We all know that listening to music cansootheemotional pain, but Taylor Swift, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys can also ease physical pain, according to a study of children and teenagers who had major surgery.

    The research was carried out because of a very personal experience. Sunitha Suresh was a college student when her grandmother had major surgery and was put in intensive care (重症监护). This meant her family couldn't always be with her. They decided to put her favorite music on an iPod so she could listen around the clock.

    It was very calming, Suresh says. “She knew that someone who loved her had left that music for her and she was in a familiar place.”

    Suresh could see that the music relaxed her grandmother and made her feel less anxious, but she wondered if she also felt less pain. That would make sense, because anxiety can make people more sensitive to pain. At the time Suresh was majoring in biomedical engineering with a minor (兼修) in music cognition (认知) at Northwestern University where her father, Santhanam Suresh, is a professor of pediatrics (儿科).

    So the father and daughter decided to do a study. And since Dr Suresh works with children, they decided to look at how music chosen by the children themselves might affect their tolerance for pain.

    It was a small study, involving 60 patients between 9 and 14 years old. All the patients were undergoing big operations that required them to stay in the hospital for at least a couple of days. Right after surgery, patients received narcotics (麻醉药) to control pain. The next day they were divided into three groups. One group heard 30 minutes of music of their choice, one heard 30 minutes of stories of their choice and one listened to 30 minutes of silence via noise canceling headphones.

    After a 30-minute session, the children who listened to music or books reduced their pain burden by 1 point on a 10-point scale. Sunitha Suresh says it's equal to taking an over-the-counter pain medication like Advil or Tylenol.

    The findings suggest that doctors may be able to use less pain medication for their pediatric patients. And that's a good thing, says Santhanam Suresh, as children are smaller and are more likely to suffer side effects. So the less pain medication, he says, the better.