most popular works of art. The art helped when compared to looking at a blank wall but listening to a favourite piece of music was shown to be far more effective.

Dr Mitchell adds that the findings will make a difference in a range of medical situations, for example in dealing with chronic pain or for people facing medical tests. “We want to give clinicians and health care professionals a means to make patients more comfortable,” she says.

Across Europe, one in five people suffer from chronic pain, suffering on average for seven years. Adds Dr Mitchell: “Two thirds of those people feel their medication just isn’t enough to give them the relief they need.”

As well as music’s role in pain relief, members of Glasgow Caledonian University’s Music Psychology Research Group are engaged in a range of studies including music’s therapeutic effects on mental health and dementia.