Tune out your back pain: researchers found that listening to music can soothe sore backs - Natural Medicine - Brief Article

Natural Health, March, 2003

IF YOUR BACK HURTS, RELAX AND turn up your stereo. Back pain sufferers who focused on relaxing images, a practice known as guided imagery, and listened to music in addition to doing physical therapy had substantially less back pain than those who did only physicai therapy, accordingto a recent study.

Guided imagery and music work by calming the nervous system, which reduces muscle tension, explains Guenther Bematzky, Ph.D., one of the lead researchers and an associate professor of biology at the University of Salzburg in Austria. More research is needed to determine whether guided imagery or music alone would relieve pain, says Bematzky. To soothe your pain, listen to calming music and a guided imagerytape for pain or relaxation for 30 minutes at bedtime. (Try playing your stereo while listening to the imagery tape on a Walkman.) For a selection of imagery tapes, visit the Academy for Guided Imagery's website at www.interactiveimagery.com.