Forget Advil – music is our new medicine of choice to cope with running pain. According to Time’s recent piece, “Your Favorite Song Might Make Pain Hurt Less,” researchers divided 204 patients undergoing MRIs into four groups who listened to their favorite music, Mozart, relaxing music, or nothing during a needle insertion. The personal-playlist group reported significantly less pain just 30 seconds after the procedure, an advantage none of the other groups experienced. Both the favorite-song and Mozart groups reported reduced pain two minutes afterward, whereas relaxing music and silence produced no significant reduction. Researchers offered several possible explanations, including endorphin release, reduced anxiety, and distraction. Granted, needle sticks and hill repeats are different kinds of misery, but the findings suggest music could help runners tolerate discomfort during hard efforts. For more evidence supporting that possibility, we covered a related study in “Spotify launches smart playlists to soundtrack your runs,” which found that 29 cyclists riding at about 80% of peak power lasted nearly 20% longer with self-selected music than in silence. Their heart rate, oxygen use, lactate, and perceived exertion at exhaustion were similar, suggesting the tunes helped them tolerate discomfort for longer. Spotify’s new workout-playlist feature could make that advantage easier to tap into. Premium iOS users can customize music for interval, steady, or pyramid runs, matching songs to different phases of a workout.
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