Your Favorite Music Could Help Reduce the Pain of Small Medical Procedures

How the Right Music Can Relieve Pain

—Alberto Case—Getty ImagesNo one much likes the pain of a needle stick at a doctor’s office or hospital. But according to a new study in Frontiers in Pain Research, there’s one thing that can ease the sting: music. Listening to just the right soundtrack may be its own kind of anesthetic—one that could be useful for needle insertions and other painful medical procedures.“Although a needle puncture is a minor procedure, the level of pain can vary …

Your favorite music could help reduce the pain of small medical procedures

If you hate needles, music might make you feel better during a cannula insertion—but it has to be the right kind of music. Although different musical interventions have repeatedly been reported to help with pain and stress, the evidence varies widely for different types of music, and it's hard to figure out what works best. To investigate, scientists played different kinds of music for patients about to undergo an intravenous cannula insertion before an MRI—either Mozart, relaxation music or the patients' own favorite tunes. They found that playing patients' favorite music worked best.