Skip to main content

Anxious? In Pain? Try Music

It's been almost a year since my bike wreck. I'm happy to say that there are no lingering effects from my fractured arm or dental injuries, and in another five months, I'll have replenished my emergency funds.

I'm not quite as pleased to say I'm observing the near-anniversary with a badly stubbed toe. A day and a half ago, I was watering the pots when I tripped over the old, rotted steps I disconnected from the house and stubbed my toe on the brand new steps I built. It still hurts. It hurts more than the fractured arm did. It's almost as bad as turf toe.

It really hurts when I stand. It hurts a lot less when I elevate my foot and rub the bottom of it or elevate it and listen to music. I was at work and in too much pain to go down and get coffee when I put on Alice Cooper and suddenly--no pain. It's just one more reason to love Alice Cooper.

I noticed the same thing back in 2007 when I was infected, recovering from a car wreck and had GI problems. Some researchers at the University of Utah recently studied pain and music(1) and found that certain personality types can mitigate pain with music--anxious people and people who get absorbed in tasks. I don't think I'm anxious, but when I'm busy, people sometimes have to shout at me to get my attention. That's how I feel right now, writing and listening to Nightmare (the Japanese band, not the song): my mind is occupied. I don't feel my foot. An article in Science News says,

Music helps reduce pain by activating sensory pathways that compete with pain pathways, stimulating emotional responses, and engaging cognitive attention. Music, therefore, provided meaningful intellectual and emotional engagement to help reduce pain.(2)

Singing along might really load up the pathways, but I don't think coworkers want to hear me singing "shake it like a bad girl up in Harlem."

  1. "Individual Differences in the Effects of Music Engagement on Responses to Painful Stimulation" by David H. Bradshaw, Gary W. Donaldson, Robert C. Jacobson, Yoshio Nakamura, and C. Richard Chapman. The Journal of Pain, December 2011, pp 1262-1273.
  2. "Listening to Music Can Be Effective for Reducing Pain in High-Anxiety Persons." Science News January 9, 2012.
Labels:

Comments

Larcana said…
Good thoughts. I use smooth jazz or blues to mellow out while driving. I also, stopped listening to politics on the radio.
July 25, 2013
Lowcarb team member said…
Yes, I do think music can be quite "powerful". It can help you relax, chill out even give you more energy as we pursue a mundane task. Of course music choice is a personal choice and what a wide choice there is.

However, was sorry to hear about your toe and hope it improves soon.

All the best Jan
July 25, 2013
TJ said…
A double shot of Alice in the morning makes me feel better that all the Prozac in Southern California ever could. For your listening pleasure,
two from "Love it to Death":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL82-Cr0ixQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNRrRFe11eg
July 25, 2013
Lori Miller said…
Thanks, everyone. I'll watch the videos when I get home, TJ.

I got a pleasant dose of Glenn Miller at the coffee shop this morning.
July 25, 2013
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This Just In: Yogurt Doesn't Improve Health

A recent study from Spain finds "In comparison with people that did not eat yogurt, those who ate this dairy product regularly did not display any significant improvement in their score on the physical component of quality of life, and although there was a slight improvement mentally, this was not statistically significant," states López-García. Most yogurt is pretty much pudding with a little bacteria . Pudding is a sugar bomb. Hard to believe the stuff doesn't improve health outcomes, isn't it? But as usual, researchers are calling for...more research. "For future research more specific instruments must be used which may increase the probability of finding a potential benefit of this food."
23 comments
Read more

Decongestant Ineffective; Vibration Plate Works

A common ingredient in many cold medicines has been shown so ineffective that the FDA recently proposed taking it off the market. The ingredient, phenylephrine, "failed to outperform placebo pills in patients with cold and allergy congestion," say researchers from the University of Florida. "The same researchers also challenged the drug's effectiveness in 2007, but the FDA allowed the products to remain on the market pending additional research," according to CNBC .  Mostly placebos. Photo from Pixabay . I can attest that phenylephrine doesn't work. Before I stopped eating wheat, I constantly had nasal and sinus congestion. I helped keep Sudafed in business when the active ingredient was pseudoephedrine, but I noticed the PE (phenylephrine) variety didn't work at all. The only other decongestants I've found helpful are guaifenesin (Mucinex) and spicy food. Mucinex is expensive because it works! (The cheaper store brands work just as well, though.) Su
Post a Comment
Read more

Paleo Diet: Eating Differently from Everyone Else is Fine!

I've been seeing more and more articles by women (it's always women) whose heads have exploded trying to figure out life without yogurt and cupcakes. Oh, the shenanigans they get up to: bathroom problems from stuffing themselves with vegetables, paleo baked goods that don't taste the same as ones from the bakery, and especially the irresistible urge to eat "normally." The technical problems aren't hard to sort out: substitutes like baked goods will taste different because they are different, but an adjustment period of a few months will make those foods taste normal. And whatever you eat, don't stuff yourself. First, though, read a book by Loren Cordain or Mark Sisson to learn about the paleo diet before diving in. The articles I keep reading, though, have more to do with attitude: the urge to be exactly like everybody else or the urge to be helpless. If you're in the second category, I can't, by definition, help you. If you'd rather be Lu
19 comments
Read more

Robert F. Kennedy shows up at the FDA

 
Post a Comment
Read more

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder .
18 comments
Read more