Recently, a study showed that listening to favorite music can increase pain threshold while listening to disliked music can reduce pain tolerance. The study involved healthy volunteers at the "Lowlands" music festival in Biddinghuizen, the Netherlands. A total of 340 volunteers participated in the study.

Pain Perception Based on Liked and Disliked Music - A New Study

In the study, participants were randomly divided into two groups, electrical pain tolerance threshold (EPTT) and pressure pain threshold (PPT). Each group has 170 volunteers. The researchers assessed PPT using hand-held pressure manometry and electrical measurements to measure EPTT. The results showed that mean pain thresholds were significantly higher in the EPTT and PPT groups when participants listened to music they liked rather than the music they disliked.

Furthermore, according to the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) findings, an opposite pattern was recorded, whereby participants who listened to preferred music had lower pain scores and vice versa. The average pain threshold was higher when listening to disliked music than when listening to no music at all.