One day, Jo found herself at the doctor’s office, discussing a bothersome issue with her hip. As the anesthetist prepared for the surgery, Jo casually mentioned that she wouldn’t be needing anesthesia. The doctors had never heard this before.

Her peculiar secret set her apart from everyone else — she couldn’t feel pain, not even a little.

Throughout her life, Jo had fallen and broken limbs, sliced her skin in careless accidents, and even went through childbirth with an astonishingly high threshold for pain. It wasn’t that she didn’t get hurt; rather, she just didn’t seem to notice it.

She was also blissfully free from anxiety and fear. She couldn’t remember the last time she had any significant moment of suffering in her life. But she only recently discovered this gift (or curse?) after seeking medical attention for severe joint degeneration in her hip at the age of 65.

Researchers at UCL and the University of Oxford tried to unravel the mystery of Jo’s remarkable condition. They found that Jo had not one but two significant genetic mutations that explained her unique abilities.

First, she had more anandamide, a natural cannabinoid, in her system than the average person. This excess often found in marijuana, acted as a potent analgesic, shielding her from pain’s relentless grip. This mutation also accelerates wound healing, reduces anxiety, and improves the ability to forget or overcome fearful memories.

The second mutation resulted in Jo having twice as much anandamide in her system as most people. It was as though she was in a perpetual state of relaxation, untouched by anxiety or fear.

Her condition wasn’t related to the pain pathway but to an overdose of cannabinoids. It was like she was stoned all day. The pain was there, but this overdose blocked her entire sensation of pain, as explained by Julio Rodríguez, Ph.D. in molecular medicine from the Galician Medical Foundation.

Jo’s case is unique but what if we could induce a fraction of her natural analgesic in our own bodies with music?

What does the data say?

We avoid pain as much as we can. We take drugs called opioids to reduce pain but these come with a laundry list of side effects and severe misuse. Just look at the opioid crisis in the U.S. and you’ll see how bad the situation is.

A more accessible cost-effective alternative with no side effects like music could be a great pain management tool if we knew how to use it.

A study at the University of Florida aimed to explore the effects of music listening on pain and medication use after arthroplasty surgery. Researchers took a bunch of adults getting knee or hip surgeries and split them into two groups. One group got the usual pain meds, while the other got to listen to some self-selected tunes in addition to their meds.

They’d listen for 30 minutes once during the evening post-surgery and three times a day on postoperative days 1 and 2 while in the hospital.

The results? The music group reported lower pain intensity and distress. It worked in the hospital, and it even worked after they were sent home. Although the study suggests music as a way to manage pain, we can’t say for sure given the small sample size and that patients self-reported their music listening habits.

This is just one study, but what about reviewing a large portion of them?

Researchers from the University of Seoul did some heavy lifting by conducting a meta-analysis with trials published between 1995 and 2014 (their paper was published in 2016). They focused on English, German, Korean, and Japanese studies with outcomes on pain intensity (on scales from 0 to 10), emotional distress from pain, physiological measures (like heart rate and blood pressure), and the use of anesthesia and painkillers.

So what did they find?

• Pain intensity: Music reduced pain by about 1.13 units on those 0–10 scales. This ranged from small to medium effects in reducing pain.

• Emotional distress: Participants reported lower distress scores. However, there was a lot of variability in the results.

• Analgesic use: Music had a moderate effect in reducing the use of anesthetics and opioids. But for sedatives, music didn’t seem to make a dent. And non-opioids? Well, music had a moderate effect there too.

• Vital signs: Music managed to lower heart rate by about 4.25 beats per minute and also brought down systolic and diastolic blood pressure. However, music didn’t do much for mean arterial pressure, and there was inconsistency in the results for respiration rate.

Music seems to have some potential in battling pain, distress, and the need for heavy painkillers. But while music might be a promising sidekick in the fight against pain, it’s not quite ready to take center stage in the medical world.

How music eases pain perception

Music acts as a natural analgesic for several reasons.

First, music can divert a person’s attention away from pain. If you’re engaged with music, you’ll reduce the perception of pain signals from your body.

Second, when music evokes emotions it triggers the release of endorphins, which are the body’s natural painkillers. These endorphins help alleviate pain and induce a feeling of well-being.

Third, music reduces stress and anxiety levels. And when you’re less stressed, your perception of pain decreases. Stress and pain are closely linked, and music can help break this cycle.

Lastly, music can enhance your mood and create a more positive outlook on things. When you’re in a better mood, you’re less likely to focus on pain.

As with many other things, the effectiveness of music as an analgesic can vary from person to person. Some people respond better while others might not get the same relief of pain with music.

Also, the type of music and personal preferences play a role in its analgesic power. If you’re listening to something you despise, it will affect your mood, stress levels, and make you even more focused on pain.

Musical prescriptions

There’s a wide variety of music that has been shown to reduce people’s perception of pain. However, most research tends to provide broad categories of the music used, and it’s less frequent to find which specific songs were used in these studies.

• Intestinal surgery: Self-selected tracks among a variety of genres (classical orchestral music, piano, slow jazz, synthesizer, and harp) are effective in reducing postoperative pain. Classical orchestral music and piano compositions were frequently used, and all these genres consistently offered relief, both when patients were at rest and when they were up and moving during the initial two days following surgery.

• Childbirth: Listening to culturally appropriate music (in this study Turkish folk music, Turkish classical music, and popular music) via headphones during all stages of labor decreases anxiety, pain, blood pressure, and both the mother’s and baby’s heart rate. It also reduces postpartum analgesic needs.

• Cancer patients: Listening to sedative self-selected music (tempos between 60 and 80 bpm) with no lyrics effectively reduces pain by up to 37% in hospitalized individuals suffering from cancer pain. Patients preferred culturally familiar music (soft Taiwanese and American music in this case) and the study shows that music can be an effective nonpharmacological intervention with no reported side effects.

Thus, music has shown to be a soothing companion for these difficult moments. The more people liked or knew the music, the more positive effects music had on their pain levels.

Final thoughts

There are many ways to diminish our body’s reaction to pain.

One of those is easily accessible, very low cost, and has no side effects.

Music enhances our ability to combat pain by driving our focus away from pain, enhancing our mood (and liberating endorphins), lowering our anxiety, and much more.

True. It can’t do miracles and take away all the pain, but it can be an additional tool during this process. We even see people using significantly less analgesic post-surgery thanks to soothing tunes. That says a lot already about music’s power.

The melodies we choose could hold the key to orchestrating a more harmonious, pain-free existence.

It’s all about finding the right tune.