Ellen Phiddian
Cosmos science journalist
Listening to music might help patients recover from surgery, according to a new meta-analysis.
The study, which is being presented at the American College of Surgeons 2024 Clinical Congress this weekend, found listening to music on a speaker or headphones could improve recovery.
A team from California Northstate University, USA, analysed 35 previously published studies on music and surgery recovery.
They found patients who listened to music tended to have lower scores in 4 major measures: pain, anxiety, opioid use, and heart rate.
The team thinks that a reduction in cortisol levels might play a role in improving recovery.
“When patients wake up after surgery, sometimes they feel really scared and don’t know where they are,” says senior author ProfessorEldo Frezza.
“Music can help ease the transition from the waking up stage to a return to normalcy and may help reduce stress around that transition.”
The team points out that listening to music takes less effort and concentration than other useful therapies, like meditation or Pilates. It’s also a very cheap intervention to add.
“Although we can’t specifically say they’re in less pain, the studies revealed that patients perceive they are in less pain, and we think that is just as important,” says first author Shehzaib Raees, a medical student at the California Northstate University.
“When listening to music, you can disassociate and relax. In that way, there’s not much you have to do or focus on, and you can calm yourself down.”
If you have surgery on the horizon, Frezza recommends picking your favourite genre of music to listen to afterwards.
“We’re not trying to say that one type of music is better than another,” he says.
“We think music can help people in different ways after surgery because music can be comforting and make you feel like you’re in a familiar place.”
