Can music reduce pain?

A meta-analysis of 73 randomised surgical trials published in The Lancet found that music reduced postoperative pain, anxiety and analgesic use compared with standard care. The effects are consistent but modest in size.

When should you listen to music around surgery?

The meta-analysis found benefit whether music was played before, during or after the procedure, so timing appears flexible. Starting before the procedure is a common and practical approach.

Does music help chronic pain?

The evidence is weaker than for acute procedural pain. Some studies report improvements in mood, coping and quality of life within broader pain programmes rather than reductions in pain intensity.

What type of music works best for pain?

Trials generally used patient-selected music. Familiarity and preference appear to matter more than genre, tempo or any specific frequency content.

Music and Pain: Measurable Relief, Modest Size

Summary

Music listening has been tested extensively in postoperative and procedural settings. A 2015 meta-analysis in The Lancet pooled dozens of randomised trials and found reductions in pain, anxiety and analgesia requirements, with effects present whether music was played before, during or after surgery. The effects are consistent but modest, and music is an adjunct to analgesia, not an alternative.

Definition

Adjunct intervention

A treatment used alongside standard care to improve outcomes or comfort, rather than in place of it.

The headline finding

Hole, Hirsch, Ball and Meads published a systematic review and meta-analysis in The Lancet in 2015 covering 73 randomised trials of music in surgical patients. They reported significant reductions in postoperative pain and anxiety, lower analgesia use, and improved patient satisfaction relative to standard care.

Notably, benefit appeared even when music was played under general anaesthesia, which the authors flagged as an intriguing finding while cautioning that those subgroups were smaller.

How much relief, realistically

The reductions reported are meaningful at population level but small at the individual bedside - typically a modest shift on a ten-point pain scale rather than a transformation. What makes them clinically interesting is the cost profile: music is inexpensive, has essentially no side effects, and stacks with pharmacological care.

Reductions in analgesic requirement matter for the same reason. Even a small opioid-sparing effect is worth having given the side-effect burden of those drugs.

Why it might work

Pain is not a simple readout of tissue damage; attention, mood and expectation all modulate it, which is standard in pain science. Music plausibly acts on all three. It occupies attention, it reduces anxiety - itself an amplifier of pain - and it carries strong expectations of comfort.

Neuroimaging work on music and reward shows engagement of dopaminergic circuitry during pleasurable listening, which may contribute to descending pain modulation. This mechanistic story is plausible rather than proven.

Distraction
Attention is a limited resource; engaging it reduces the salience of nociceptive input.
Anxiety reduction
Anxiety amplifies pain perception, so lowering it lowers reported pain.
Reward and expectation
Pleasurable, expected music engages reward circuits implicated in pain modulation.
Sense of control
Choosing and controlling playback restores agency in settings where patients have little.

Acute versus chronic pain

Nearly all the strong evidence concerns acute pain around procedures. Chronic pain is a different clinical problem, with central sensitisation, mood and function all in play, and the music literature there is smaller and more mixed.

Some studies of music within multidisciplinary chronic-pain programmes report improvements in mood and coping rather than in pain intensity itself, which is a reasonable thing to expect and a reasonable thing to value.

Practical use

In hospital settings, the interventions that worked were unglamorous: patient-selected music, headphones or a small speaker, sessions of roughly thirty minutes, started before the procedure where possible.

At home, the same principles apply. Familiar, preferred music at moderate volume, used deliberately rather than as background, with realistic expectations about the size of the effect.

Common misconceptions

Music reduces pain after surgery.
Evidence rating: Moderate evidence
Supported by a large meta-analysis of randomised trials, with modest effect sizes and reduced analgesic requirements.
Source: Hole et al., The Lancet (2015)
Specific 'healing frequencies' relieve pain.
Evidence rating: Unsupported
Trials used ordinary music, usually patient-selected. No frequency-specific analgesic effect has been demonstrated.
Music can replace pain medication.
Evidence rating: Unsupported
No study supports this. Music is studied and recommended as an adjunct to standard analgesia.
Music helps chronic pain as much as acute pain.
Evidence rating: Emerging research
The chronic-pain evidence is smaller and more mixed, with benefits more often seen in mood and coping than in pain intensity.

Seeing a claim not covered here? Our myths vs evidence page rates the most common frequency claims side by side, each with its sources and evidence tier.

Practical listening tips

Pick music you already know and like; familiarity is a recurring feature of trials that showed benefit.
Begin listening before a painful procedure rather than waiting until pain peaks.
Use a moderate, comfortable volume - loud music adds arousal, which works against the effect.
Treat it as one component alongside prescribed care, not a replacement for it.

Safety considerations

Never adjust or stop prescribed pain medication based on educational content. Talk to your clinician.
Tell your care team if you plan to use headphones during a procedure so it does not interfere with monitoring or communication.
New, severe or unexplained pain requires medical assessment, not self-management with audio.

Frequently asked questions

Can music reduce pain?: A meta-analysis of 73 randomised surgical trials published in The Lancet found that music reduced postoperative pain, anxiety and analgesic use compared with standard care. The effects are consistent but modest in size.
When should you listen to music around surgery?: The meta-analysis found benefit whether music was played before, during or after the procedure, so timing appears flexible. Starting before the procedure is a common and practical approach.
Does music help chronic pain?: The evidence is weaker than for acute procedural pain. Some studies report improvements in mood, coping and quality of life within broader pain programmes rather than reductions in pain intensity.
What type of music works best for pain?: Trials generally used patient-selected music. Familiarity and preference appear to matter more than genre, tempo or any specific frequency content.

References & further reading

Hole, J., Hirsch, M., Ball, E., & Meads, C. (2015). Music as an aid for postoperative recovery in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet, 386(10004), 1659-1671 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60169-6
Cepeda, M. S., Carr, D. B., Lau, J., & Alvarez, H. (2006). Music for pain relief. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (2), CD004843 DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD004843.pub2
Salimpoor, V. N., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. J. (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature Neuroscience, 14(2), 257-262 DOI: 10.1038/nn.2726
Garcia-Argibay, M., Santed, M. A., & Reales, J. M. (2019). Efficacy of binaural auditory beats in cognition, anxiety, and pain perception: A meta-analysis. Psychological Research, 83(2), 357-372 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-018-1066-8

Part of Frequency & the Human Experience. See our evidence standards for how sources are selected and graded.

This article is an educational summary of publicly available research and is not medical advice. It does not diagnose, treat, or cure any medical or psychiatric condition. Where evidence is emerging or mixed, we say so. Consult a qualified professional for personal guidance.