Summary: Researchers found that music—especially listeners’ own favorite tracks—can lessen how intensely people experience pain.
In the experiment, participants reported lower pain intensity and reduced unpleasantness when listening to their favorite music compared with unfamiliar relaxing pieces or silence. The emotional character of the music mattered: songs described as “moving” or “bittersweet” were particularly effective.
These results point toward promising nonpharmacological strategies for managing pain.
Key Facts:
- Participants’ personally selected favorite music produced significantly greater reductions in acute thermal pain than unfamiliar relaxing music or silence.
- The emotional themes of music influence its pain-relieving power; moving or bittersweet songs tended to work best.
- “Musical chills” — sensations such as tingling, shivers, or goosebumps during listening — appear to be linked to processes that help block pain signals.
Source: Frontiers
Research indicates that music may offer a drug-free way to reduce human pain perception. This reduction in pain sensitivity, known as hypoalgesia, can occur when sensory input is interrupted or modulated before it reaches conscious awareness.
A Canadian research team investigated which types of music are most effective at dampening pain perception.
“In our study, we show that favorite music chosen by study participants has a much larger effect on acute thermal pain reduction than unfamiliar relaxing music,” said Darius Valevicius, a doctoral student at the Université de Montréal.
The work was conducted at the Roy Pain Lab at McGill University and published in Frontiers in Pain Research.
“We also found that emotional responses are strong predictors of whether music will reduce pain,” the researchers added.
Everybody hurts (but less so when listening to favorite music)
To identify which music most effectively reduces pain, participants received moderately painful thermal stimuli to the inner forearm—an experience similar to briefly holding a hot cup against the skin. Each thermal stimulation was paired with a music excerpt of roughly seven minutes.
When participants listened to their own favorite music, they reported substantially lower pain intensity and unpleasantness than when they heard control tracks or silence. In contrast, unfamiliar relaxing music did not achieve the same benefit.
“We also used scrambled music—audio that preserves many acoustic features but lacks meaningful musical structure—to rule out simple distraction or the mere presence of sound as the source of hypoalgesia,” Valevicius explained. The comparison suggests that meaningful musical content and personal relevance contribute to pain reduction.
The team explored whether particular emotional themes within favorite music influence its hypoalgesic effect. Through brief structured interviews, participants described their emotional reactions to their favorite pieces. The researchers categorized these responses into four themes: energizing/activating, happy/cheerful, calming/relaxing, and moving/bittersweet.
They found that emotional themes differed in their capacity to reduce pain.
“Reports of moving or bittersweet emotional experiences tended to produce lower ratings of pain unpleasantness,” Valevicius said. This effect appeared to be driven by greater enjoyment of the music and a higher incidence of musical chills.
Although the precise neural mechanisms behind musical chills are not fully understood, these sensations seem to reflect neurophysiological responses that can interfere with pain signaling. Chills may appear as tingling, shivers, or goosebumps in some listeners.
Considerations and next steps
The researchers noted several limitations. One important factor is exposure time: longer listening to relaxing music might produce stronger effects than the shorter excerpts used here. Additional studies should also test whether favorite music is effective for other pain types—such as mechanical or chronic pain—beyond the thermal stimuli used in this experiment.
“Especially for emotional themes like moving or bittersweet, we are beginning to explore new psychological dimensions of music listening that have not been extensively studied in the context of pain relief,” Valevicius said. “Our current dataset is limited, but the preliminary findings are robust and motivate further research.”
About this pain and music research news
Author: Deborah Pirchner
Source: Frontiers
Contact: Deborah Pirchner – Frontiers
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Emotional responses to favorite and relaxing music predict music-induced hypoalgesia” by Darius Valevicius et al. Frontiers in Pain Research
Abstract
Emotional responses to favorite and relaxing music predict music-induced hypoalgesia
Introduction: The pain-reducing (hypoalgesic) effects of music are well established, but the specific musical characteristics that drive those effects are less clear. Previous work often shows that personally preferred music outperforms experimenter-selected pieces. This study examined which aspects of listeners’ relationships with their favorite music contribute to hypoalgesia.
Methods: We ran a thermal pain and music-listening experiment with 63 participants (14 male, 49 female, mean age = 21.3). Music excerpts were paired with thermal stimuli, and participants rated pain intensity, pain unpleasantness, and emotional responses using visual analog scales. Brief structured interviews about each participant’s favorite music were analyzed thematically. We then assessed how identified themes and emotional variables related to pain ratings.
Results: We replicated the finding that favorite music reduces pain unpleasantness more than experimenter-selected relaxing music (MD = −7.25, p < 0.001). Part of this effect was mediated by increased reports of musical chills (ab = −2.83, p < 0.01). Thematic analysis yielded four emotional categories for favorite music: moving/bittersweet, calming/relaxing, happy/cheerful, and energizing/activating. Moving/bittersweet music showed suggestive evidence of reducing pain unpleasantness through higher music pleasantness (ab = −5.48, p < 0.001) and more frequent musical chills (ab = −0.57, p = 0.004).
Discussion: Music pleasantness and musical chills emerged as key predictors of music-induced hypoalgesia. Different categories of favorite music may engage these emotional pathways to varying degrees, highlighting how personal emotional responses to music can shape its pain-relieving potential.