Listening to music can help speed up a patient’s recovery from surgery, according to research.
Experts have discovered that putting on some of your favourite tunes – whether it be through headphones or a speaker – can reduce levels of pain and anxiety after an operation.
It can also result in less morphine being required by a patient, and lead to a lower heart rate which can be key to recovery.
The team from California Northstate University College of Medicine analyzed 35 existing studies on music and its role in helping people recover from surgery.
They discovered that, overall, the simple act of listening to music after surgery had noticeable effects on patients during their recovery period.
Listening to your favourite music can reduce levels of pain and anxiety after an operation (stock photo)
Music can help ease the transition from the waking up stage to a return to normalcy and may help reduce stress around that transition (stock photo)
For example, they reported up to a 19 percent reduction in their pain levels and a 3 percent reduction in anxiety.
Patients who listened to music used less than half the amount of morphine compared to those who did not listen to music on the first day after their surgery.
And those who listened to tunes also experienced a reduced heart rate – around 4.5 fewer beats per minute – compared to those who didn’t.
The researchers said this is important because keeping a patient’s heart rate within a healthy range helps improve recovery by allowing the effective circulation of oxygen and nutrients throughout the body.
‘When patients wake up after surgery, sometimes they feel really scared and don’t know where they are,’ said Eldo Frezza, senior author of the study.
‘Music can help ease the transition from the waking up stage to a return to normalcy and may help reduce stress around that transition.’
Dr. Frezza and his co-authors noted that unlike some more active therapies such as meditation or pilates which require considerable concentration or movement, listening to music is a more passive experience and can be incorporated by patients without much cost or effort almost immediately after surgery.
‘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,’ said Shehzaib Raees, first author of the study.
The simple act of listening to music after surgery had noticeable effects on patients during their recovery period (stock photo)
The team said that a reduction in cortisol levels – the body’s stress hormone – when listening to music may play a role in easing patients’ recovery from surgery (stock photo)
‘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.’
The team said that a reduction in cortisol levels – the body’s stress hormone – when listening to music may play a role in easing patients’ recovery from surgery.
Further research will involve evaluating the use of music in the surgical setting as well as in the intensive care unit.
Dr. Frezza said he would recommend listening to whatever music you enjoy after surgery, if you feel up for it.
‘We’re not trying to say that one type of music is better than another,’ he added. ‘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.’
The findings were presented at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress in San Francisco.