Summary:

- Listening to preferred music can help people better cope with and manage pain, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- The study found that when participants listened to self-selected music, their pain perception decreased, and their pain tolerance increased, compared to when they listened to unfamiliar music or no music at all.
- The researchers suggest that music's ability to engage the brain's reward and emotion-processing systems may be the mechanism by which it can modulate pain perception and tolerance, providing a potential non-pharmacological approach to pain management.