painkiller

The Buzz: Music as Morphine?

amillikan | January 13, 2009

It's been hypothesized that music may mitigate physical pain, a by-product of many medical procedures, but this has always been hard to test due to the wide range of music preferences. In a recent study that capitalized on mp3 player mania, researchers tested this theory by allowing subjects to listen to their own pre-made play list while immersing their hand in icy water for as long as they could tolerate it. Unsurprisingly, the subjects who listened to music lasted longer than the ones without.