Music and Health

May 1, 2022 Joe Brady
Posted by Joe Brady on

According to a growing body of research, listening to or making music affects the brain in ways that may help promote health and manage disease symptoms. 

Performing or listening to music activates a variety of structures in the brain that are involved in thinking, sensation, movement, and emotion. These brain effects may have physical and psychological benefits. 

Increasing evidence suggests that music-based interventions may be helpful for health conditions that occur during childhood, adulthood, or aging. However, because much of the research on music-based interventions is preliminary, few definite conclusions about their effects have been reached. The preliminary research that has been done so far suggests that music-based interventions may be helpful for anxiety, depressive symptoms, and pain associated with a variety of health conditions, as well as for some other symptoms associated with dementia, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and other conditions. 

Six things you need to know about music and health:

  1. Preliminary research suggests that music-based interventions may be helpful for anxiety, depressive symptoms, and pain associated with a variety of health conditions. 
  2. Music-based interventions may reduce depressive symptoms and improve emotional well-being and quality of life in people with cognitive impairment or various types of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease. However, it’s unclear whether music can improve cognitive function.
  3. Several types of music-based interventions may be helpful for people with Parkinson’s disease. For example, an intervention that involves synchronizing movement to a rhythmic sound may help people with Parkinson’s disease walk better, and singing may help them improve their speech.
  4. Several studies suggest that various types of music-based interventions may be beneficial for coordination, balance, some aspects of gait and walking, emotional status, and pain in people with multiple sclerosis.
  5. Although music has shown promise for many health-related uses, not all findings on music-based interventions are positive. For example, studies of music-based interventions for sleep problems and for symptoms of autism spectrum disorder have had mixed results. 
  6. People may think of music as safe, but that isn’t always true. For example, listening to music at too high a volume can contribute to noise-induced hearing loss.

What Does the Research Show? Read More about Music and Pain Relief as well as many other health problems

  • A 2016 meta-analysis of 97 randomized controlled trials involving a total of 9,184 participants examined music-based interventions for acute or chronic pain associated with a variety of health problems and medical procedures. The overall evidence suggested that music-based interventions may have beneficial effects on both pain intensity and emotional distress from pain and may lead to decreased use of pain-relieving medicines. 
  • A 2017 systematic review and meta-analysis of 14 randomized trials (1,178 participants) examined music-based interventions for various types of chronic pain and found that the interventions reduced self-reported chronic pain and associated depressive symptoms, with a greater effect when the music was chosen by the participant rather than the researcher. The study participants had a variety of conditions that can cause chronic pain, including cancer, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, or osteoarthritis, and most of the interventions involved listening to recorded music.  Overall, the data suggested that as an adjuvant therapy, music reduces self-reported pain and common comorbidities associated with chronic pain.
  • In recent studies, music-based interventions were helpful for pain associated with childbirth, platinum-based chemotherapy, shock wave lithotripsy, oocyte retrieval for in vitro fertilization, treatment of nose fractures, and sickle cell disease. However, music didn’t seem to be helpful for pain associated with loop electrosurgical excision, and the results of studies on pain during cystoscopy and pain during colonoscopy were inconsistent.

Music affects Whole Person Health in Multiple Conditions: Summary of Current Research

There is some evidence that music-based interventions may help to relieve pain associated with specific health conditions.

Read more about the research on music-based interventions for pain 

What the Science Says: 
Music and Health

Scientific Literature

Information for Your Patients

NCCIH Clinical Digest is a service of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, NIH, DHHS. NCCIH Clinical Digest, a monthly e-newsletter, offers evidence-based information on complementary health approaches, including scientific literature searches, summaries of NCCIH-funded research, fact sheets for patients, and more.

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